Notes from a Non-Breeder: Left Behind
You're gaining a baby. I'm losing a drinking buddy.
It was the last day of ski season when Jodi broke the news. We were crammed into a corner table in the packed lodge for happy hour. While we waited for our other friends to join us, we stripped off our hats and coats, unstrapped our boots and wiggled our frosty toes. Finally a waitress with bushy red hair stopped by. I ordered a beer. Jodi went for hot chocolate. Extra marshmallows. It didn’t strike me as odd. In fact, everything seemed perfectly normal. At least up until the moment I brought up an annual bike ride that Jodi and I had ridden together for the past half dozen summers.
“I think it’s the first weekend of June this year,” I said.
“Um, I’m not going to ride it this year,” she said.
“What are you talking about? It’s our seventh year straight. You can’t bail.”
“No, I really can’t ride it, Stephanie.” As she said this, Jodi leaned forward as if talking in code, trying to relay a secret message. I furled my eyebrows for a second, confused. But Jodi maintained her “you know what I’m talking about” stare. And I got it. My friend was pregnant.
I was supposed to be happy for her. Jodi and her husband had been “not not trying” to have a baby for two years. This was obviously big news. But as Jodi rattled on about the home pregnancy test that confirmed her suspicions and the nausea that was already deluging her mornings, my heart sank. I didn’t see the miniature human being growing inside of my friend as an addition to her life, but a subtraction from mine. One that was going to eat into a lot of friend time.
When Jodi told me she was two months along, I quickly calculated how many months we had left together, as if her pregnancy was a time bomb. Which honestly, part of me felt it was. It wasn’t that I had anything against babies. They were cute and pink and all. But of all my thirty-something friends, Jodi was the one who, like me, didn’t seem to have motherly instincts that kicked in the very second she got married. Over the last several years we had watched plenty of our mutual friends have babies and then fade from our social circle. Together we witnessed them move to five-bedroom houses in the suburbs and plunk down major bucks on SUVs with seating for seven and TV screens lodged in the back of the leather headrests. We said we understood when they cancelled plans at the last minute and opted to spend their weekends at soccer games and their paychecks on baby Crocs. And we smiled at their growing broods, truly happy for their happiness, but also relieved it wasn’t ours. Or so I had thought.
Jodi gave me no indication that she had set her sights on childbearing. I knew she had gone off the pill and we talked about the possibility of kids, sure. But in very broad “someday” and “what if” type terms. I never really thought she’d actually go out and do it. While our girlfriends morphed into parenthood mode, my friendship with Jodi remained relatively unchanged. We still scheduled regular “girl time” and spent it on bikes and ski slopes, shopping or baking cookies while downing a bottle of wine. I could always call her at the last minute for a Saturday-morning hike or a mid-week happy hour. Jodi was my dependable, childless friend. And I liked it that way.
As Jodi went on about genetic tests and due dates, my heart was more than sinking. It was doing a cannonball off the high dive. Who was going to host our holiday baking/drinking parties? And what about après-ski dinners, mountain bike rides and Saturday-night chick flicks? For the first time in a long time, I felt alone.
Sitting in the lodge, I starred down at my frosty mug in despair and then looked up at Jodi. She was beaming, going on about her husband’s storybook reaction to her pregnancy. It wasn’t right to begrudge her, but all I wanted to do was stomp my feet and shout how unfair it all was. But instead of throwing a tantrum, I inhaled deeply and did what a good friend should. I forced a smile and raised my glass for a toast. “To babies,” I said. After we clinked glasses, Jodi tenderly sipped her hot chocolate while I slammed my beer.
My best friend has no kids, and I am the mother of a three year old and pregnant with my second. That makes me the Jodi in this equation and as her let me just say that it’s absolutely do-able to remain friends, as close as now though somewhat differently, once your friend has her baby. Before you start counting back from 9, as in pregnancy months, bear in mind that, the baby brain change does not happen to everyone right away. In some active, independant people like Jodi (and me) it can take up to 2 or 3 years before motherhood kicks into the noggin full time. The first year, for example, is basically like not having a child, only you need to stay at home more. Unless she has a very fussy baby, kids are the easiest in their first year. Portable, they sleep a lot and they stay where you put them playing with thier feet. Easy. You can go through that whole year shouting with relief that so little has changed in your friendship and even lifestyle. As kids start walking, exploring, and learn to talk, they demand more active attention which means going out to eat and other friend activities become much more difficult to pull off. The fact that there is a third person along becomes much harder to ignore. The challenge then is to either become the Best Ever Auntie and befriend your friend’s child, or become the Escape Hatch. The BEA will pull you into kid land for all the fun that kid land gives to adults without the tedious, frustrating parts of being a parent. If you go this route, you will be a lifesaver for your friend who will need your help often and remain an intimate, irreplacable part of your friends life and family. But this road is not for everone. The EH role is closer to what you have now in form. You remain the drinking, bikeriding, skiing buddy that gives your friend a sense that she has not lost herself to motherhood and gives her much needed relief and breathing space from her all encompassing family. But more often then not, these types of activities, though in some ways more important then ever, will be far fewer and farther in between.Either way, a true friendship is tough to smote. Especially if you are open to some modification.
Wow, this is a really impressive comment, zziomecka. I don’t think I had it laid out in my head like that, but you’re totally right. As a new parent, I’m a little bummed at some friends who could be the BEA but choose to become the EH instead — only because I’d really love to share my love of my new kid with my best friends. But I understand that’s not going to happen (at least not now), and I have to shift my expectations, too. It’s understandable not to want to enmesh yourself in someone else’s family. Funny, I made such an effort after getting pregnant to still go out and prove I was the same person… I didn’t think I would be the one hanging on while someone else pulled away.Anyway, I’m curious to see what it’s like to befriend other parents. And I’m curious to see how my older friendships change over time as well.
was this written from the babble template for “story of childless loser lamenting loss of breeder friend”? why does babble roll this same cliche out over and over?
I agree with Bored Once More, didn’t this exact article run last year?
Doesn’t Babble serve the parent community, not the eternal partier? Am I supposed to feel sorry for the author? It’s all about her, even though her best friend shares this wonderful news. Not everyone stays the same- people grow up, change, some start families. What new parents really need is not good-time friends of convenience but friends who will understand and support them as they make new choices. There’s nothing as depressing as finding out your that your best friend really needs a drinking buddy more than she (or he) needs you. This happened to my husband, and sadly he and his best friend no longer speak to each other- my husband got tired of being treated like he just wasn’t fun enough because our new baby girl became his first priority. Viewpoints like this are just depressing and immature. Funny, I thought the whole “having kids isn’t cool” attitude is exactly what Babble is supposed to be turning around.
I don’t even think it’s been a year. These are annoying more than anything and I think they feed several “unhealthy” stereotypes.
So far everything that’s been posted is right on the money. Um, people change. Story of life. Would anyone want to hang around with you if you were still the person you were in high school? College? My husband and I realize that many groups of friends are situational. All work together in McJobs and go out together. All in fraternity and go on annual camping trips or football games together. All have kids in the same preschool, etc. People move in and out of your life depending on what stage you are in. If you are lucky, you have one or two exceptions that last a lifetime. Those are your TRUE friends. And sometimes those relationships have their ups and downs as well.As a new mom (who has a high – energy baby that made it difficult to divert attention far earlier than one year), it sometimes feels like you have been abandoned by your childless friends. You’re still stuck at the house, or in your endless daily routine, and they are the ones who have much more free time on their hands. I know when you are childless you don’t care about listening to parental drivel, but if you offered to watch someone’s kids for one hour every couple of weeks (or even, bless us, a weekend) so they could get something done, they would be so grateful. Plus you would have a far greater understanding of what their lives have become, and possibly you could figure out how you still are relevant to it.Believe me, we miss our single friends. But we can’t make our kids go away on demand.
I was really trying to be sympathetic to the author but her reaction just seemed kinda lame. Things change, people change – her friend included. Unless of course, it’s just a party buddy she’ll miss, inwhich case I’m sure she’ll find another one…
What a coincidence…I was just talking to my mommy friends about my single friends like this…they say things to me like, “Just drop the baby off at a friends?” or “Where’s your mom/ her grandma?” Can’t they help…they just don’t understand right now b/c that’s not in where they are in their life but it’s still as everyone has said here…a very selfish P.O.V. … again, life happens to people, people change, grow-up & have kids…get over yo’ self!
I’ve been on both sides. I’ve always loved babies, but when my best friend had a baby and I didn’t, it was kind of hard for me. I loved my friend and her baby, but I was still single and baby free and needed to be out there socializing and doing my thing. The few times she was able to hang out, it wasn’t quite the same, because you can’t just turn the mommy thing off.Here’s the thing, as much as we like to characterize the single people as being selfish, that’s not really fair. New parents can be really lousy friends. Not on purpose, I guess. We are often preoccupied with all things baby and we don’t respect those who aren’t. It isn’t all about us (and our kids) either. Once we have kids we expect everyone to go along for the ride.I disagree with zziomecka about the first year. The first year is like a fog, especially if you’re breastfeeding. You’re adjusting to a totally new life, tired all the time and preoccupied with births and babies. I couldn’t do happy hour anymore and didn’t even want to. I lost interest in the things I used to do with my drinking buddy, because I was/am all wrapped up in my family.So, yes, it’s a fact of life, but don’t piss on the single folks. They’ve got needs too. And not having a baby doesn’t mean a person hasn’t grown up. Please. Maybe they are grown up to understand what they want in life and maybe it doesn’t include a baby at that point.
Whoa! There doesn’t seem to be any sympathy for people who are having their lives changed… and I’m not talking about the ones having a kid. It’s a might bit callous to say that a childless friend should just let a relationship go because “people change”. They do indeed but that doesn’t mean everyone should drop all their friends along the way. It is hard to maintain relationships with my childless friends sometimes but I try to remember that in a decade or less my daughter will require much less attention then she does now at 9 mos. I’d like to be able to turn to people who’ve known me that entire time and longer, who knew me before I became a parent. Whether they have kids by then or not, if they are willing to do what the author did and try to be happy for me and remain involved… What more can anyone ask? Besides, if I’m the other person’s friend as they are supposed to be mine, I need to comprise too. They may have more time but really, how long does it take to call or email someone that’s been there for you? Why not put the effort in to realize that this is a major event in their lives too and they have a right to be unsure and even unhappy about it, (though they don’t have the right to be rude). If you make an honest effort to keep the lines of communication open and the relationship dies anyway due to the other person’s inability to deal, that’s another story altogether.
My childless friends were incredibly supportive when my son was born…with the exception of my best friend. A year and a half later, she has no relationship with my kid because she actively avoids him. I try to understand and to see things from her point of view, but I don’t think I can forgive her. I appreciate that the birth of a baby can stir up all kinds of complex reactions in all kinds of people, but what it comes down to for me is that just when I needed her friendship desperately, she withdrew it. When she did show up (which was maybe three times in the first six months), she cast herself as the EH – like, “god, you must be dying to get away from that thing!” Which brings me to this, childless friends: the role of EH must be handled delicately at first. New mothers are bundles of exposed nerve endings, and it’s not a good idea to give one the impression that you think her baby (her baby!) is gross and irritating. I miss my friend.
I agree with early posters. This whole Babble site has run its course for me – boring boring boring – we have heard it all before. Once you hit a certain point in life, you realize that friends come and go, people grow up, drift away, hop on the wagon, divorce, etc etc. Thatès why they call it the Road of Life – scenery changes.
Yes, change is a part of life. That doesn’t mean every change will be heralded with confetti and streamers. Some changes are sad. The title of the article (after all, it’s a babble piece) sounds pretty shallow, but some of the specific things the author mentions make it clear these two are close. Used to long, active vacations together. While Dad can watch the wee one while Mom meets Friend for a drink, it’s likely to be a long time (possibly never) before they can take cycling trips together again. There’s also no reason you can’t be simultaneously happy for your friend but sad about the fact that your friendship is inevitably going to change.
hi stephanie! (I mean, anon)the problem with this piece is not that it’s actually interesting enough to be provocative, it’s that (like most of the fare you find here at babble), it’s so desperate to be provocative and offend the sensibilities of parents that it’s really nothing more than a pathetic cliche. like the rest of babble, really.
If you guys are so bored, why are you here and commenting, week after week after week?
as a new comer, I’m glad this subject has been broached because I was not a babble reader the last time around. I think it’s one that really touches a lot of us. People are having kids at such various times of thier lives these days, that the avalanche of all your friends reproducing virtually simulataneously, as I belive it was when my parents has me, is just not happening. That puts a lot of friendships to the test. I agree with lilmissyny – being a mom doesn’t mean you can stop being a good friend. Yanking yourself out of babyland to stay close with non breeder friends is just as hard for you as it is for them to try to understand what has happened in and to your life. I know I sure as hell didn’t understand before I got here, so I can hardly expect my best friend to find her way around this situation without difficulty, right? Plus, I really think shutting onesself up in a breeder ghetto can be suffocating. Parent friends are super, no doubt, but few can drop everything to run to your side when you have a sudden melt down. Most can’t go out with you at the drop of a hat because your mom just did a surprise pop in visit and can stay with your kids for the evening. And certainly non-kid-related topics are easier and more fun to discuss with kid-free friends. Without them I would never be able to keep up with art/culture/politics and the ever succulant social grrrrapevine!
Golly. Who’s more selfish: the childless friend who misses her drinking buddy or the parent who insists that her childless friend adapt to her new crazy life with nary a complaint?I do think some people subconsciously plan on dropping their childless friends when they get pregnant. That’s not a terrible thing, but that’s a different situation from the new mom who actually wants to keep her old friendships alive and thriving. Obviously, any friendship requires compromise — whether for a new spouse, job, move… I agree with zziomecka again; I’d rather have a little diversity in my friendships. There’s only so long you can discuss sippy cups!
It’s not about having children, it’s about getting super lame when you have children. Like, can’t have a conversation about anything but baby clothes, baby diapers, baby’s room, baby’s sleep habits, baby’s super-cute spit-up, and so forth.
Even with the sadness you felt, it was great that you toasted her happiness while you felt despair.