A Guide to Talking to Your Parent Friends
I know, how many guides are there to parenting? All of them? Everyone has a way to do things and they're all probably right.
This particular post stems from a conversation I had with a good friend of mine. She clued me in as to why a person I've known for roughly sixteen years randomly dropped me on Facebook. I did the unthinkable. I did the most insulting thing a person can think to do.
I procreated.
Now, if you're a modern human living in a modern world it means you, like me, might be in the minority of humans who want to produce tiny people. It means you know the struggle is real for those friends who never, ever, ever want kids. Constantly do they hear condescending shit like, "You're life never begins and lacks all meaning until you have kids".
Or, "You'll change you're mind." That one usually comes with a knowing wink.
And on and on and on. These are most commonly hurled at my uterus carrying friends and it's exhausting. They don't want kids, man. Lay off 'em. It means they'll have well dressed cats and dogs and will jet set and do super interesting things with their lives. There is nothing wrong with that.
The problem is that then there's me. I want kids. I have kids. I always wanted to have kids. I wanted to be pregnant. It seemed like a super great fun science experiment, and I was a willing lab rat.
I knew I'd lose some acquaintances. That shit never really hurt my feelings, because these were people who weren't particularly good friends before I had kids. More importantly, they weren't even really good at being friends before I had kids. Oh I have to come to you on your time table or nothing? I live too close to OTP for a visit to be viable? Yeeeeeeeah, no. I'mma pass. No hard feels though. You do you.
However, I lost a person I'd known for sixteen years.
In retrospect we hadn't been close in several years. She lived at one end of Atlanta and I the other. She was kind of a shut in, and to be honest, so am I. We'd run into each other out and about for the one time of year we left our personal caves. It was always a lock step reunion though. No time had passed, things had just changed in our lives and it gave us talking points. There was, so far as I could tell, no animosity or hard feelings. We were just weird kids maintaining our own relationship, and I honestly had no expectations of elevating that to some next level.
It hurt a bit when she dropped me out of the blue, but I figured we'd just grown apart. NBD. Shit happens.
So when I find out that she apparently goes on active tirades about how babies are the friend killer I have to sit back and think, well, maybe I should enlighten some folks.
I'm approachable. I am wildly approachable. I'm going to guess your parent friends are also wildly approachable. We most likely spend too much time with small people who have limited vocabularies. Contacting us to talk about anything is generally a welcome distraction.
We had babies. We know our lives changed significantly and yours didn't. If your friends are anything like me we don't expect you to change for us. I am always willing to work around things. Hunting down a baby sitter can be tough for me, but if you're willing to put in the work, so am I. Again, I imagine same goes for your other parent friends.
So, how about instead of dropping us like it's hot you, I don't know, talk to us? It's amazing how vital communication can be to any relationship. If you want to friend dump us, we get it. Things change and maybe we've changed too much.
Did I mention talk to us? It's super beneficial to let us know these things. We're adults. Communication is part of adulting.
I mean, so my feelings are a little hurt at the end of the day that a grown up couldn't talk to me about her feelings. I'm also a little hurt that she feels she can talk to other people about why she won't be my friend instead of approaching me.
But if you're like her and you're caught at a cross roads let me urge you to reach out. It's amazing what a quick chat can do.
I assure you though if you're willing to put in the time and effort most of us will too.
This particular post stems from a conversation I had with a good friend of mine. She clued me in as to why a person I've known for roughly sixteen years randomly dropped me on Facebook. I did the unthinkable. I did the most insulting thing a person can think to do.
I procreated.
Now, if you're a modern human living in a modern world it means you, like me, might be in the minority of humans who want to produce tiny people. It means you know the struggle is real for those friends who never, ever, ever want kids. Constantly do they hear condescending shit like, "You're life never begins and lacks all meaning until you have kids".
Or, "You'll change you're mind." That one usually comes with a knowing wink.
And on and on and on. These are most commonly hurled at my uterus carrying friends and it's exhausting. They don't want kids, man. Lay off 'em. It means they'll have well dressed cats and dogs and will jet set and do super interesting things with their lives. There is nothing wrong with that.
The problem is that then there's me. I want kids. I have kids. I always wanted to have kids. I wanted to be pregnant. It seemed like a super great fun science experiment, and I was a willing lab rat.
I knew I'd lose some acquaintances. That shit never really hurt my feelings, because these were people who weren't particularly good friends before I had kids. More importantly, they weren't even really good at being friends before I had kids. Oh I have to come to you on your time table or nothing? I live too close to OTP for a visit to be viable? Yeeeeeeeah, no. I'mma pass. No hard feels though. You do you.
However, I lost a person I'd known for sixteen years.
In retrospect we hadn't been close in several years. She lived at one end of Atlanta and I the other. She was kind of a shut in, and to be honest, so am I. We'd run into each other out and about for the one time of year we left our personal caves. It was always a lock step reunion though. No time had passed, things had just changed in our lives and it gave us talking points. There was, so far as I could tell, no animosity or hard feelings. We were just weird kids maintaining our own relationship, and I honestly had no expectations of elevating that to some next level.
It hurt a bit when she dropped me out of the blue, but I figured we'd just grown apart. NBD. Shit happens.
So when I find out that she apparently goes on active tirades about how babies are the friend killer I have to sit back and think, well, maybe I should enlighten some folks.
I'm approachable. I am wildly approachable. I'm going to guess your parent friends are also wildly approachable. We most likely spend too much time with small people who have limited vocabularies. Contacting us to talk about anything is generally a welcome distraction.
We had babies. We know our lives changed significantly and yours didn't. If your friends are anything like me we don't expect you to change for us. I am always willing to work around things. Hunting down a baby sitter can be tough for me, but if you're willing to put in the work, so am I. Again, I imagine same goes for your other parent friends.
So, how about instead of dropping us like it's hot you, I don't know, talk to us? It's amazing how vital communication can be to any relationship. If you want to friend dump us, we get it. Things change and maybe we've changed too much.
Did I mention talk to us? It's super beneficial to let us know these things. We're adults. Communication is part of adulting.
I mean, so my feelings are a little hurt at the end of the day that a grown up couldn't talk to me about her feelings. I'm also a little hurt that she feels she can talk to other people about why she won't be my friend instead of approaching me.
But if you're like her and you're caught at a cross roads let me urge you to reach out. It's amazing what a quick chat can do.
I assure you though if you're willing to put in the time and effort most of us will too.