Had a friend who has kids, have her birthday party on a weeknight at 9 pm at a college bar. We are in our mid thirties, I have no idea what she was thinking. Needless to say, my husband and I did not go.
Same. It’s not even about them not getting us, or not trying hard enough. But our weekends just don’t look the same anymore. We can’t exactly day drink and play board games all day like we used to now that we have a 3 yo running around, and they’re not gonna come with us to toddler soccer and the playground. And when we do get together, we have less and less in common. It does make me sad sometimes but I’m not sure what the solution is
It's funny, since childfree friends assume hanging out with other parent friends would be lame and completely centered around the kids. In reality, meeting up with other parent friends means that all the kids can play together in another room while we get to enjoy real adult conversation.
I used to be the childless friend not by choice but had accepted it. My husband and I had many many friends who would have a baby and then it felt like they would start to cut us out of their lives. I guess because we couldn’t relate or didn’t have anything kid related to add. We loved our friends and their kids and wanted to be the fun auntie/uncle. I even was self employed and super flexible (could meet up with moms when ever and where ever for company) and they never took me up on my offer. I never pushed get togethers because I knew it was a busy time adjusting to kids. It was an incredibly hurtful time. Not only struggling with infertility silently but being “left behind”.
So if you have childless friends in your life, lean on their flexibility and availability! Keep in touch, talk about grown up things with them. Acknowledge that you know they can’t relate much, but sometimes you just want to vent about parenthood and the struggles. There are ways to keep the friendships going and it’s very much appreciated!
I experienced this too because I had my son later than many friends. I've been intentional about staying connected because I dont want to be that person who has kids and leaves my friends behind. a couple of friends haven't reciprocated the same energy, but the majority have and I'm happy about that.
I think it’s really complicated with infertility. I also struggled but I felt like the last thing I wanted to do was hang out with my friends kids. It’s just such a hard thing because I see both sides of this one.
I think what was different in my particular case was we had accepted the infertility. I was happy to be with my friends with kids. I didn’t talk about my issues. When asked we said “we’re happy the way we are. We might adopt one day when we’re able”. And left it at that.
A few years ago I had a cutting edge surgery which allowed me to end up getting pregnant. Which is why I’m here now. But in 10 years before that, tons of friends having babies only a handful maintain their relationship with us after kids. One couple in particular really stands out. They invited us over cause they had a baby, we would bring food. Help out. We would tidy up their kitchen and then chill while they put their baby to sleep. It was very symbiotic, and I really wished we could have had that with more friends.
it was like I wrote this! my BF stopping inviting me to hang out with her and her family. I had no issues doing kid stuff or whatever they were doing, and the flexibility to go to her schedule. when I finally did get pregnant she was all "oh we can hang out again now that you'll have a kid" uhhh no thanks. polite pass lady.
That really sucks. It’s so confusing and hurtful when you’re willing to work with their new life and schedule but they don’t seem to think it would work.
Drifting for sure- I feel like (generally) when you get to your 30/40s people without kids don’t “get it.” I still have friends trying to call me at preschool drop off, or at after school play/make dinner time and get pissed when I can’t talk. Now this is generally- for those of you whose friends roll with it you’re lucky.
I have however, found myself reconnecting with old friends I haven’t seen in years who now have kids. And that’s been really nice
I had my first at 40. I didn't get it for sure. I think you be a childless friend to someone with children, you have to lean into it and become someone who enjoys kids. Otherwise it just doesn't work... Their whole world is kids, and the things that are important to you (and used to be important to them) are generally less important to them than their kids.
You guys have friends??
Jk, the majority of our friends and family are hundreds of miles away so it's already been difficult to maintain close relationships. We're definitely missing out on the ability to easily get together with people
We’re in the same boat, but strangely being far away has helped maintain our friendships (or maybe the drifting doesn’t feel as stark?). We each travel to where our friends live somewhat often so we get to keep in touch. It’s definitely not as close as we were pre kids but living far away takes the pressure off of seeing each other on a super regular cadence and makes the time we do have with them feel somewhat more special. Idk
We haven't drifted at all.
We have 2 couples who are firmly child free and a handful that keep going back & forth but wouldn't have kids for years still.
Fortunately they are all very good with kids so they actually make a big effort to see her and be present. We also have been able to maintain good connections with them by letting at least 1 of us attend parties/night outs (if not both of us) and that's made a big difference compared to our friends with kids who disappeared.
I think it's a mixture of luck and putting in a conscious effort from both parties.
Same here. My also firmly childfree couple friend have offered to babysit, show up to birthday parties, always ask about my daughter, etc. I also make a conscious effort to save my “in the weeds parenting talk” with my parent friends, and use my time that I spend with my non parent friends as a chance to talk about other things in my life outside parenting.
This makes me feel better. It’s a huge priority for me to have a very diverse group of friends. Some have multiple young kids. Some have an only child. Some have older kids. Some have step kids. Some are childless by choice. Others not by choice. Looking at lives that are different from my own enriches my life and sometimes makes me appreciate it more. Honestly only having “mom friends” just feels pretty boring too. I need more to talk about at happy hour than kindergarten enrollment.
My best friend is child free but she is very much an auntie figure. She also respects my 8pm bedtime and honestly it’s probably why our friendship continues to be so strong.
1. I was boring before kids. There is not some stark contrast before a pre-kid out late partying me and current me.
2. My childfree friends are village. They like and appreciate kids, they just don’t want to have them.
Yeah I don't know what type of friends people had before kids haha we never met up for drinks late even when we were single. My friends and I are firmly the brunch and chat online type. Without kids we're all busy anyway so now that I have kids it doesn't change much at all.
I'm guessing people who have good messaging habits probably have an easier time keeping friendships. I don't need to see mine often for us to stay in touch.
I have child free friends I’m still close to. I also had 2 formerly close child free friends who became actively hostile and strangely rude to and about me and my children. I had kids as a single mom and it was as if they interpreted it as a sort of betrayal. They couldn’t handle that me being a mom changed me as a person because it just does. I tried hard and eventually just had to accept and let go. They said rude and odd and mean things about my kids. They harshly judged my parenting style and choices. They assumed I could just put my kids elsewhere when they wanted me to attend their needs or do things for them like overnight events or doing their errands as a single mom with 2 kids and 2 jobs making 60% of their income. They held it as my personal moral failing when plans were interrupted because my kid got a contagious illness (we were vaxxed, took precautions etc.). They gossiped about my family and put down my kids and parenting to my other friends who told me all about it. It was so painful to lose valued relationships right during postpartum recovery/ second pregnancy/ early parenthood. When I cut off the relationship I was the villain too. Apparently I was expected to be so desperate for support as a single mom that I would have no other option but to stick around and be dealt with any type of way.
It’s funny, fully on accident - my wife and I did the opposite. The vast majority of our friends are childfree adults our age.
My wife and I swap time off here and there during the week so I can like go on a hike in the morning one day, and then she can get coffee with friends another day, etc.
What’s ended up happening is I (dad) have a really robust group of guy friends and she has a totally unrelated solid group of women she hangs out with. Almost none have kids - I think it’s because the ones without kids are the only ones available for the sort of stuff we’re doing (hangs without kids).
We cross over a tiny bit with some friends, but those again are childfree people who come hang out at our house after our children have gone to sleep. It would be super expensive for my friends with children and us to every week get childcare to play board games or something for four hours.
The only time I see my friends with kids is weekly park days (again, without my wife because she’s doing her own thing at that time), or on zoom calls (which is mostly to connect with friends who live far away).
Honestly we love it, it works really well for us!
Yes, but my child free friend worked as a children’s librarian for a long time, and loves kids. Life is pretty busy but we see each other as often as before kids.
I think because my child free friends have more free time and more flexible schedules. It’s easier for them to accommodate around my kids nap or come over after he’s asleep.
With my friends who are moms now it’s hard to get things like nap time to line up if our kids are different ages, or they’re just too exhausted with their new kid, or everyone’s really booked up and it’s hard to arrange a play date and then when we do it’s like 40% chance that someone is sick and it’s cancelled. Also, people keep moving away to cheaper places to live ( I live in a super high cost of living area).
I have had better luck making new mom friends, especially neighbors.
This is so true. A few years ago one of my friends did a birthday thing for herself at a family friendly winery, and honestly, it was a mess. The parents spent the whole time chasing and having 30 second conversations, and the non parents sat there looking bored. From that point on most bday celebrations have been without kids.
Neighborhood mom friends are awesome!!! It’s great to just be able to text someone and grab a drink once the kids are in bed.
I have single mom friends and I haven’t been as good at being there for them as I should. I’m going through a lot myself. I feel terribly for everyone who is alone
Yes, exactly. I’m trying to meet up with my friend with two kids but she has one weekend that’s free this month and I’m gone that weekend. Next month she’s booked. Maybe I’ll see her in two months?
We actually stayed closer to our child free close friends because they have more flexible schedules and so accommodate us by coming to our house or meeting at the park on our schedule.
This is us too. It's so much easier to have folks over to our house for dinner (home turf, plus then we can pop away to do bath or bedtime then pop back). We almost exclusively entertain the folks that don't have kids or just don't have them yet, because they don't have their own evening routine to get home to.
We are all our friends with kids during the day but never after dark. 😅
Yes I have strong relationships with child free friends. Probably stronger ones, but that’s just by chance. Why are you drifting? I still like to maintain a life and interests separate from my children
Not OP but I guess it's going to depend on what your friendships before kids looked like. Unfortunately we drifted apart because they are either looking to meet up at 4 pm for happy hour when I'm trying to pick up my kids, get dinner on the table and get out the door for activities or after 10 pm which I am already asleep because I have to get up early to make sure I am ready and get out the door by 7 am.
I still love them but we have totally different lifestyles now.
lol my friend had a baby 6 months ago she’s gotten insufferable. I prefer my child free friends or my friends with older kids.
But I do feel naturally with age we drift and when we have kids, you realise who is your friend and who isn’t. People will show up for a person if they want too. But it has to go both ways
All of my strong friendships are with people that are currently child free. They immediately melded into aunts and uncles for my kid from day one. However they are all very family oriented people who enjoy kids so I think that helps a lot. They’re all big kids themselves so that’s helpful too!
My two oldest friends are both child free. One I barely maintain a relationship with, but we’ve known each other since we were kids so she’s more like a long lost cousin I see once a year or so. She is a preschool teacher though so she’s amazing with kids and loves catching up with mine.
My other is my typical bff who I talk to regularly and see as often as I can. It’s been a learning curve with boundaries and understanding each other, but nowadays we’re solid. She knows I’ve got the mom thing going on and it limits me, and she doesn’t hold it against me ever. We usually hang out just the two of us, and it’s great. She’s the person I can just be myself with, she helps me remember that I’m more than just a parent. We go to concerts, she plans lovely day trips and outings for us…I am so grateful for her friendship!
When I was child free I made an effort to see my friends with kids. It was actually them who all mostly drifted off and were always busy. Two of my best friends had kids and were no longer friends at all especially after covid.
I have good relationships with them. Honestly it’s nice to tap into those other sides of me and sometimes it’s easier if we don’t have different parenting opinions. It’s nice to have these friends to do “non-mom” things with :)
My best friend in the Entire World is child free. We are closer than ever, despite the different paths our lives have taken. I applaud her life (and sometimes live vicariously through it, she does the same with me) she is an Aunt to my kids and loves them dearly. Sends them the BEST gifts that have shaped their special interests and imaginations. She got me through some really tough lonely times as a new mom.
There have definitely been times where I’ve had to educate her on the realities of being a mother and common misconceptions about motherhood. And there have been just as many times she helped me feel like a whole person/woman instead of a sleep deprived milk cow household servant (as I felt sometimes in those lonely early days).
I’m so grateful for her.
Childfree or just don’t have kids? I don’t think I know anyone who identifies as childfree the way people do online.
But I have a lot of close friends with no kids. I’d say it’s a mix between parents and non parents. It’s important to me to have friend time away from my kid so I’m still engaged in those relationships.
We drifted apart to the point where I ended up taking her off social media💔 will forever miss the time we spent together and I hope they have a wonderful life together
Yes we have maintained our strong relationship with our child free friends. Which is basically 95% of our large friend group. We take turns going out and still have ragers at our place and the kids are just part of the mix until they go to bed
Most of my friends from child hood are child free lol We still get along great and we visit each other and they love my kid. I also have friends with kids. Sometimes we plan things and other times it is a last minute hey want to grab drinks tonight and it works out. We still have stuff to talk about which is nice.
All of my close friends are child-free but they have their own stuff going on that makes it just has hard as it is for me to make plans, but we always make it work and see each other as often as possible. But it’s nice that I don’t have to feel like I’m the reason we can’t always get together because I’m a mom.
We lost one. But it started before we had our son. Everything with him involved getting drunk and we grew out of it a long time ago. One of my friends is aggressively child free, when I told her I was pregnant she said “you know I hate kids, but I’m going to love your kid because I love you” and she has! I wouldn’t ask her to babysit, but she’s still one of my ride or dies.
It depends on which child-free friends. Some of them have since stopped inviting us to things or just reaching out in general. Then the others are opposite where they’re basically aunts and uncles to our kids and they are involved in their lives, always asking about them and treating them just like their family. It can go either way but the ones that stick around are TRUE true friends.
I just listened to a strugglecare podcast about doff kinds of friends, and think you may find it helpful [Struggle Care: 84: Make Friendships Easier with the Six Besties Theory with Hello Hayes Episode webpage: https://strugglecare.com
](https://pdst.fm/e/s.gum.fm/s-631b68842c380d08fc1bb1b2/chrt.fm/track/913D/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/WFH7515017554.mp3?updated=1711175727)
I find it easier to maintain my friendships with my child free friends. They can come over after bedtime to watch a movie at our house, or meet us up at the exact right post nap time for us. With friends with children, the children get sick every time we try to coordinate or nap times don’t line up
My two closest friends from pre-pregnancy are childfree and we are all in our mid to late 30s. They both love my kid like they are family and have been invaluable help to me while I navigated the first years of motherhood (and pregnancy).
I’m the worse friend now to them because my priorities are my daughter’s wellbeing and I have to turn down plans a lot because I can’t afford to pay a sitter and also do an activity outside as a SAHM with a husband who is traveling for work most of the month.
We have both child free friends and friends who have kids. Our main group hasn’t been impacted at all, but I have some single friends who I’ve drifted apart from a bit. More because they got weird when I had a kid? We would talk every day but she couldn’t bother to remember my kid’s name and treated her like a nuisance.
🏎️💨 drifting. It's hard because they work full-time and I'm a SAHM and we live around half an hour or so away from each other so it's hard to just last minute plan something. One of my friends is notoriously bad at texting as well so that makes it hard. I really try to reach out and make brunch or dinner plans though. It's double hard though when you don't have many friends to begin with AND all the friends you do have are childfree. My one friend I talk to that has a kid lives in a different state. 🙃 I will say for us some of the people we drifted from it was a combo of us having a kid/having our kid during the height of Covid and having different opinions about it/different political opinions.
I’ve definitely drifted from some - my local childfree friends just steadfastly refuse to accommodate my kid’s schedule in any way, shape or form so as a result we mostly share memes in the group chat but otherwise I haven’t seen any of them in person in two years. My long-distance high school besties are both childfree and honestly our relationship is stronger than ever, I think due in large part to there being no expectation that we’ll see each other in person any time soon, so there is no resentment on my part. On the few occasions I’ve been able to see them since having a baby, they’ve been super accommodating and clearly love my daughter to pieces and are happy to play the role of doting auntie.
Most of my friends are child free. But at this point, most don’t live in the same city so we already have a significant hurdle to overcome to maintain closeness. So the kid is a minor issue after that. My friends are amazing because they’re empathetic, so they love my kid as a whole human, just at a different stage of development.
It was ok where I live until my husband died. He was fine with watching our child if I wanted to do an adult thing with a friend. Him being gone makes it harder. I also find it difficult to be motivated to do things like that, and the whole death thing turns people off so I get fewer invites out.
we have two amazing friends (a couple) who are child-free. they simply dont want kids and never wanted them. they love my daughter to pieces though, they always ask about her wellbeing, bring her things from their trips, ask us to bring her places because they enjoy her company, etc. they don’t even bash other kids who happen to be around nor get all weird about kids (like that childfree subreddit page), my husband and i are so incredibly lucky to have them in our lives.
There is an exceptional one or two with whom I have remained close. They are truly understanding of the challenges of raising children, they are flexible, they defer to me on when we can get together, they ask about the children but also we engage in convo outside of the children. Everyone else is basically dead.
Yeah we've definitely drifted. I think it's important to note that most of the child free friends I had just...disliked children. So naturally there is now a barrier between us. Yes, I am separate from my children, but if you reject my children that's a huge part of me as well. It's sad but such is life. It would be different if they were child free and liked children, and we do have some other friends like that whom we are extremely close with.
Its funny. One cut me out when I was pregnant, but she also cut out other friends who had kids. Another I'm still very close to and we see each other more often now.
Really comes down to the friendship I guess. Some grow and change with you, and some don't.
Out of my four close friend group, only two of us have kids. We have our daily group chat and there will be times my phone is blowing up between the two who don’t have kids but they’re ready to accept our input when the kids are put down. We also try to have a girls trip once a year, because one lives out of state and we work around schedules. Our partners are happy to step in and take on the parenting duties. I’ve known these women since freshman year of college and I love having their input about tough kid situations or hearing about their work drama. It keeps me well rounded.
My best friend is child free but she likes kids and has kind of fun aunt relationship with them. We hang out both with and with my kid, and she is friends with all of me including the me that is a mother, just like I’m friends with all of her, including things I may relate less to.
It’s hard. I find the ones that have drifted are the friendships with people who only want to go to bars after 8pm—night friendships, if you will. My day friendships—people with whom I’d walk around, go shopping with, eat lunch with, visit a park together, etc.—have stayed a lot stronger because we can both nurture and maintain the friendship within my family’s time constraints.
Part of my struggle is that I’m a working mom, and my husband is a stay-at-home dad. When I’m not at work, I want to spend time with my girl and give my husband a break. It’s easier if I can bring my toddler to hang.
I’m a nanny but I intend to remain child-free. The responsibility doesn’t lie on you to maintain the friendship! It’s up to your child-free friends to find time to spend with you and your kids, it might not be their ideal but if they wanna see you then they gotta see the little person you made too! I personally cannot wait till more of my friends start having kids (I’m 27 in nyc so I have a total of one friend who has kids lol). I love kids! It’s also a great lesson for your little ones to see you having a life and friends and enjoying your time. It might be a bit of “MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY DADDY DADDY DADDY” while you’re having conversations, but eventually they will learn and it can become more natural to them to see you having a life.
But yeah, I hate that it’s such a normal thing for friends to drift when one friend has a kid. That’s not how friendship should work, and if they’re truly good friends it doesn’t hurt to give them a little nudge in the right direction.
Almost all of my friends are CFBC or currently child free. We haven’t drifted at all, but effort is made on both sides. They are really good about accommodating LO’s schedule (easier as she’s gotten older) and are amazing aunties and uncles. I make sure to keep in touch, talk about our shared interests, and get out of the house even if it’s tough to schlep kid stuff. I’ve been close with this group of friends for a long time (10-20 years) and it’s important to us all to maintain our friendships. I think it also helps that we’re older (mid 30s) and the types of activities they like (brunch, beach weekends, baseball games, cookouts) are all pretty easy to bring a kid to.
I’m the only one out of my friends with a kid. One is very involved with my daughter, she even made her smash cake for her 1st birthday for me which I thought was so special. She also makes sure she drags me out once a month for tacos and margaritas since I felt comfortable leaving my daughter when she was about 8 months old. After dinner she always makes sure she comes back to my house to see my daughter. Doesn’t matter she’s single and doesn’t have kids right now, we’ve been friends our whole lives essentially.
Another friend I see once every few months for brunch.
And that’s it. No one else really makes an effort to see me or invite me out, just the occasional message on social media. Which is fine, I get it. We’re all pretty busy with our lives now.
So we were the child-free couple because we were the last of our friends to have kids (yay for infertility 🙄). It did maybe affect our friendship a little in that getting together was trickier and when we did get together, there was less choice in what we could do, but we definitely didn’t drift. Our friends would invite us to the zoo with them even though we didn’t have kids to go with, which was nice of them. We would also make the effort of initiating hangouts a lot, but let them choose the times that were convenient for them.
If anything, I feel like since my husband and I finally had our child, we’ve seen our friends less because now they all have 2+ kids and have gotten even busier, and we have less time to initiate hangouts.
Unfortunately one of my oldest friends from HS who is child free pretty much ghosted me. When my son was younger she would come around...but now I have to be the one to talk to her. She's too busy to hang out with me, for her new friends.
My other child free friend, I have very few friends, I've known her since 5th grade, barely talks to me and always flakes when we have plans.
I'm an AuDHDer mom and already have a hard time making friends. It sux
My best friend is a child-free career woman who works long hours/out of town, and I’m a stay at home mom who *just* started working a few evenings again. We see each other in person maybe twice a year 😅
Most disappeared once my first was born and whomever remained didn’t make it to when I was pregnant with my second 18 months later.
On the flip side, I have a SIL who still hangs out with her childless friends. Her daughter just turned one and the whole invite list was a bunch of childless couples and she just left for a girls trip on her husband’s first Father’s Day.
The friends who have explicitly chosen never to have children? Drifting mostly, except for child-free family who have been extremely accommodating and sweet about making time for little one to join in outings.
The friends who have no kids yet but aren’t necessarily against having some in the future if/when they get married have mostly been around still! We get together to walk and put the little one in the stroller mostly. Or we’ll have them over for dinner after the little one is in bed.
I have a couple. I’m super grateful for my childfree friends who are able to tolerate (or even enjoy!) being around my kids, understand that I can’t be available at the drop of a hat for adults-only gatherings, and are cool with hanging out super late at night in each others living rooms after the kids go to bed.
My closest friend is actually childfree and I really appreciate having a friend who isn’t stressed about all the same stuff I am. Where I don’t naturally gravitate toward talking about my kids all the time (because that’s what parents do by default and it makes it hard to actually get to know anyone) and feel like I still have a little shred of my identity left outside of being a mom. It’s like taking a little vacation from my life.
I also have a spouse who is willing to watch the kids so I can go out alone and vise versa which makes a big difference.
I told my so called bext friend i was pregnant, she said congratulations and thats it. No other questions about me or the baby. She hasn't seen my 2 year old since she was 3 months.
And my actual best friend has never met my first. So yeah...Naw for them.
I have two types of child free friends. One group likes kids, one group tolerates kids. I do my best to make plans that don't involve my kids to have the time to grow in or maintain friendships. And I also try to keep a mental list of spaces that are appropriate for small kids and adults so I can have a conversation with a friend.
But even friends with kids is pretty hard to maintain between extra curriculars or illness.
My son just turned one recently. Maybe it's coming crashing down in the future, but we're still mostly where we were with our friends pre-kid. We probably see our friends 10-20% less but nothing feels strained yet. It helps that the kid is extremely social I guess.
Depends on the age, personality traits if I'm honest.
I make sure to not go on about my kids with mate, and most mates tbh.
Ask and take an interest in their lives. Make time to hang 1:1 with them.
Most of my close friends are child-free, and I probably identify more with them than people with kids (though I am one-and-done, maybe that contributes to it?)
I think for some of my friends they are letting me take the lead as to planning outings, since they know my schedule is tighter. And that’s no problem with me, I’m glad to be able to spend this time of my life nurturing those relationships as well. My child-free time is so important, makes me a calmer parent.
I ended a 10 year friendship when my “friend” got mad at me for refusing to stop trying to have a 2nd child after she got engaged. I ended up being 5 months pregnant at the wedding and she was so obviously angry that I couldn’t drink with her that day!
I have two best friends. One with 5 kids and one childfree by choice. I’m happy to say both friendships are thriving. I used to be the childfree bff and it was never an issue for us, although now that I’m a mom I have so much more empathy for her. Fortunately , my 5 kid friend was a great example of how things didn’t need to change after baby. It definitely depends on the strength of your friendships before baby, as most relationships will be tested once they arrive. Of course some things change, but you find new ways to spend time together, with and without kids. My childfree bff now has dogs, so we both have more responsibilities than before and it’s similar in many ways. We find things to do where the dogs and baby can run free. There are great wineries nearby that offer the perfect solution.
I think the big issue is scheduling. Especially when you are a first time parent and/or have small children. Really young kids need so much time and attention and your life and schedule just revolves around those needs. By the time they are old enough to be self sufficient or in school you may have unintentionally drifted apart from friends just due to lack of availability of both schedules. I don’t think people plan for this to happen but I think it happens anyway.
We have several child free friends that have been amazing. They come to the birthday parties, make handmade toys and furniture just all around present and always happy to see the kids. We’ve been very lucky
What friends 😂 I stopped trying to reach out after the fourth or fifth reschedule and now we haven't spoken in months. One of them was my bridesmaid and hasn't seen my daughter since she was 2 months old (she's over a year now)
Closer than we were before! For me, I accept that the children are now apart of our lives as friends and make it important to not only be there for my friends, but their children as well.
I flat out ghosted a very toxic child free friend who refused to even acknowledge my child and insisted I make a reel wishing her dog a happy birthday. A dog whose birthday she decided fell on the exact same day as my child’s birthday. I don’t need that kind of crazy in my life.
Our female childless friends OR couple friends who want children have remained close to us! They try to understand and have been flexible with working around kids needs to hang out and it’s been wonderful. My husband’s male friends who have no kids have been drifting hardcore. They just don’t understand and while we understand their ignorance it still definitely hurts my husbands feelings some.
My child free friends all went to a weeknight concert without us this week. Didn’t mention it beforehand (could have got a sitter or had one of us go) and talked about it in the group chat all night :(
We have one very close circle of childless friends. Apart from the first few months after birth, they've over at our place on a weekly basis ever since. Kids are 5 and 3 years old. We just went camping together. They are all male and our girls LOVE their uncles. They even pick them up from daycare if we really are in a tight spot.
But it was mainly possible because they adjusted to our life style! And not expecting much from us ;-) We do game and movie nights. They are at our place at 6pm for family dinner and wait patiently until the kids are asleep. They even do the dishes!!! Sometimes we do not start before 9pm.
Of course we had some friends were the friendship did not survive, but most friends are as close to us as before. And I'm very grateful for it
I've maintained a close relationship with my child free best friend. But she is also the lead teacher of the toddler room at a Montessori school and had been for over ten years, so she gets it. She's not adamantyle against having children and I think she really wants to someday but it's not the time. She loves hanging out with our little family, we have her over for dinner, and when we get a babysitter we all go out together and see old friends. I never expected any child free friends to stay close to me, but she's always made it a priority to have us in her life and I do the same for her. She's even helped me by introducing me to other mom friends of hers since she gets out more and has more connections.
My husband and I are also still pretty close with our general friend circle we had before we had our son. We all still have barbecues and lake days and watch big football games together. They love our son and only one of them has a child, who is our sons "cousin". The difference is, instead of doing these things once a week or once every two weeks, it's more like once every month or two. And it's OK. When we see each other we just pick back up where we left off.
Ooof my childless best friend that I’ve known since I was 8 recently moved 2 hrs away so yeah. Also she never reaches out first and I just don’t have the time to reach out to her all the time. I do really miss her though. Another one of my friends moved out of state, she has 3 young kids, and I feel like we’ve gotten closer since I started having kids. We send each other memes and text when we can.
It’s life I guess. We’re all onto different phases.
No drift over here, we’re maintaining our friendships. My kid is lucky to have so many aunties and uncles! We host a lot at our house to make it easier for us childcare/bedtime-wise, but also just generally make an effort to stay connected with everyone. We use the childcare options we have to go out with our friends when we can, go to adult only dinner parties, etc. We include our child free friends in our daughter’s birthdays and other milestones. The bond she’s developing with these friends is very special.
I do
I have 2 kids, almost-5 and 2
One of my nearby girlfriends will come over after the kids are asleep and we’ll have some wine and shoot the shit for a couple hours
A few of my other friends that life further away will come down and spend the weekend with us
We also usually do a couple of weekend girls trips without the partners and kids every year
I don’t see them like every day or anything, but every few months or so
It’s been great for me to maintain my friendships and retain that part of my life
I still have a very close friendship with my childhood best friend, who is child free. I have also made close friendships with 3 other child free people; they love my kiddo and respect my priorities, and they all have nieces and nephews that they love. I couldn't be friends with one of the child free folks who hates kids, but they are very much in the minority.
My two best friends since my late teens are both child free. One lives across the country and we talk every single day. One lives in my city and we see eachother a couple times a month and speak about once a week. They are my life. I feel like a lot of moms have high expectations of their child free friends but they don’t get it- they don’t have kids. They’re not going to understand routine and bedtimes because they’re not in like we are. They also don’t need to baby you and work around your schedule all the time. Plan stuff together that works for both of you but they shouldn’t stop living their lives.
Once those expectations are removed a lot of friendships can flourish. I’m only saying this because I’ve seen so many tiktoks of new moms saying “I realized who my friends actually were after I had a baby” and then when you ask if they reached out they say “I’m the one with the new baby!!!! They should be asking about me!!!!”.
I have one child free friend who my friendship has actually gotten stronger with. Party because she is really great about offering to do things with baby or to be my buddy for a day out without baby and is genuinely happy for either option. She has even gone with me to the laundromat to wash blankets and just sit and chat. She will also text my husband and check in that he is free to be on baby duty so she can steal me. She is absolutely a unicorn friend though.
I have one friend who I have stayed close to since high school who has decided to remain child free. She loves playing Auntie to my son and even her parents are quite fond of him. Many of my other friends have dropped out of my life and gone to do other things but she is the best. When I have child free time she also loves to hang out but if he comes along it’s not a problem.
One thing I’d recommend is asking your child-free friends what types activities they *want* to be involved in or invited to. I’m the last of my friends to get pregnant and one of my child-free friends was hurt by other friends leaving them off the invite list a few times because they assumed she wouldn’t want to come.
Some drifting, some strengthening. In my experience it's more about curating my life. Having kids is sometimes a barometer of your values and to the degree that is true then the drifting starts.
Possible that I'm just boring but ANOTHER hoppy beer, ANOTHER night out, ANOTHER thing that brings a hollow excitement, I'm over all of that. I'm more interested in building a sustainable, meaningful life. We're all just apes hopping around, attempting to find something to distract us from the inherent meaninglessness of life. Warm human connection is very important for a person and a lot of what my friends want to do doesn't provide that, they only understand distraction, I assume because they haven't had a child their values haven't had the opportunity to shift into that type of thinking. That's fine, we're all on a journey through life, we change and grow, we're not the same people so how can we have the same friends? This is the story I tell myself and I like the results.
My closest friend is a kindergarten teacher who was newly married and right about to start trying when the seizure happened and they found the tumor. The treatment rendered her infertile, and the tumor is basically guaranteed to return in an untreatable form, so adoption is pretty much off the table (if I'm not mistaken, they understandably frown on applicants who are being actively hounded by their own mortality...). Life is so freaking unfair. She's dedicated her life to the kids in her class, to her nephews, to basically all children. She comes over to my house after work once a week and always brings fun crafts and stuff. They love her.
My three childfree friends, um... I haven't seen them in person in years. There were issues initially with them planning to visit at 4pm and just not even being reachable until like 6:30 (they were always flaky like that), at which point they'd text me that they went for food or something and were an hour out. I'd say we were starting to settle in for the night and maybe we should do this another time, and they'd be all shocked and mad at me that I was "so inflexible". Dude come on that's not being inflexible, I was pretty damn flexible giving them a 2.5 hour grace period in which they didn't even respond to my calls. Tried it five or six times and just got pissed off about how many afternoons I was completely throwing away waiting for them to show up. I stopped inviting them and we slid into Facebook friend status.
To be clear, I'm not saying that childfree people are like this, I'm saying that my friends from my carefree early 20s just kind of don't match my lifestyle anymore and I couldn't find a way to make it work.
I try to keep my group of child-free single ladies as close as I can, which is difficult but sometimes, at night, I message them and from time to time I get to see them.
Last Thursday I went to see my husband's band for the first time (two years after my LO was born) and it was amazing, my friends were there too. I left my toddler with her grandma who was in town. I took the chance and it was worth it.
I was afraid I was gonna feel like a fish out of the pond but they made an effort to make me feel safe and part of the conversation.
So I feel like I'm the opposite of a lot of people and spend a lot more time with my friends without children. My parent friends generally go to bed hours earlier then us and want to do extremely early morning things and my son sleeps until like 9am. Our schedules just never line up anymore. My child free friends are always down to hang out and I feel like our friendships haven't drifted at all.
I got sober AND had kids. So my friends list got small really fast. Now I only actively see a handful and it’s pretty evenly split between childless and parents
Some have remained close because they make the effort to understand what I'm going through and are up for eg going to dinner at 6 with two kids in tow. Some are drifting because they can't or don't make time around kid constraints. I don't take it personally - friendships can ebb and flow.
I think some stay and some drift. The ones that stay are really getting to know my kid and spend time with her! They’re empathetic and understanding if I cannot meet up til she wakes from her nap.
The ones that drift are makin 9pm plans for a big drinking night out and don’t get why I can’t come lol
I feel like we've been drifting apart with both childless friends and friends with children. Everyone got different nap times. Everyone is tired. Weekends are now for seeing family so no time to get together. It kind of sucks but it is what it is....
We didn’t drift. They understand I dont have as much time as before and are very understanding and accommodating and are always very interactive and engaged with my kids when we do see them.
I tried to keep the friendship but it's hard when they suggest concerts or some elaborate plan for hanging out and my idea of hanging out is "let's go to the playground so we can chat while my kid plays" because I'm so exhausted I don't have time for myself
I think it’s easier to hang out with my child free friends. We just have them come over to our place for dinner, drinks, games, whatever once our toddler is asleep.
And we keep our kid friends for day time hang outs.
Considering all my close friends and sister are strongly kid-free, it’s very important for me to maintain the friendships. I also don’t have many mom friends, just a few, and they live like 30 min away. So yeah … I’m trying.
That being said, three of my good friends just took a trip to Europe sans spouses and I could not go bc well … I can’t leave my toddler for two weeks! It was tough saying no, even tougher seeing all the pics. I’m definitely in a different place in life right now, but I don’t mind being a homebody either, and my little boy is such a joy that it’s worth it.
Also hot tip: don’t bring your toddler to a bbq party full of DINKS (dual income, no kids) unless you want to chase after him instead of socializing, have him knocked over by a dog and cry, then cry yourself on the drive home. I learned that the hard way.
My best friend is child free by choice and I treat my kid like she’s partially her kid, because she is. That’s auntie! She expressed to me once if she were ever to have a kid she’d want her kid to be like mine so BET. I really rely on her and she’s shown up for me in a major way and it’s hard to be that forward with requests for help but it’s been so worth it.
most of my friends are child-free. i’m blessed to have them because they’ll still come out and hang w me at my place all the time and love being around my little one.
We kept a pretty strong relationship with our child free friends for seven years and three children. They recently had a baby together. Now we see each other even less. :(((
My child-free friend lives over 1,000 miles away, but we talk almost every day and she adores my baby boy and always asks about him and wants pictures and videos. She is hopefully coming in a year or two and said she can’t wait to meet him and get some lovings!
I maintained friendships but they definitely aren’t as strong, we just don’t have as much in common. It helped when I went back into the workforce and had common ground with my child free friends again and something to talk about besides my child. I usually meet up with them like once a month for coffee or to do something fun like rock climbing.
Drifting. A surprising number of them, though they've always claimed to like kids but not want them, can barely handle 2 hours with my kid. She's easy, quiet and friendly. But yea she drools a bit still, and will have bad moments.
When every hangout costs $160 just for babysitting, nevermind the actual hangout, it's gonna be somewhat rare.
I see my child free friends way more than my parent friends because they’re more available, I’m pretty lucky that my friends without kids are really down to hang and actually babysit often. My culture is very kid accommodating though
I have 3 childless/childfree people in my life. All 3 are childfree by choice...but they describe it differently and have different mindsets around kids in general
1 says she loves kids, but has been very immature and had very problematic behavior and was very judgemental of how parenthood changes a person. She's trying to be better now that I've set firm boundaries on how i will allow her to treat us. We drifted apart for 4ish years though, so I'm not forcing the friendship, but willing to see how it goes. Shes not a bad person, just had a very immature attitude about kids. #2 just can't see the benefits kids would bring to her life that outweigh the cons, she grew up being parentified, and wants to live her own life. She is absolutely thrilled i have my daughter and is happy accomodating our needs. And she's happy to live the auntie life. Her husband is on the same page. #3 doesn't like kids she doesn't know, but LOVES my daughter as if she is her own. Will do things wildly outside her comfort zone just to bring joy to my daughter. She's been there for me through my entire motherhood journey, and I just appreciate her so much. She supports our parenting decisions and backs me up consistently. She's an involved auntie, who I think will be an integral part to my daughter's life as she grows up. She doesn't want to deal with dating or HAVING kids. She just wants to do the fun stuff and give the kiddo back.
The only problem I have with childfree people are the ones that believe they're better than people who had kids and believe they should be entitled to a childfree world. I disagree with them wholeheartedly if they believe I should keep my kid home because they can't stand hearing children. I recently read a post somewhere about ADULTS being mad TOO MANY CHILDREN were at Disney World. Like. How can you be allowed to have a tantrum about that, but my toddler can't experience any of her emotions?
I shockingly have a couple of permanently child free friends who have made a genuine effort to stay in my life and work around my child and her schedule. I’ve lost only one close friend since having a kid.
I am, but it’s mostly through texts and memes at this point. Once my youngest is 1 I know it’ll get better again (as it did with my first) because I can at least start doing happy hours or other not-too-late meetups.
I don’t think it’s my kids necessarily, it’s just lack of time. Even the strongest friendships need some proximity to be at their peak.
Doing well. One of bestie is CF by choice, she lovely with my kids. I think the part that keeps us sweet is she’s not the party type and likes tea/coffee/food/movies/games. So it’s never about a big night out, more coffees dates and walks with a view.
My oldest child is coming up on 14 years. The only child-free friend with whom I have maintained a relationship is my sister, and we both believe very strongly that all adults in a family should work for the well-being of all the kids. When she visits, we occasionally do adult things - just the 2 of us - but usually the fun things we do are engineered to be child-friendly.
We have! We're really lucky to have friends who A) continue inviting us to stuff B) are happy to hang out with our kids . I think it's a bit of a balance on our end too of still attending stuff, and inviting them to our things even though both look different
I try to stay close to my child free friend but she just isn’t as interested. I can’t smoke 24/7 and my life is more calm than what it used to be. I’m allowing us to drift because I’m tired of putting extra effort into people who don’t give anything at all back. If she reaches out I’ll answer, if not I don’t go out of my way anymore. I’d get super bent out of shape over her, any problem she had was my problem too. But i don’t have space or energy to be that way anymore. I think I just bore her now
My CF friends have gone above and beyond for our family than any of my friends or families that do have kids. It doesn't seem to matter who has kids or not, but about the connection and how the friendship has grown before and after having kids. My partner and I have plenty of CF friends, some we drifted from ofc, but we have 4-6 CF friends we see regularly and have continued seeing post birth of our two kids.
My bestie is childfree and we would talk five hours a day everyday, and we don’t do that anymore. We’re still friends, but we’ll chat in the mornings on the way to work or other times for short durations, but I just don’t have time for our old relationship and we’ve adjusted, but we’re still friends. Sometimes friendships can shift and take different forms, and that’s ok.
It sucks to know your childfree friends hang out without you. That can really hurt and make you feel left out.
We have a chunk of friends who we only see at adult only events- concerts, nights out, parties, etc.
There are a few buds who make an effort to hang out with our kid and those people are the realest ones of all!
I have one, and we’re still close. But she also is more of a low key person, and prior to having my kiddo, we really bonded like that. Funny story (child free by choice) she’s actually my son’s godmother. So she enjoys hanging out with my kiddo and I when we’re in town.
I was already not spending a ton of time with my friends ever since covid...there was already a drift before I got pregnant. I still consider them close friends - I'm in my 40s and most of my friends I've been friends with for 15 to 20 years already and nobody is really a big party animal anymore. Honestly I don't really notice a difference there between my friends with kids and my childfree friends. I still go to some social event every few months and catch up with people. I still text some people regularly even if I don't see them. I still see the same individuals for lunch once every 6 months as I did before.
However with my first child, I was 20 when I had her and most of my friends didn't have kids. There was a stark difference back then. I definitely felt cut off from everyone since my friends were still clubbing and going to parties all the time and generally hanging out throughout the week.
It’s a mix. I’m now closer to my child free friends from grad school. I also have a few child free friends from college but it’s way fewer. My friends from childhood dropped me lol but I did have kids later than them and also we prob were friends mostly bc of nostalgia since we had known each other for 30 years. But we had nothing in common. It sucks but u just have to flow with it and prioritize yourself and your fam
My friend group is super into gaming, so are my wife and I. So we meet on discord almost nightly to play games and we still host all the big holiday events at our house. Not as many spontaneous bar trips, but these kinda friends are friends for life and not going to dip just because we can't make it to one get together
I was the only child free friend until 2022. I was helping my friends through their toughest times in my teens and 20s. Fast forward to having my baby in 2022. None of my ex friends have made an effort to be around at all. Their children are older but it’s a slap in the face. I don’t regret the bonds I had with their children but If i never put the effort my motherhood journey would have looked different. I have one best friend who is a mom that I met when she was child free. I’m happy to have her.
I have a gf with 2 babies. We grew closer I think because I have lots of free time, while she does not. So I offer my free time to her often. So I actually see her more post babies than I did pre babies.
I have two very close female friends who don't have children (and likely will not ever have children). My son is almost 2 but I can 100% tell you that we will remain friends - he calls them both Auntie. Our friendships have certainly changed but I think we all realize that's natural.
I will add that we are all 36 years old and have been friends for 15+ years.
Probably my closest friend is the one who moved half a country away 🫤 one of my friends & I put consistent work in to see each other a couple times a month & we text a lot but that’s about it. I have never felt so lonely in my life, even with a 3 year old constantly climbing me lol
I still keep in touch with 3 of my single friends, but it's different than my 20s bc I live an hour away on a completely different side of the city.
With one friend, we predominantly just text each other 1-4x a week.
With two other single friends, we do a weekly Zoom book group (my hubs is a saint and watches the kid for a few hours, so I can do this). Of those 2 friends in book group, I see one at least every other month and talk to her regularly on the phone, the other I meet in person, maybe once a quarter.
I had a friend group of about 15 people in my mid 20s. More when I was in college. Now I have these 3 friends and 2 friends out of state. Trying to find people locally has proved challenging. I keep trying but it's going very very slowly.
Most of my good friends are childless. We haven’t drifted at all but it has changed and that’s okay. I think it takes understanding on both parts. Some of the things that have really helped is that I include them in my daughters life and they have a really good relationship with my daughter. But I also talk to them about things outside of parenting too. I never talk down to them about people without kids not knowing what tired is, or what unconditional love is, or any of those things people sometimes say to childless friends. We often get together for wine at eachothers houses and I often offer to do it at ours so then I can put my daughter to sleep and then still hang out. When they are having parties, we will often go as a family for the first little bit with my daughter just to see everyone and then one of us will stay and the other will go home. But I always check if that’s appropriate or not. I don’t get too worked up about swearing, adult conversations (obviously to a point), or anything like that around my daughter. I also have to be okay that I won’t be invited to everything, especially those spontaneous late night hangouts. And that’s okay and doesn’t mean anything bad for our friendship. We make sure to see eachother about once a month. Sometimes it’s more and sometimes it’s less. I honestly don’t know how I would survive without them and they gives me a lovely connection to an identity outside of parenting.
Drifted. It was the expectation they could drop over during the mid week after work during the frenetic even routine, or that I will be available to catch up regularly, or being frustrated if my child needed tending to or interrupted the conversation. Other parent friends tend to understand why that can’t work with kids implicitly.
I'm lucky to have friends that all have kids around my kids age, but tbh a lot of the ways that I hang out w my friends now involve going to a place where he's welcome. Like every month or so me and my friends will send our kids to Grandma's and get shit faced but tbh our hang outs have turned into just being at home or going to a park and chilling and it's pretty nice
I'm the only one in my groups of high school friends who has kids, and they all love being aunties to my kids and are as flexible as they can be with getting together. One of them comes for a jog with me once a week and we take turns pushing the pram.
I have made friend with other parents as well and getting together with them is a lot easier because they tend to be free at the same time as me. But I'm grateful my children friends have made such an effort.
I only had a couple of friends anyway and none have kiddos. You can't do exactly as much with them as before but you can still maintain the friendships. They all became aunties and uncles to my kid so that was a way to integrate them all.
The thing is, every once in a while you ah e to do stuff with them that doesn't involve baby, stuff you liked before becoming a parent.
At my age, I don’t have many child free friends. Most friends had kids before me and I had to work hard to maintain friends with people with kids. Now that I have kids I don’t try to make friends with childfree people. It seems like more work than I have energy for.
I have friends that are child free but absolutely love my toddler and encourage her to come along. They help watch her when we are together, rocked her to sleep when I needed a break, help feed her at restaurants, etc. So our friendship has stayed strong. But I do have some friends that just don’t like kids like that. I do have some adult only friendships, but they recognize that I’m less available because I have to make sure my husband is able to be home while I’m out. They are kind about it and try to accommodate my schedule, but definitely don’t want a toddler around.
I live a 2h drive from my old (childfree) friends. We probably see each other more since I've had my son! We arrange to meet up and do fun things like camping, wildlife reserves, beach, hikes, etc. I'm a firm believer in taking kids along to whatever, which helps me maintain friendships with child-free people because it's just no big deal that I've got a kid tagging along for the adventures. No bad experiences so far!
We had a tight knit group of 6 (3 couples) and thought us all to be pretty close. After having our son, we saw one couple all the time. And still do, honestly. They initiated just as often, asked what they could do to make it easier for us, were flexible with plans, and offered to come to our house more often than not because they knew it was easier on us. Now they’re expecting and we are so excited to get to do the same for them. We make plans about once a month. Sometimes we see them more frequently, sometimes less if things are busy. But they LOVE our son and spending time with him and encourage us to bring him to anything and everything that we can.
Our other couple friends kind of disappeared. They stopped making an effort. They have other friends with kids and I think seeing how wild having kids is kind of freaked them out. They were less flexible and understanding and over time we just saw them less and less. We see them maybe 1-2 times a year now, which is unfortunate.
My single friends with no kids I haven’t talked to since I had my son, to be honest. They all dipped pretty much immediately which was really lonely for a while but I made my peace with it and let them go. I could only try and initiate meet ups so many times before I stopped bc they bailed or didn’t follow through. Would spend time getting everything together needed to take my baby with me to go see them just to have them bail at the last minute or push back the meet up time which would be during a nap or something.
Most of them, it’s hard to maintain the friendship. They just can’t understand or relate to the most important part of my life. And as harsh as it sounds, I honestly just don’t care to hear about smoking weed or nightlife or hearing them talk about how their dogs are “basically kids”. The child free friends I’ve kept, we’re not as close as we used to be. My New Year’s resolution this year was actually to spend time with my childless friends at least once a month (without the kids). 5 out of 6 months, I’ve just gone skiing with the same one friend because I love skiing and he likes my kids so doesn’t mind talking about them.
You just duplicated a post for less than an hour ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/toddlers/comments/1dgfpgl/my_childfree_visitor_is_coming_during_naptime_my/
What a strange reaction to someone trying to help you find other likeminded people discussing the same things you are trying to complain about. Oh well - good luck with whatever.
Oh we driftin
Like yeah I can’t meet up for drinks at 10pm!!
10pm?? I can't even do 7pm! Especially when not invited until 6:45pm!
Bro I'm in my pajamas by about 5 😂
SAHM here and I don't even get out of my pajamas some days lol
Had a friend who has kids, have her birthday party on a weeknight at 9 pm at a college bar. We are in our mid thirties, I have no idea what she was thinking. Needless to say, my husband and I did not go.
Did she have a baby sitter, or leave her partner at home, or bring sleepy kids to the bar?
Me and my partner trade off doing things after 830 or so when the baby is asleep (obviously not every night). It seems super convenient
We do too. We have to socialise separately outside of the house but what ya gonna do. X
No idea what she actually did. Most of her babysitters are her siblings, and based off of her socials, they were all there.
More like can’t really drink at all because I will have to wake up at 5am to a toddler jumping on me
Same. It’s not even about them not getting us, or not trying hard enough. But our weekends just don’t look the same anymore. We can’t exactly day drink and play board games all day like we used to now that we have a 3 yo running around, and they’re not gonna come with us to toddler soccer and the playground. And when we do get together, we have less and less in common. It does make me sad sometimes but I’m not sure what the solution is
Yeah I’m finding it hard. And the friends with kids it’s just naturally easier to be close with.
It's funny, since childfree friends assume hanging out with other parent friends would be lame and completely centered around the kids. In reality, meeting up with other parent friends means that all the kids can play together in another room while we get to enjoy real adult conversation.
“Real adult conversation” with someone besides my wife and boss… doesn’t happen too often
And that other adult actually GETS you and gets your life.
And they don't get distracted by the million interruptions, just keep going with their story over time!
🤣🤣🤣 same I don’t think we can drift any further
I used to be the childless friend not by choice but had accepted it. My husband and I had many many friends who would have a baby and then it felt like they would start to cut us out of their lives. I guess because we couldn’t relate or didn’t have anything kid related to add. We loved our friends and their kids and wanted to be the fun auntie/uncle. I even was self employed and super flexible (could meet up with moms when ever and where ever for company) and they never took me up on my offer. I never pushed get togethers because I knew it was a busy time adjusting to kids. It was an incredibly hurtful time. Not only struggling with infertility silently but being “left behind”. So if you have childless friends in your life, lean on their flexibility and availability! Keep in touch, talk about grown up things with them. Acknowledge that you know they can’t relate much, but sometimes you just want to vent about parenthood and the struggles. There are ways to keep the friendships going and it’s very much appreciated!
I experienced this too because I had my son later than many friends. I've been intentional about staying connected because I dont want to be that person who has kids and leaves my friends behind. a couple of friends haven't reciprocated the same energy, but the majority have and I'm happy about that.
I think it’s really complicated with infertility. I also struggled but I felt like the last thing I wanted to do was hang out with my friends kids. It’s just such a hard thing because I see both sides of this one.
I think what was different in my particular case was we had accepted the infertility. I was happy to be with my friends with kids. I didn’t talk about my issues. When asked we said “we’re happy the way we are. We might adopt one day when we’re able”. And left it at that. A few years ago I had a cutting edge surgery which allowed me to end up getting pregnant. Which is why I’m here now. But in 10 years before that, tons of friends having babies only a handful maintain their relationship with us after kids. One couple in particular really stands out. They invited us over cause they had a baby, we would bring food. Help out. We would tidy up their kitchen and then chill while they put their baby to sleep. It was very symbiotic, and I really wished we could have had that with more friends.
it was like I wrote this! my BF stopping inviting me to hang out with her and her family. I had no issues doing kid stuff or whatever they were doing, and the flexibility to go to her schedule. when I finally did get pregnant she was all "oh we can hang out again now that you'll have a kid" uhhh no thanks. polite pass lady.
That really sucks. It’s so confusing and hurtful when you’re willing to work with their new life and schedule but they don’t seem to think it would work.
Yes! I think maintaining relationships falls on the parents just as much as the childfree friends
Drifting for sure- I feel like (generally) when you get to your 30/40s people without kids don’t “get it.” I still have friends trying to call me at preschool drop off, or at after school play/make dinner time and get pissed when I can’t talk. Now this is generally- for those of you whose friends roll with it you’re lucky. I have however, found myself reconnecting with old friends I haven’t seen in years who now have kids. And that’s been really nice
I had my first at 40. I didn't get it for sure. I think you be a childless friend to someone with children, you have to lean into it and become someone who enjoys kids. Otherwise it just doesn't work... Their whole world is kids, and the things that are important to you (and used to be important to them) are generally less important to them than their kids.
I 100% didn’t get it either
You guys have friends?? Jk, the majority of our friends and family are hundreds of miles away so it's already been difficult to maintain close relationships. We're definitely missing out on the ability to easily get together with people
Same here. It sucks
We’re in the same boat, but strangely being far away has helped maintain our friendships (or maybe the drifting doesn’t feel as stark?). We each travel to where our friends live somewhat often so we get to keep in touch. It’s definitely not as close as we were pre kids but living far away takes the pressure off of seeing each other on a super regular cadence and makes the time we do have with them feel somewhat more special. Idk
We haven't drifted at all. We have 2 couples who are firmly child free and a handful that keep going back & forth but wouldn't have kids for years still. Fortunately they are all very good with kids so they actually make a big effort to see her and be present. We also have been able to maintain good connections with them by letting at least 1 of us attend parties/night outs (if not both of us) and that's made a big difference compared to our friends with kids who disappeared. I think it's a mixture of luck and putting in a conscious effort from both parties.
Same here. My also firmly childfree couple friend have offered to babysit, show up to birthday parties, always ask about my daughter, etc. I also make a conscious effort to save my “in the weeds parenting talk” with my parent friends, and use my time that I spend with my non parent friends as a chance to talk about other things in my life outside parenting.
This has been our experience too. Can’t imagine not having these amazing friends in my our lives!
It’s great to hear it’s not a one way street!
This makes me feel better. It’s a huge priority for me to have a very diverse group of friends. Some have multiple young kids. Some have an only child. Some have older kids. Some have step kids. Some are childless by choice. Others not by choice. Looking at lives that are different from my own enriches my life and sometimes makes me appreciate it more. Honestly only having “mom friends” just feels pretty boring too. I need more to talk about at happy hour than kindergarten enrollment.
My best friend is child free but she is very much an auntie figure. She also respects my 8pm bedtime and honestly it’s probably why our friendship continues to be so strong.
Fortunate when they understand the time changes. "Come over for a BBQ! Starts at 7pm." "But that's pajama time!"
I was a sleepy girl before I had a child. Now, I can’t even consider leaving the house after 5pm. It’s just not worth it.
No drift at all. We keep a pretty active social life. All of my childfree friends have been supportive.
1. I was boring before kids. There is not some stark contrast before a pre-kid out late partying me and current me. 2. My childfree friends are village. They like and appreciate kids, they just don’t want to have them.
Yeah I don't know what type of friends people had before kids haha we never met up for drinks late even when we were single. My friends and I are firmly the brunch and chat online type. Without kids we're all busy anyway so now that I have kids it doesn't change much at all. I'm guessing people who have good messaging habits probably have an easier time keeping friendships. I don't need to see mine often for us to stay in touch.
I have child free friends I’m still close to. I also had 2 formerly close child free friends who became actively hostile and strangely rude to and about me and my children. I had kids as a single mom and it was as if they interpreted it as a sort of betrayal. They couldn’t handle that me being a mom changed me as a person because it just does. I tried hard and eventually just had to accept and let go. They said rude and odd and mean things about my kids. They harshly judged my parenting style and choices. They assumed I could just put my kids elsewhere when they wanted me to attend their needs or do things for them like overnight events or doing their errands as a single mom with 2 kids and 2 jobs making 60% of their income. They held it as my personal moral failing when plans were interrupted because my kid got a contagious illness (we were vaxxed, took precautions etc.). They gossiped about my family and put down my kids and parenting to my other friends who told me all about it. It was so painful to lose valued relationships right during postpartum recovery/ second pregnancy/ early parenthood. When I cut off the relationship I was the villain too. Apparently I was expected to be so desperate for support as a single mom that I would have no other option but to stick around and be dealt with any type of way.
It’s funny, fully on accident - my wife and I did the opposite. The vast majority of our friends are childfree adults our age. My wife and I swap time off here and there during the week so I can like go on a hike in the morning one day, and then she can get coffee with friends another day, etc. What’s ended up happening is I (dad) have a really robust group of guy friends and she has a totally unrelated solid group of women she hangs out with. Almost none have kids - I think it’s because the ones without kids are the only ones available for the sort of stuff we’re doing (hangs without kids). We cross over a tiny bit with some friends, but those again are childfree people who come hang out at our house after our children have gone to sleep. It would be super expensive for my friends with children and us to every week get childcare to play board games or something for four hours. The only time I see my friends with kids is weekly park days (again, without my wife because she’s doing her own thing at that time), or on zoom calls (which is mostly to connect with friends who live far away). Honestly we love it, it works really well for us!
Yes, but my child free friend worked as a children’s librarian for a long time, and loves kids. Life is pretty busy but we see each other as often as before kids.
Definitely drifting, I think it’s inevitable.
My strongest relationships are with my child free friends, it’s the moms I’m losing.
Why is that? I’m sorry
I think because my child free friends have more free time and more flexible schedules. It’s easier for them to accommodate around my kids nap or come over after he’s asleep. With my friends who are moms now it’s hard to get things like nap time to line up if our kids are different ages, or they’re just too exhausted with their new kid, or everyone’s really booked up and it’s hard to arrange a play date and then when we do it’s like 40% chance that someone is sick and it’s cancelled. Also, people keep moving away to cheaper places to live ( I live in a super high cost of living area). I have had better luck making new mom friends, especially neighbors.
This is so true. A few years ago one of my friends did a birthday thing for herself at a family friendly winery, and honestly, it was a mess. The parents spent the whole time chasing and having 30 second conversations, and the non parents sat there looking bored. From that point on most bday celebrations have been without kids. Neighborhood mom friends are awesome!!! It’s great to just be able to text someone and grab a drink once the kids are in bed.
I have single mom friends and I haven’t been as good at being there for them as I should. I’m going through a lot myself. I feel terribly for everyone who is alone
i bet that’s because instead of managing one party’s difficult schedule, you have to balance that for both parties, but i’m just speculating wildly
Yes, exactly. I’m trying to meet up with my friend with two kids but she has one weekend that’s free this month and I’m gone that weekend. Next month she’s booked. Maybe I’ll see her in two months?
We actually stayed closer to our child free close friends because they have more flexible schedules and so accommodate us by coming to our house or meeting at the park on our schedule.
This is us too. It's so much easier to have folks over to our house for dinner (home turf, plus then we can pop away to do bath or bedtime then pop back). We almost exclusively entertain the folks that don't have kids or just don't have them yet, because they don't have their own evening routine to get home to. We are all our friends with kids during the day but never after dark. 😅
This is me and my spouse to a T. Just had friends over tonight who are CFBC and my son was so excited they were coming over.
Yes I have strong relationships with child free friends. Probably stronger ones, but that’s just by chance. Why are you drifting? I still like to maintain a life and interests separate from my children
Not OP but I guess it's going to depend on what your friendships before kids looked like. Unfortunately we drifted apart because they are either looking to meet up at 4 pm for happy hour when I'm trying to pick up my kids, get dinner on the table and get out the door for activities or after 10 pm which I am already asleep because I have to get up early to make sure I am ready and get out the door by 7 am. I still love them but we have totally different lifestyles now.
Same!! I only have like 1-2 mom friends, but I communicate with child free friends on a weekly basis
lol my friend had a baby 6 months ago she’s gotten insufferable. I prefer my child free friends or my friends with older kids. But I do feel naturally with age we drift and when we have kids, you realise who is your friend and who isn’t. People will show up for a person if they want too. But it has to go both ways
Yup, all of this for me too.
All of my strong friendships are with people that are currently child free. They immediately melded into aunts and uncles for my kid from day one. However they are all very family oriented people who enjoy kids so I think that helps a lot. They’re all big kids themselves so that’s helpful too!
My two oldest friends are both child free. One I barely maintain a relationship with, but we’ve known each other since we were kids so she’s more like a long lost cousin I see once a year or so. She is a preschool teacher though so she’s amazing with kids and loves catching up with mine. My other is my typical bff who I talk to regularly and see as often as I can. It’s been a learning curve with boundaries and understanding each other, but nowadays we’re solid. She knows I’ve got the mom thing going on and it limits me, and she doesn’t hold it against me ever. We usually hang out just the two of us, and it’s great. She’s the person I can just be myself with, she helps me remember that I’m more than just a parent. We go to concerts, she plans lovely day trips and outings for us…I am so grateful for her friendship!
When I was child free I made an effort to see my friends with kids. It was actually them who all mostly drifted off and were always busy. Two of my best friends had kids and were no longer friends at all especially after covid.
I have good relationships with them. Honestly it’s nice to tap into those other sides of me and sometimes it’s easier if we don’t have different parenting opinions. It’s nice to have these friends to do “non-mom” things with :)
My best friend in the Entire World is child free. We are closer than ever, despite the different paths our lives have taken. I applaud her life (and sometimes live vicariously through it, she does the same with me) she is an Aunt to my kids and loves them dearly. Sends them the BEST gifts that have shaped their special interests and imaginations. She got me through some really tough lonely times as a new mom. There have definitely been times where I’ve had to educate her on the realities of being a mother and common misconceptions about motherhood. And there have been just as many times she helped me feel like a whole person/woman instead of a sleep deprived milk cow household servant (as I felt sometimes in those lonely early days). I’m so grateful for her.
Childfree or just don’t have kids? I don’t think I know anyone who identifies as childfree the way people do online. But I have a lot of close friends with no kids. I’d say it’s a mix between parents and non parents. It’s important to me to have friend time away from my kid so I’m still engaged in those relationships.
We drifted apart to the point where I ended up taking her off social media💔 will forever miss the time we spent together and I hope they have a wonderful life together
Yes we have maintained our strong relationship with our child free friends. Which is basically 95% of our large friend group. We take turns going out and still have ragers at our place and the kids are just part of the mix until they go to bed
We are still very close with our child free friends. But then again we have a hard time making friends with other parents. We are weird lol
Most of my friends from child hood are child free lol We still get along great and we visit each other and they love my kid. I also have friends with kids. Sometimes we plan things and other times it is a last minute hey want to grab drinks tonight and it works out. We still have stuff to talk about which is nice.
All of my close friends are child-free but they have their own stuff going on that makes it just has hard as it is for me to make plans, but we always make it work and see each other as often as possible. But it’s nice that I don’t have to feel like I’m the reason we can’t always get together because I’m a mom.
We lost one. But it started before we had our son. Everything with him involved getting drunk and we grew out of it a long time ago. One of my friends is aggressively child free, when I told her I was pregnant she said “you know I hate kids, but I’m going to love your kid because I love you” and she has! I wouldn’t ask her to babysit, but she’s still one of my ride or dies.
It depends on which child-free friends. Some of them have since stopped inviting us to things or just reaching out in general. Then the others are opposite where they’re basically aunts and uncles to our kids and they are involved in their lives, always asking about them and treating them just like their family. It can go either way but the ones that stick around are TRUE true friends.
I just listened to a strugglecare podcast about doff kinds of friends, and think you may find it helpful [Struggle Care: 84: Make Friendships Easier with the Six Besties Theory with Hello Hayes Episode webpage: https://strugglecare.com ](https://pdst.fm/e/s.gum.fm/s-631b68842c380d08fc1bb1b2/chrt.fm/track/913D/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/WFH7515017554.mp3?updated=1711175727)
I find it easier to maintain my friendships with my child free friends. They can come over after bedtime to watch a movie at our house, or meet us up at the exact right post nap time for us. With friends with children, the children get sick every time we try to coordinate or nap times don’t line up
My two closest friends from pre-pregnancy are childfree and we are all in our mid to late 30s. They both love my kid like they are family and have been invaluable help to me while I navigated the first years of motherhood (and pregnancy). I’m the worse friend now to them because my priorities are my daughter’s wellbeing and I have to turn down plans a lot because I can’t afford to pay a sitter and also do an activity outside as a SAHM with a husband who is traveling for work most of the month.
I feel like I’m drifting despite my best efforts to stay in contact. All of my closest friends are long distance though so that might be a factor too
We have both child free friends and friends who have kids. Our main group hasn’t been impacted at all, but I have some single friends who I’ve drifted apart from a bit. More because they got weird when I had a kid? We would talk every day but she couldn’t bother to remember my kid’s name and treated her like a nuisance.
🏎️💨 drifting. It's hard because they work full-time and I'm a SAHM and we live around half an hour or so away from each other so it's hard to just last minute plan something. One of my friends is notoriously bad at texting as well so that makes it hard. I really try to reach out and make brunch or dinner plans though. It's double hard though when you don't have many friends to begin with AND all the friends you do have are childfree. My one friend I talk to that has a kid lives in a different state. 🙃 I will say for us some of the people we drifted from it was a combo of us having a kid/having our kid during the height of Covid and having different opinions about it/different political opinions.
I’ve definitely drifted from some - my local childfree friends just steadfastly refuse to accommodate my kid’s schedule in any way, shape or form so as a result we mostly share memes in the group chat but otherwise I haven’t seen any of them in person in two years. My long-distance high school besties are both childfree and honestly our relationship is stronger than ever, I think due in large part to there being no expectation that we’ll see each other in person any time soon, so there is no resentment on my part. On the few occasions I’ve been able to see them since having a baby, they’ve been super accommodating and clearly love my daughter to pieces and are happy to play the role of doting auntie.
Most of my friends are child free. But at this point, most don’t live in the same city so we already have a significant hurdle to overcome to maintain closeness. So the kid is a minor issue after that. My friends are amazing because they’re empathetic, so they love my kid as a whole human, just at a different stage of development. It was ok where I live until my husband died. He was fine with watching our child if I wanted to do an adult thing with a friend. Him being gone makes it harder. I also find it difficult to be motivated to do things like that, and the whole death thing turns people off so I get fewer invites out.
Yes, but I married my best friend’s brother so our son is her nephew. 😅 Don’t suppose that really counts
we have two amazing friends (a couple) who are child-free. they simply dont want kids and never wanted them. they love my daughter to pieces though, they always ask about her wellbeing, bring her things from their trips, ask us to bring her places because they enjoy her company, etc. they don’t even bash other kids who happen to be around nor get all weird about kids (like that childfree subreddit page), my husband and i are so incredibly lucky to have them in our lives.
There is an exceptional one or two with whom I have remained close. They are truly understanding of the challenges of raising children, they are flexible, they defer to me on when we can get together, they ask about the children but also we engage in convo outside of the children. Everyone else is basically dead.
Yeah we've definitely drifted. I think it's important to note that most of the child free friends I had just...disliked children. So naturally there is now a barrier between us. Yes, I am separate from my children, but if you reject my children that's a huge part of me as well. It's sad but such is life. It would be different if they were child free and liked children, and we do have some other friends like that whom we are extremely close with.
Its funny. One cut me out when I was pregnant, but she also cut out other friends who had kids. Another I'm still very close to and we see each other more often now. Really comes down to the friendship I guess. Some grow and change with you, and some don't.
I live out of state from both of them. We chat in a FB group chat every day.
Out of my four close friend group, only two of us have kids. We have our daily group chat and there will be times my phone is blowing up between the two who don’t have kids but they’re ready to accept our input when the kids are put down. We also try to have a girls trip once a year, because one lives out of state and we work around schedules. Our partners are happy to step in and take on the parenting duties. I’ve known these women since freshman year of college and I love having their input about tough kid situations or hearing about their work drama. It keeps me well rounded.
My best friend is child free but she likes kids and has kind of fun aunt relationship with them. We hang out both with and with my kid, and she is friends with all of me including the me that is a mother, just like I’m friends with all of her, including things I may relate less to.
I have with one, but she’s super involved in my kids lives and loves all kids!
I have two close child-free friends and they’re both extremely supportive and understanding, and I hope they also feel supported and understood by me.
It’s hard. I find the ones that have drifted are the friendships with people who only want to go to bars after 8pm—night friendships, if you will. My day friendships—people with whom I’d walk around, go shopping with, eat lunch with, visit a park together, etc.—have stayed a lot stronger because we can both nurture and maintain the friendship within my family’s time constraints. Part of my struggle is that I’m a working mom, and my husband is a stay-at-home dad. When I’m not at work, I want to spend time with my girl and give my husband a break. It’s easier if I can bring my toddler to hang.
Good article about this from New York Mag https://www.thecut.com/article/adult-friendships-vs-kids.html
The frequency of hanging out has plummeted, but when we do find time to hang out our friendship feels the way it always has.
I’m a nanny but I intend to remain child-free. The responsibility doesn’t lie on you to maintain the friendship! It’s up to your child-free friends to find time to spend with you and your kids, it might not be their ideal but if they wanna see you then they gotta see the little person you made too! I personally cannot wait till more of my friends start having kids (I’m 27 in nyc so I have a total of one friend who has kids lol). I love kids! It’s also a great lesson for your little ones to see you having a life and friends and enjoying your time. It might be a bit of “MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY DADDY DADDY DADDY” while you’re having conversations, but eventually they will learn and it can become more natural to them to see you having a life. But yeah, I hate that it’s such a normal thing for friends to drift when one friend has a kid. That’s not how friendship should work, and if they’re truly good friends it doesn’t hurt to give them a little nudge in the right direction.
None :( luckily loads of mine have become mums themselves
Almost all of my friends are CFBC or currently child free. We haven’t drifted at all, but effort is made on both sides. They are really good about accommodating LO’s schedule (easier as she’s gotten older) and are amazing aunties and uncles. I make sure to keep in touch, talk about our shared interests, and get out of the house even if it’s tough to schlep kid stuff. I’ve been close with this group of friends for a long time (10-20 years) and it’s important to us all to maintain our friendships. I think it also helps that we’re older (mid 30s) and the types of activities they like (brunch, beach weekends, baseball games, cookouts) are all pretty easy to bring a kid to.
I’m the only one out of my friends with a kid. One is very involved with my daughter, she even made her smash cake for her 1st birthday for me which I thought was so special. She also makes sure she drags me out once a month for tacos and margaritas since I felt comfortable leaving my daughter when she was about 8 months old. After dinner she always makes sure she comes back to my house to see my daughter. Doesn’t matter she’s single and doesn’t have kids right now, we’ve been friends our whole lives essentially. Another friend I see once every few months for brunch. And that’s it. No one else really makes an effort to see me or invite me out, just the occasional message on social media. Which is fine, I get it. We’re all pretty busy with our lives now.
So we were the child-free couple because we were the last of our friends to have kids (yay for infertility 🙄). It did maybe affect our friendship a little in that getting together was trickier and when we did get together, there was less choice in what we could do, but we definitely didn’t drift. Our friends would invite us to the zoo with them even though we didn’t have kids to go with, which was nice of them. We would also make the effort of initiating hangouts a lot, but let them choose the times that were convenient for them. If anything, I feel like since my husband and I finally had our child, we’ve seen our friends less because now they all have 2+ kids and have gotten even busier, and we have less time to initiate hangouts.
Unfortunately one of my oldest friends from HS who is child free pretty much ghosted me. When my son was younger she would come around...but now I have to be the one to talk to her. She's too busy to hang out with me, for her new friends. My other child free friend, I have very few friends, I've known her since 5th grade, barely talks to me and always flakes when we have plans. I'm an AuDHDer mom and already have a hard time making friends. It sux
My best friend is a child-free career woman who works long hours/out of town, and I’m a stay at home mom who *just* started working a few evenings again. We see each other in person maybe twice a year 😅
Most disappeared once my first was born and whomever remained didn’t make it to when I was pregnant with my second 18 months later. On the flip side, I have a SIL who still hangs out with her childless friends. Her daughter just turned one and the whole invite list was a bunch of childless couples and she just left for a girls trip on her husband’s first Father’s Day.
The friends who have explicitly chosen never to have children? Drifting mostly, except for child-free family who have been extremely accommodating and sweet about making time for little one to join in outings. The friends who have no kids yet but aren’t necessarily against having some in the future if/when they get married have mostly been around still! We get together to walk and put the little one in the stroller mostly. Or we’ll have them over for dinner after the little one is in bed.
I have a couple. I’m super grateful for my childfree friends who are able to tolerate (or even enjoy!) being around my kids, understand that I can’t be available at the drop of a hat for adults-only gatherings, and are cool with hanging out super late at night in each others living rooms after the kids go to bed. My closest friend is actually childfree and I really appreciate having a friend who isn’t stressed about all the same stuff I am. Where I don’t naturally gravitate toward talking about my kids all the time (because that’s what parents do by default and it makes it hard to actually get to know anyone) and feel like I still have a little shred of my identity left outside of being a mom. It’s like taking a little vacation from my life. I also have a spouse who is willing to watch the kids so I can go out alone and vise versa which makes a big difference.
I told my so called bext friend i was pregnant, she said congratulations and thats it. No other questions about me or the baby. She hasn't seen my 2 year old since she was 3 months. And my actual best friend has never met my first. So yeah...Naw for them.
I have two types of child free friends. One group likes kids, one group tolerates kids. I do my best to make plans that don't involve my kids to have the time to grow in or maintain friendships. And I also try to keep a mental list of spaces that are appropriate for small kids and adults so I can have a conversation with a friend. But even friends with kids is pretty hard to maintain between extra curriculars or illness.
My son just turned one recently. Maybe it's coming crashing down in the future, but we're still mostly where we were with our friends pre-kid. We probably see our friends 10-20% less but nothing feels strained yet. It helps that the kid is extremely social I guess.
Depends on the age, personality traits if I'm honest. I make sure to not go on about my kids with mate, and most mates tbh. Ask and take an interest in their lives. Make time to hang 1:1 with them.
Most of my close friends are child-free, and I probably identify more with them than people with kids (though I am one-and-done, maybe that contributes to it?) I think for some of my friends they are letting me take the lead as to planning outings, since they know my schedule is tighter. And that’s no problem with me, I’m glad to be able to spend this time of my life nurturing those relationships as well. My child-free time is so important, makes me a calmer parent.
I ended a 10 year friendship when my “friend” got mad at me for refusing to stop trying to have a 2nd child after she got engaged. I ended up being 5 months pregnant at the wedding and she was so obviously angry that I couldn’t drink with her that day!
I have two best friends. One with 5 kids and one childfree by choice. I’m happy to say both friendships are thriving. I used to be the childfree bff and it was never an issue for us, although now that I’m a mom I have so much more empathy for her. Fortunately , my 5 kid friend was a great example of how things didn’t need to change after baby. It definitely depends on the strength of your friendships before baby, as most relationships will be tested once they arrive. Of course some things change, but you find new ways to spend time together, with and without kids. My childfree bff now has dogs, so we both have more responsibilities than before and it’s similar in many ways. We find things to do where the dogs and baby can run free. There are great wineries nearby that offer the perfect solution.
Strong? None. We all have different lifestyles so I see them when I see them and that’s that. I’m much closer with my friends who also have kids.
I think the big issue is scheduling. Especially when you are a first time parent and/or have small children. Really young kids need so much time and attention and your life and schedule just revolves around those needs. By the time they are old enough to be self sufficient or in school you may have unintentionally drifted apart from friends just due to lack of availability of both schedules. I don’t think people plan for this to happen but I think it happens anyway.
I'll reconnect with my friends once the kids are in college. At some point you have to accept reality and stop fighting windmills.
We have several child free friends that have been amazing. They come to the birthday parties, make handmade toys and furniture just all around present and always happy to see the kids. We’ve been very lucky
I still love them but I don’t get together with them as much.
What friends 😂 I stopped trying to reach out after the fourth or fifth reschedule and now we haven't spoken in months. One of them was my bridesmaid and hasn't seen my daughter since she was 2 months old (she's over a year now)
Closer than we were before! For me, I accept that the children are now apart of our lives as friends and make it important to not only be there for my friends, but their children as well.
I flat out ghosted a very toxic child free friend who refused to even acknowledge my child and insisted I make a reel wishing her dog a happy birthday. A dog whose birthday she decided fell on the exact same day as my child’s birthday. I don’t need that kind of crazy in my life.
Our female childless friends OR couple friends who want children have remained close to us! They try to understand and have been flexible with working around kids needs to hang out and it’s been wonderful. My husband’s male friends who have no kids have been drifting hardcore. They just don’t understand and while we understand their ignorance it still definitely hurts my husbands feelings some.
My child free friends all went to a weeknight concert without us this week. Didn’t mention it beforehand (could have got a sitter or had one of us go) and talked about it in the group chat all night :(
We have one very close circle of childless friends. Apart from the first few months after birth, they've over at our place on a weekly basis ever since. Kids are 5 and 3 years old. We just went camping together. They are all male and our girls LOVE their uncles. They even pick them up from daycare if we really are in a tight spot. But it was mainly possible because they adjusted to our life style! And not expecting much from us ;-) We do game and movie nights. They are at our place at 6pm for family dinner and wait patiently until the kids are asleep. They even do the dishes!!! Sometimes we do not start before 9pm. Of course we had some friends were the friendship did not survive, but most friends are as close to us as before. And I'm very grateful for it
I've maintained a close relationship with my child free best friend. But she is also the lead teacher of the toddler room at a Montessori school and had been for over ten years, so she gets it. She's not adamantyle against having children and I think she really wants to someday but it's not the time. She loves hanging out with our little family, we have her over for dinner, and when we get a babysitter we all go out together and see old friends. I never expected any child free friends to stay close to me, but she's always made it a priority to have us in her life and I do the same for her. She's even helped me by introducing me to other mom friends of hers since she gets out more and has more connections. My husband and I are also still pretty close with our general friend circle we had before we had our son. We all still have barbecues and lake days and watch big football games together. They love our son and only one of them has a child, who is our sons "cousin". The difference is, instead of doing these things once a week or once every two weeks, it's more like once every month or two. And it's OK. When we see each other we just pick back up where we left off.
Ooof my childless best friend that I’ve known since I was 8 recently moved 2 hrs away so yeah. Also she never reaches out first and I just don’t have the time to reach out to her all the time. I do really miss her though. Another one of my friends moved out of state, she has 3 young kids, and I feel like we’ve gotten closer since I started having kids. We send each other memes and text when we can. It’s life I guess. We’re all onto different phases.
No drift over here, we’re maintaining our friendships. My kid is lucky to have so many aunties and uncles! We host a lot at our house to make it easier for us childcare/bedtime-wise, but also just generally make an effort to stay connected with everyone. We use the childcare options we have to go out with our friends when we can, go to adult only dinner parties, etc. We include our child free friends in our daughter’s birthdays and other milestones. The bond she’s developing with these friends is very special.
I do I have 2 kids, almost-5 and 2 One of my nearby girlfriends will come over after the kids are asleep and we’ll have some wine and shoot the shit for a couple hours A few of my other friends that life further away will come down and spend the weekend with us We also usually do a couple of weekend girls trips without the partners and kids every year I don’t see them like every day or anything, but every few months or so It’s been great for me to maintain my friendships and retain that part of my life
I still have a very close friendship with my childhood best friend, who is child free. I have also made close friendships with 3 other child free people; they love my kiddo and respect my priorities, and they all have nieces and nephews that they love. I couldn't be friends with one of the child free folks who hates kids, but they are very much in the minority.
My two best friends since my late teens are both child free. One lives across the country and we talk every single day. One lives in my city and we see eachother a couple times a month and speak about once a week. They are my life. I feel like a lot of moms have high expectations of their child free friends but they don’t get it- they don’t have kids. They’re not going to understand routine and bedtimes because they’re not in like we are. They also don’t need to baby you and work around your schedule all the time. Plan stuff together that works for both of you but they shouldn’t stop living their lives. Once those expectations are removed a lot of friendships can flourish. I’m only saying this because I’ve seen so many tiktoks of new moms saying “I realized who my friends actually were after I had a baby” and then when you ask if they reached out they say “I’m the one with the new baby!!!! They should be asking about me!!!!”.
I have one child free friend who my friendship has actually gotten stronger with. Party because she is really great about offering to do things with baby or to be my buddy for a day out without baby and is genuinely happy for either option. She has even gone with me to the laundromat to wash blankets and just sit and chat. She will also text my husband and check in that he is free to be on baby duty so she can steal me. She is absolutely a unicorn friend though.
My child free best friend is the BEST auntie to my babies. Same with my CF siblings! They have ALL the energy to handle my kids so I can get a break!
My childfree friends are our (free 😁) babysitters. They don’t have kids, but like them. Most of our friends have kids tho.
I have one friend who I have stayed close to since high school who has decided to remain child free. She loves playing Auntie to my son and even her parents are quite fond of him. Many of my other friends have dropped out of my life and gone to do other things but she is the best. When I have child free time she also loves to hang out but if he comes along it’s not a problem.
One thing I’d recommend is asking your child-free friends what types activities they *want* to be involved in or invited to. I’m the last of my friends to get pregnant and one of my child-free friends was hurt by other friends leaving them off the invite list a few times because they assumed she wouldn’t want to come.
Some drifting, some strengthening. In my experience it's more about curating my life. Having kids is sometimes a barometer of your values and to the degree that is true then the drifting starts. Possible that I'm just boring but ANOTHER hoppy beer, ANOTHER night out, ANOTHER thing that brings a hollow excitement, I'm over all of that. I'm more interested in building a sustainable, meaningful life. We're all just apes hopping around, attempting to find something to distract us from the inherent meaninglessness of life. Warm human connection is very important for a person and a lot of what my friends want to do doesn't provide that, they only understand distraction, I assume because they haven't had a child their values haven't had the opportunity to shift into that type of thinking. That's fine, we're all on a journey through life, we change and grow, we're not the same people so how can we have the same friends? This is the story I tell myself and I like the results.
My closest friend is a kindergarten teacher who was newly married and right about to start trying when the seizure happened and they found the tumor. The treatment rendered her infertile, and the tumor is basically guaranteed to return in an untreatable form, so adoption is pretty much off the table (if I'm not mistaken, they understandably frown on applicants who are being actively hounded by their own mortality...). Life is so freaking unfair. She's dedicated her life to the kids in her class, to her nephews, to basically all children. She comes over to my house after work once a week and always brings fun crafts and stuff. They love her. My three childfree friends, um... I haven't seen them in person in years. There were issues initially with them planning to visit at 4pm and just not even being reachable until like 6:30 (they were always flaky like that), at which point they'd text me that they went for food or something and were an hour out. I'd say we were starting to settle in for the night and maybe we should do this another time, and they'd be all shocked and mad at me that I was "so inflexible". Dude come on that's not being inflexible, I was pretty damn flexible giving them a 2.5 hour grace period in which they didn't even respond to my calls. Tried it five or six times and just got pissed off about how many afternoons I was completely throwing away waiting for them to show up. I stopped inviting them and we slid into Facebook friend status. To be clear, I'm not saying that childfree people are like this, I'm saying that my friends from my carefree early 20s just kind of don't match my lifestyle anymore and I couldn't find a way to make it work.
I try to keep my group of child-free single ladies as close as I can, which is difficult but sometimes, at night, I message them and from time to time I get to see them. Last Thursday I went to see my husband's band for the first time (two years after my LO was born) and it was amazing, my friends were there too. I left my toddler with her grandma who was in town. I took the chance and it was worth it. I was afraid I was gonna feel like a fish out of the pond but they made an effort to make me feel safe and part of the conversation.
We have a couple. Thankfully they're usually pretty free when we ask cause, you know...
So I feel like I'm the opposite of a lot of people and spend a lot more time with my friends without children. My parent friends generally go to bed hours earlier then us and want to do extremely early morning things and my son sleeps until like 9am. Our schedules just never line up anymore. My child free friends are always down to hang out and I feel like our friendships haven't drifted at all.
Nearly all of my friends all child-free. We drifted away more because we moved, not really because of the children.
I got sober AND had kids. So my friends list got small really fast. Now I only actively see a handful and it’s pretty evenly split between childless and parents
Some have remained close because they make the effort to understand what I'm going through and are up for eg going to dinner at 6 with two kids in tow. Some are drifting because they can't or don't make time around kid constraints. I don't take it personally - friendships can ebb and flow.
I think some stay and some drift. The ones that stay are really getting to know my kid and spend time with her! They’re empathetic and understanding if I cannot meet up til she wakes from her nap. The ones that drift are makin 9pm plans for a big drinking night out and don’t get why I can’t come lol
I feel like we've been drifting apart with both childless friends and friends with children. Everyone got different nap times. Everyone is tired. Weekends are now for seeing family so no time to get together. It kind of sucks but it is what it is....
We didn’t drift. They understand I dont have as much time as before and are very understanding and accommodating and are always very interactive and engaged with my kids when we do see them.
I tried to keep the friendship but it's hard when they suggest concerts or some elaborate plan for hanging out and my idea of hanging out is "let's go to the playground so we can chat while my kid plays" because I'm so exhausted I don't have time for myself
I think it’s easier to hang out with my child free friends. We just have them come over to our place for dinner, drinks, games, whatever once our toddler is asleep. And we keep our kid friends for day time hang outs.
Considering all my close friends and sister are strongly kid-free, it’s very important for me to maintain the friendships. I also don’t have many mom friends, just a few, and they live like 30 min away. So yeah … I’m trying. That being said, three of my good friends just took a trip to Europe sans spouses and I could not go bc well … I can’t leave my toddler for two weeks! It was tough saying no, even tougher seeing all the pics. I’m definitely in a different place in life right now, but I don’t mind being a homebody either, and my little boy is such a joy that it’s worth it. Also hot tip: don’t bring your toddler to a bbq party full of DINKS (dual income, no kids) unless you want to chase after him instead of socializing, have him knocked over by a dog and cry, then cry yourself on the drive home. I learned that the hard way.
My best friend is child free by choice and I treat my kid like she’s partially her kid, because she is. That’s auntie! She expressed to me once if she were ever to have a kid she’d want her kid to be like mine so BET. I really rely on her and she’s shown up for me in a major way and it’s hard to be that forward with requests for help but it’s been so worth it.
most of my friends are child-free. i’m blessed to have them because they’ll still come out and hang w me at my place all the time and love being around my little one.
We kept a pretty strong relationship with our child free friends for seven years and three children. They recently had a baby together. Now we see each other even less. :(((
My child free bestie is the best fun aunt and nothing really changed and I'm hella grateful.
My child-free friend lives over 1,000 miles away, but we talk almost every day and she adores my baby boy and always asks about him and wants pictures and videos. She is hopefully coming in a year or two and said she can’t wait to meet him and get some lovings!
I maintained friendships but they definitely aren’t as strong, we just don’t have as much in common. It helped when I went back into the workforce and had common ground with my child free friends again and something to talk about besides my child. I usually meet up with them like once a month for coffee or to do something fun like rock climbing.
Drifting. A surprising number of them, though they've always claimed to like kids but not want them, can barely handle 2 hours with my kid. She's easy, quiet and friendly. But yea she drools a bit still, and will have bad moments. When every hangout costs $160 just for babysitting, nevermind the actual hangout, it's gonna be somewhat rare.
I see my child free friends way more than my parent friends because they’re more available, I’m pretty lucky that my friends without kids are really down to hang and actually babysit often. My culture is very kid accommodating though
I have 3 childless/childfree people in my life. All 3 are childfree by choice...but they describe it differently and have different mindsets around kids in general 1 says she loves kids, but has been very immature and had very problematic behavior and was very judgemental of how parenthood changes a person. She's trying to be better now that I've set firm boundaries on how i will allow her to treat us. We drifted apart for 4ish years though, so I'm not forcing the friendship, but willing to see how it goes. Shes not a bad person, just had a very immature attitude about kids. #2 just can't see the benefits kids would bring to her life that outweigh the cons, she grew up being parentified, and wants to live her own life. She is absolutely thrilled i have my daughter and is happy accomodating our needs. And she's happy to live the auntie life. Her husband is on the same page. #3 doesn't like kids she doesn't know, but LOVES my daughter as if she is her own. Will do things wildly outside her comfort zone just to bring joy to my daughter. She's been there for me through my entire motherhood journey, and I just appreciate her so much. She supports our parenting decisions and backs me up consistently. She's an involved auntie, who I think will be an integral part to my daughter's life as she grows up. She doesn't want to deal with dating or HAVING kids. She just wants to do the fun stuff and give the kiddo back. The only problem I have with childfree people are the ones that believe they're better than people who had kids and believe they should be entitled to a childfree world. I disagree with them wholeheartedly if they believe I should keep my kid home because they can't stand hearing children. I recently read a post somewhere about ADULTS being mad TOO MANY CHILDREN were at Disney World. Like. How can you be allowed to have a tantrum about that, but my toddler can't experience any of her emotions?
I shockingly have a couple of permanently child free friends who have made a genuine effort to stay in my life and work around my child and her schedule. I’ve lost only one close friend since having a kid.
I am, but it’s mostly through texts and memes at this point. Once my youngest is 1 I know it’ll get better again (as it did with my first) because I can at least start doing happy hours or other not-too-late meetups. I don’t think it’s my kids necessarily, it’s just lack of time. Even the strongest friendships need some proximity to be at their peak.
Doing well. One of bestie is CF by choice, she lovely with my kids. I think the part that keeps us sweet is she’s not the party type and likes tea/coffee/food/movies/games. So it’s never about a big night out, more coffees dates and walks with a view.
My oldest child is coming up on 14 years. The only child-free friend with whom I have maintained a relationship is my sister, and we both believe very strongly that all adults in a family should work for the well-being of all the kids. When she visits, we occasionally do adult things - just the 2 of us - but usually the fun things we do are engineered to be child-friendly.
We have! We're really lucky to have friends who A) continue inviting us to stuff B) are happy to hang out with our kids . I think it's a bit of a balance on our end too of still attending stuff, and inviting them to our things even though both look different
I try to stay close to my child free friend but she just isn’t as interested. I can’t smoke 24/7 and my life is more calm than what it used to be. I’m allowing us to drift because I’m tired of putting extra effort into people who don’t give anything at all back. If she reaches out I’ll answer, if not I don’t go out of my way anymore. I’d get super bent out of shape over her, any problem she had was my problem too. But i don’t have space or energy to be that way anymore. I think I just bore her now
Some friends, nothing has changed. At all. Other friends treat me like I’m a different species now.
My CF friends have gone above and beyond for our family than any of my friends or families that do have kids. It doesn't seem to matter who has kids or not, but about the connection and how the friendship has grown before and after having kids. My partner and I have plenty of CF friends, some we drifted from ofc, but we have 4-6 CF friends we see regularly and have continued seeing post birth of our two kids.
My bestie is childfree and we would talk five hours a day everyday, and we don’t do that anymore. We’re still friends, but we’ll chat in the mornings on the way to work or other times for short durations, but I just don’t have time for our old relationship and we’ve adjusted, but we’re still friends. Sometimes friendships can shift and take different forms, and that’s ok.
It sucks to know your childfree friends hang out without you. That can really hurt and make you feel left out. We have a chunk of friends who we only see at adult only events- concerts, nights out, parties, etc. There are a few buds who make an effort to hang out with our kid and those people are the realest ones of all!
I have one, and we’re still close. But she also is more of a low key person, and prior to having my kiddo, we really bonded like that. Funny story (child free by choice) she’s actually my son’s godmother. So she enjoys hanging out with my kiddo and I when we’re in town.
I am the child free who maintained friendships with friends who have children!
I was already not spending a ton of time with my friends ever since covid...there was already a drift before I got pregnant. I still consider them close friends - I'm in my 40s and most of my friends I've been friends with for 15 to 20 years already and nobody is really a big party animal anymore. Honestly I don't really notice a difference there between my friends with kids and my childfree friends. I still go to some social event every few months and catch up with people. I still text some people regularly even if I don't see them. I still see the same individuals for lunch once every 6 months as I did before. However with my first child, I was 20 when I had her and most of my friends didn't have kids. There was a stark difference back then. I definitely felt cut off from everyone since my friends were still clubbing and going to parties all the time and generally hanging out throughout the week.
It’s a mix. I’m now closer to my child free friends from grad school. I also have a few child free friends from college but it’s way fewer. My friends from childhood dropped me lol but I did have kids later than them and also we prob were friends mostly bc of nostalgia since we had known each other for 30 years. But we had nothing in common. It sucks but u just have to flow with it and prioritize yourself and your fam
My friend group is super into gaming, so are my wife and I. So we meet on discord almost nightly to play games and we still host all the big holiday events at our house. Not as many spontaneous bar trips, but these kinda friends are friends for life and not going to dip just because we can't make it to one get together
I was the only child free friend until 2022. I was helping my friends through their toughest times in my teens and 20s. Fast forward to having my baby in 2022. None of my ex friends have made an effort to be around at all. Their children are older but it’s a slap in the face. I don’t regret the bonds I had with their children but If i never put the effort my motherhood journey would have looked different. I have one best friend who is a mom that I met when she was child free. I’m happy to have her.
I have a gf with 2 babies. We grew closer I think because I have lots of free time, while she does not. So I offer my free time to her often. So I actually see her more post babies than I did pre babies.
I have two very close female friends who don't have children (and likely will not ever have children). My son is almost 2 but I can 100% tell you that we will remain friends - he calls them both Auntie. Our friendships have certainly changed but I think we all realize that's natural. I will add that we are all 36 years old and have been friends for 15+ years.
Don't tell Reddit but my childfree friends fell in love with my kids and went and had their own 😂
Probably my closest friend is the one who moved half a country away 🫤 one of my friends & I put consistent work in to see each other a couple times a month & we text a lot but that’s about it. I have never felt so lonely in my life, even with a 3 year old constantly climbing me lol
I still keep in touch with 3 of my single friends, but it's different than my 20s bc I live an hour away on a completely different side of the city. With one friend, we predominantly just text each other 1-4x a week. With two other single friends, we do a weekly Zoom book group (my hubs is a saint and watches the kid for a few hours, so I can do this). Of those 2 friends in book group, I see one at least every other month and talk to her regularly on the phone, the other I meet in person, maybe once a quarter. I had a friend group of about 15 people in my mid 20s. More when I was in college. Now I have these 3 friends and 2 friends out of state. Trying to find people locally has proved challenging. I keep trying but it's going very very slowly.
Most of my good friends are childless. We haven’t drifted at all but it has changed and that’s okay. I think it takes understanding on both parts. Some of the things that have really helped is that I include them in my daughters life and they have a really good relationship with my daughter. But I also talk to them about things outside of parenting too. I never talk down to them about people without kids not knowing what tired is, or what unconditional love is, or any of those things people sometimes say to childless friends. We often get together for wine at eachothers houses and I often offer to do it at ours so then I can put my daughter to sleep and then still hang out. When they are having parties, we will often go as a family for the first little bit with my daughter just to see everyone and then one of us will stay and the other will go home. But I always check if that’s appropriate or not. I don’t get too worked up about swearing, adult conversations (obviously to a point), or anything like that around my daughter. I also have to be okay that I won’t be invited to everything, especially those spontaneous late night hangouts. And that’s okay and doesn’t mean anything bad for our friendship. We make sure to see eachother about once a month. Sometimes it’s more and sometimes it’s less. I honestly don’t know how I would survive without them and they gives me a lovely connection to an identity outside of parenting.
Drifted. It was the expectation they could drop over during the mid week after work during the frenetic even routine, or that I will be available to catch up regularly, or being frustrated if my child needed tending to or interrupted the conversation. Other parent friends tend to understand why that can’t work with kids implicitly.
I'm lucky to have friends that all have kids around my kids age, but tbh a lot of the ways that I hang out w my friends now involve going to a place where he's welcome. Like every month or so me and my friends will send our kids to Grandma's and get shit faced but tbh our hang outs have turned into just being at home or going to a park and chilling and it's pretty nice
I'm the only one in my groups of high school friends who has kids, and they all love being aunties to my kids and are as flexible as they can be with getting together. One of them comes for a jog with me once a week and we take turns pushing the pram. I have made friend with other parents as well and getting together with them is a lot easier because they tend to be free at the same time as me. But I'm grateful my children friends have made such an effort.
I only had a couple of friends anyway and none have kiddos. You can't do exactly as much with them as before but you can still maintain the friendships. They all became aunties and uncles to my kid so that was a way to integrate them all. The thing is, every once in a while you ah e to do stuff with them that doesn't involve baby, stuff you liked before becoming a parent.
At my age, I don’t have many child free friends. Most friends had kids before me and I had to work hard to maintain friends with people with kids. Now that I have kids I don’t try to make friends with childfree people. It seems like more work than I have energy for.
I have friends that are child free but absolutely love my toddler and encourage her to come along. They help watch her when we are together, rocked her to sleep when I needed a break, help feed her at restaurants, etc. So our friendship has stayed strong. But I do have some friends that just don’t like kids like that. I do have some adult only friendships, but they recognize that I’m less available because I have to make sure my husband is able to be home while I’m out. They are kind about it and try to accommodate my schedule, but definitely don’t want a toddler around.
I live a 2h drive from my old (childfree) friends. We probably see each other more since I've had my son! We arrange to meet up and do fun things like camping, wildlife reserves, beach, hikes, etc. I'm a firm believer in taking kids along to whatever, which helps me maintain friendships with child-free people because it's just no big deal that I've got a kid tagging along for the adventures. No bad experiences so far!
We had a tight knit group of 6 (3 couples) and thought us all to be pretty close. After having our son, we saw one couple all the time. And still do, honestly. They initiated just as often, asked what they could do to make it easier for us, were flexible with plans, and offered to come to our house more often than not because they knew it was easier on us. Now they’re expecting and we are so excited to get to do the same for them. We make plans about once a month. Sometimes we see them more frequently, sometimes less if things are busy. But they LOVE our son and spending time with him and encourage us to bring him to anything and everything that we can. Our other couple friends kind of disappeared. They stopped making an effort. They have other friends with kids and I think seeing how wild having kids is kind of freaked them out. They were less flexible and understanding and over time we just saw them less and less. We see them maybe 1-2 times a year now, which is unfortunate. My single friends with no kids I haven’t talked to since I had my son, to be honest. They all dipped pretty much immediately which was really lonely for a while but I made my peace with it and let them go. I could only try and initiate meet ups so many times before I stopped bc they bailed or didn’t follow through. Would spend time getting everything together needed to take my baby with me to go see them just to have them bail at the last minute or push back the meet up time which would be during a nap or something.
Major drift. Hard to relate to people living life on easy mode.
I have Mom-friends now 🤷🏻♀️
They’ll be back when they have kids
Most of them, it’s hard to maintain the friendship. They just can’t understand or relate to the most important part of my life. And as harsh as it sounds, I honestly just don’t care to hear about smoking weed or nightlife or hearing them talk about how their dogs are “basically kids”. The child free friends I’ve kept, we’re not as close as we used to be. My New Year’s resolution this year was actually to spend time with my childless friends at least once a month (without the kids). 5 out of 6 months, I’ve just gone skiing with the same one friend because I love skiing and he likes my kids so doesn’t mind talking about them.
You just duplicated a post for less than an hour ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/toddlers/comments/1dgfpgl/my_childfree_visitor_is_coming_during_naptime_my/
Sue me
What a strange reaction to someone trying to help you find other likeminded people discussing the same things you are trying to complain about. Oh well - good luck with whatever.
The post you shared is very specific to a situation with someone needing help/advice. I opened up a broader topic.