Adult friends and socializing

[havarti]

I think one of our biggest difficulties is how very un-childproofed some our friends' homes are. Two of them have wood stoves which they use so we really didn't see them much in the cold months. (Last time we were over at one of these houses was for Thanksgiving and she had a hatchet on the ground, next to a pile of splintery wood, next to the wood stove.) I really need to make more of an effort to invite people to our place or meet them for dinner sometime.

[magpie]

we make good use of babysitters. We are lucky to have a lot of good, cheap babysitters though (grad students in my H's department).

We also have had a lot of fun inviting a friend or two over to our place for pizza or bbq's after DD goes to sleep. She goes to bed at 7pm, so they'll come over at 6:30 or 6:45, have a short visit with DD and then I put her to bed and we have grown up time DD is usually a pretty good sleeper, especially for the first stretch.

[Velar Fricative]

We're actually among the last in our friend groups that had a kid so during our childless days, we were flexible with our parent friends and did whatever was easiest for them.

As a parent now, I find the "our childless friends wouldn't understand" excuse to be lame. I am glad our friends didn't shut us out of social events because we were childless; we were happy to attend kid events and if we didn't want to attend, we still appreciated the invite. And while I now understand the value in having experienced parents as my friends, the childless friends we still have aren't somehow less worthy of our time because they can't share kid stories or whatever.

One challenge we do have is that since our apartment is small and DD's nursery is next to the living room, it does make inviting company over difficult in the evenings. But we do our best.

[lilac05]

Yes, 7:30 bedtimes make it tough to get together with friends with other little ones! No one wants to deal with an over tired kid the next day!

I love hanging out with our kid-free friends, but it takes a special kind of friend there, too. I don't have many childless friends here, since we moved here after we already had kids. I don't work, so I don't have work friends, either. Our time together is still often determined by the kids' schedules (I've got a 9 month old who won't take a bottle).

[redheadk]

We don't have too many issues with it right now, thankfully. Since we just have the one kid and all of my new mom friends have kids the same age, nap and bedtimes seem to mesh well. All the moms are SAHMs, though, so we see each other a fair amount during the daytime which definitely makes things easier.

[niq]

I just don't see friends much, period. But that's probably because I am an introverted engineer

I see non-parent friends more because at the moment they're the ones who work closer to me, and my main form of friend socializing is right now meeting people for lunch.

When I was on leave it was easier to see parent friends, but I think I saw one or two non-parent friends for breakfast.

ETA we have only used a sitter (aka grandparents) to go out on dates. We've talked about taking swing dancing classes again, but probably not until late summer, just because of schedules and such.

[twodogsandababy]

Our close group of friends includes single guys, couples with no kids, and a few with kids. We host game night at our house a few times a month and most of the group shows up. I feel like we see everyone the same as before kids, and now more often with the new baby since people want to see him.

[anna7602]

I find it easier to see friends with kids who live near me and easier to see childless friends who live further away. If you have kids AND live far away (as in over an hour on public transportation), then chances are I rarely see you and I see your kids even less. Sorry, New Jersey and West Chester-dwellers.  

I also feel like all friendships have their ups and downs and cycles. There are people I lose touch with for a while because they or I become really consumed by their jobs or a new relationship or a new baby and people who suddenly become close again because they're going through a crisis or whatever. Kids are not always a part of these ups and downs, but annoyingly, it seems common for people to just blame kids.  

[anna7602]

May 19, 2014 16:44:48 GMT -5 spunbutterfly said:

May 19, 2014 16:37:16 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

I wonder if having a sahp also impacts things? While I've been off, I've done some daytime meetups with both parents (and kids) and non-parents (lunches out where ds is the only baby). I have done almost zero evening socializing - about 4 total nights out with friends, and it's either childless friends or other friends whose husbands are home with the kids.

I wonder this too.

Most all my socializing is done after 7pm, after my kid is already in bed. And my husband is not much for going out, so he stays home (which solves the babysitter issue), and I recharge my extroverted batteries with friends who... I just realized the other night are only my childfree friends. So I made more effort to invite other friends with children to go out at night, come over, catch up, get a drink, anything, and they all declined, partly due to their night time schedule, partly due to being zonked after work and kids and a long day.

Evening socializing with kids gets easier as kids get older. Around age 3 or so, I started having a lot of dinner-time play dates. This obviously depends on the kinds of hours you work. DH, for example, was never home in time for these play dates. 

[anna7602]

Yes, that's what I meant spunbutterfly.

[gibbinator]

My main difficulty socializing is that I don't live near my childless friends anymore (or more specifically, they all moved away from our home town).

All mine and dh's local friends either had kids at the same time we did, or they were already parents when we met. So there's really been no loss of friendships, although we don't get out with them as often as we used to pre baby. But it's easy enough to plan something because they're all the same age +/- 6 months.

[karinothing]

Two of my best friends moved out of the country, so I don't see them obviously. All my other friends have kids and we hang out frequently. I don't really get to do girl night stuff that much but I think that is because we always just hang out during the day and never seem to remember to take time for ourselves. Which is dumb and I really need to change it.

[noodleskooze]

We don't see ours much. They are all mid-twenties, single, and have disposable incomes. We still love them, and they love us and our kid, but our lifestyles don't jive as often.

It's hard to find friends with kids who share a similar life and similar interests, it seems. I'm gonna convince @bettyhomewrecker33 to be my first official mom friend.



ETA: Loooots of typos

[ECB]

May 19, 2014 16:37:07 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

We're actually among the last in our friend groups that had a kid so during our childless days, we were flexible with our parent friends and did whatever was easiest for them.

As a parent now, I find the "our childless friends wouldn't understand" excuse to be lame. I am glad our friends didn't shut us out of social events because we were childless; we were happy to attend kid events and if we didn't want to attend, we still appreciated the invite. And while I now understand the value in having experienced parents as my friends, the childless friends we still have aren't somehow less worthy of our time because they can't share kid stories or whatever.

I could have written this word for word!  By and large, as long as both parties still genuinely want to be friends and no one has a drastic personality change - there is no reason why parents and non-parents can't be friends. 

We did lose one set of friends after they had kids, but they did a 180.  The mom had reached her LIFE LONG DREAM - SHE WAS A MOM!!!!  And anyone who didn't have kids "just didn't understand" anything, it seemed, about kids.  She became obnoxious.  And her DH did too in his own way.

But this was about them changing after having kids, not about them having kids.

No one is ever going to be at exactly the same spot in life as you.  Whether it's marriage, or kids, or career, or.... what have you.  I have MANY differences from my friends.  Kids/no kids is just ONE.

[h]

IME, a ton of this has to do with age of kids, stage of life, and maybe number of kids. When DS1 was a baby we mostly socialized with our child free friends because 1) very few of our friends had kids at the time; and 2) if we didn't have a sitter, they were generally happy to come hang out with us and see the baby, then have drinks after he went to bed.

Fast forward almost 7 years and 3 kids later, and we socialize almost exclusively with people with kids. For one thing pretty much everyone we know has kids now, and our only close child free friends live in another city. We have moved since having kids, and most of the people we have met here we have gotten to know through our kids' school and activities. Plus, our kids are older, and there are three of them, so I imagine some child free couples would be less thrilled to hang out with them than they were to hang out with one cute baby. And then there is the fact that my kids don't want to hang out with a bunch of grown ups--they want their friends to come over.

Our social life involves a lot of having families over for happy hour and then dinner from 5-8pm or so. Last Friday we had friends over. We blew up the bounce house for the kids (6 total, ages 1-7) and the little ones bounced while the older boys played basketball in our driveway. We sat on the patio and had cocktails, then we grilled fish for the adults and hot dogs for the kids. Then the 3 yo+ crowd went inside to watch a movie, and we drank on the patio with our friends some more while the baby toddled around. Then everyone made s'mores in the outdoor fireplace and went home for the night about 8:30. We frequently do the same kind of thing at other peoples houses. During weekend days we hang out at the pool or park with other families. Once or twice a month we get a sitter and DH and I do date night or, more rarely, do something with friends, but generally those people are parents, too,

[MadamePresident]

I think some of it is how flexible you and your friends are. For example, I have book club tonight. Normally my husband is home with Nods, but he is on a business trip this week. I am going to do my best to make sure Nods gets a late nap, since she will be up late. My friends will be nice if I'm a little distracted during book club. Unless my kid was just a terror, I wouldn't consider staying home, I like book club.

I try hard to not let the fact I have a child prevent me from enjoying my life.