Love Him or Leave Me

[odd_on_purpose]

This entry feels weird to write, because I know it will make me sound like an asshole. But it's how I feel, so I don't know. Just another of many moments where my identity as a mother turns out to be much more conventional than I had theoretically planned it out to be in my head

Comments

[odd_on_purpose]

I think you make a good point. Me being a mom isn't all the different, in terms of how it affects my childless friends, than my developing a keen interest in rock climbing, or the stock exchange, or something else that my friend may have no interest in but pretends to in order to maintain the friendship. If I'm willing to feign interest in the mind-numbing (to me) intricacies of your workplace, then you can do the same for my prattling on about bedtime routines.

Part of the problem may be a fundamental disconnect between the parent and non-parent? The temptation for the parent is to try and convince the non-parent how amazing it is to have a child -- while the non-parent's temptation is to pretend that their friend is exactly the same person they were before they had a child. If both parties can agree that the friendship has simply changed, it probably works out much more successfully. While in my experience it is pretty amazing to have a child, it's clearly a huge amount of hassle and not for everyone. I'm a very firm supporter of people who acknowledge that parenting isn't for them -- because how awful for everyone involved when the childless-by-choice have a child and it turns out that they were right, they don't really like parenting after all.

[ghettopeach]

I think you're right that the main issue is that people want to continue to have things in common with their friends rather than acknowledging that their lives are now different and the friendship will need to change. That's probably why new parents want to get their friends on board with having babies--because if the friends have babies, we'll all have things in common again, and nothing will be awkward! And by the same token, the friends don't really know what to say to the new parents, because having children is like nothing in their experience (in most cases).

[odd_on_purpose]

Yes, I agree. Although with the parents, I think part of stems from a place of "This baby makes me soooo happy! You are my friend and I want you to be happy so you should have a baby too! Babies are the only path to happiness!!" Probably similar to what obnoxious coupled-up people do to their single friends.

[betwixt_worlds]

Even more than developing interests in things or mind-numbing jobs, this situation is about PEOPLE and your "friends" not having a interest in the people you love.

It's like if one of my friends said to me "can you really just shut up about Emily? I really can't stand how you constantly talk about her" or " really, talking about stuff you did with Emily again?"......yeah you can bet that friendship wouldn't last very long.

I don't think you sound awful for saying this....I think these supposed friends of yours sound awful.

[odd_on_purpose]

You are of course right. I think another problem is that kid-haters fail to see children as actual small persons and not just loud drooling things present solely to annoy them.