They say you find out who your true friends are after you have kids. That your true friends are the ones who will make space and time for your little ones. They’ll make changes and adapt their lives to fit your new one. I don’t necessarily think that’s true.
I don’t think it makes someone a “bad friend” if they don’t change their lifestyle to work better for your new addition. You are the one that decided on making a huge change, not them
. Now, I’m not saying a good friend will cut off your friendship, completely stop making an effort and/or get annoyed when you bring your kid to their events -that’s a whole different story. But you shouldn’t expect your kidless friends to stop wanting to go out every Saturday night to places that aren’t kid friendly. It becomes your choice to get a sitter and go, or stay home with your baby. Instead of getting all bent out of shape over the whole deal, try and initiate baby friendly plans -if you even care that much. You could also REMIND THEM YOU HAVE A BABY. That’s right -sometime’s our kidless friends just kind of forget. It doesn’t make them bad people, it’s just simply not something they are responsible for thinking about every hour of every day. So when they think about the weekend, they don’t automatically think about working your baby into the plans.
I’ve had my turn on both ends of the spectrum. In one group of friends, we are one of the last ones to have babies. We’ve spent a lot of years making time for our friend’s kids and hearing our fair share of.. “Sorry, we can’t make it, the kids are in bed” and so on. You get the picture. In another group of friends, we are one of the first ones to have babies. We always understood our friends having to turn down weekend plans or events, but it’s still been an eye opening experience to be on this side of things. We are fortunate enough to have essentially unlimited child care, but some days we’re ready for bed at 8pm and most days, the hangover just isn’t worth it.
One day life will come full circle. Your kidless friends will have babies and potentially feel the same way you do now. And maybe at that point, your kids will be at an age where they're having sleepovers at friends houses or even just at grandparents houses. Or maybe you’ll be supporting the neighbour kid by supplying them some extra spending money to babysit for a few hours. You’ll have waited so long for these carefree weekend nights without your kids, that you might start forgetting your other friends now have babies. And if you don’t forget, you might still think… “been there, done that -it’s my turn to party.”
In a perfect world, we would be able to experience the different stages of life at the exact same time as all of our friends. For the friend groups that are lucky enough to have that opportunity, don’t take it for granted. I personally think there is truly nothing more special than being able to experience every milestone with your favourite people. But reality is, that’s not possible for all of us. Try to remember your kidless friends haven't forgotten about you, they are just in a different stage of life right now. And if it’s something you’re really struggling with, the solution doesn’t have to be complicated -talk to them about it!
Sure, the whole “what goes around, comes around” circle might be a lot of years in the making, but don’t forget it will happen eventually. For now just try to take the missed weekends with a grain of salt and the least bit of FOMO possible. Instead, enjoy this time with your babies -they are only so little for so long.
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