When your friends all move to the 'burbs and become unresponsive...

[dgaddis]

The back and forth about time here is interesting.

Last night I wrote this after getting fed up trying for three months and at least ten emails to get a single overnight mountain bike trip planned in August.

One of the guys who can't seem to take two days out of the whole summer away has a stay at home wife and a pretty much full time nanny.

^^That stuff is expensive, he's gotta work his ass off to pay for it!

The crap that sure seems to stress them out can't even loosely be described as a need, though.

No kid needs to grow up in a house with 1500 sq ft per human. There were royals who occupied less spacious quarters.

No kid needs to be on a steady drip of $$$ educational activities as a preschooler. Cello lessons as a three year old? Mandarin group at the community center? Kid's yoga?

No kid needs to go to a preschool that requires an "interview." What does that even mean?

No kid needs to be in the state's best school district. Hell, we could homeschool these kids and have them college ready by age 12.

No kid needs to have a parent food journal everything that goes in their body to confirm the optimal nutritional plan is being executed. We all grew up on Cherios just fine.

These aren't cliches, these are actual examples from friends' lives.

It's endless, and I can see how it's stressful. But none of it is needed.

It sounds like you need new friends anyways....

[j44ke]

I think people need to be less afraid of boring their kids. Most of my best ideas as a kid came when I was bored. Like when my mom said "Go to your room and find something to do." Or "Go out in the backyard for a couple hours." I realize not everyone has a backyard these days. Kids need to go back to being free range, like chickens. Look how happy the chickens are! Kids are the same.

[deano]

Caleb's list does have a point. I say this both as a parent and someone who worked with teens on and off for years.

The cultural messages people send or tacitly reinforce belie particular views as to what the world and living are for ... usually said ideas are based on consumption, competition, insulation from fear and risk, etc. It is insane and possibly culturally suicidal in that it's just not a sustainable way to live - no wonder kids are anxious, afraid, depressed.

It also need not be so (and thankfully not all parents think this way, just like the social divisions that divide people need not be so.). Social divisions exist for a reason, but there's no reason they can't be transcended. One task is to be generous - we lived in the suburbs when we moved to Nashville and it wasn't so bad ... in fact it had its appeal. While not all of the values we observed did we want to instantiate in our family's life, there was as much good as bad. When we moved back to NC we went straight back to our fun old neighborhood... we are the "cool" people in our family circles as far as I can tell and are at times perceived as such - we live in a hip urban area with good food, bike most everywhere, drink fancy coffee, have degrees from and work at elite educational institutions, etc. And yet not all of these values are what we want for our kids, either ... cool, woke, socially conscious, urbane life can be a bit precious, no? And don't even get me started about Duke.

But friendship can transgress the values and ideologies that do this kind of stuff.

[lumpy]

Kids need to go back to being free range, like chickens. Look how happy the chickens are! Kids are the same.

Our chickens were freaking savages. "Pecking Order" is not just a figure of speech.

[davids]

The crap that sure seems to stress them out can't even loosely be described as a need, though.

No kid needs to grow up in a house with 1500 sq ft per human. There were royals who occupied less spacious quarters.

No kid needs to be on a steady drip of $$$ educational activities as a preschooler. Cello lessons as a three year old? Mandarin group at the community center? Kid's yoga?

No kid needs to go to a preschool that requires an "interview." What does that even mean?

No kid needs to be in the state's best school district. Hell, we could homeschool these kids and have them college ready by age 12.

No kid needs to have a parent food journal everything that goes in their body to confirm the optimal nutritional plan is being executed. We all grew up on Cherios just fine.

These aren't cliches, these are actual examples from friends' lives.

It's endless, and I can see how it's stressful. But none of it is needed.

Are you sure you still want to be friend with these people you're so actively judging? Maybe it's not them?


While you consider that, let me offer my own experience going through parenthood: I have never encountered another creature that is so skillfully, guilelessly capable of consuming every drop of energy and attention that I could offer as the small human being my wife and I created. She was adorable, she was helpless, and she was solely her parents' responsibility, 24/7/365.

My daughter turned my life inside out and I can never return to who I was before - When she was six months old, six years old, twelve years old, and twenty-five years old. I will grow old and die as a father. When you become a parent you're transformed. As her parents my wife & I made all sorts of choices in the neighborhood of the ones you listed. Our choices, not yours. We're pretty secure in them.

As far as friends... Well, we chose a lifestyle that we believed accommodated raising a healthy child into a competent adult. It involved things like a reliable bedtime, healthy food at a the dining room table every night, the best schools we could find and friends who shared those values. We lost and gained friends over the years for any number of reasons. Some we chose to shed, some shed us, and others just drifted away.

Interestingly, I've reconnected with more than a few friends from college who we lost track of for a decade or more. Most of them, but not all of them, went through the same kind of parenting lives we did. Their kids are grown and we have more time for each other. That's pretty nice. It's also been nice (with a couple of these old friend) to get to know their kids, now in grad school or residencies here in Boston.

[taylorj]

This is brilliant. I don't have children and so I like to stay out of voicing my opinion about such things. But I find this an interesting and educational post.

Free Range Kids! I love this!

I think people need to be less afraid of boring their kids. Most of my best ideas as a kid came when I was bored. Like when my mom said "Go to your room and find something to do." Or "Go out in the backyard for a couple hours." I realize not everyone has a backyard these days. Kids need to go back to being free range, like chickens. Look how happy the chickens are! Kids are the same.

[dgaddis]

This is brilliant. I don't have children and so I like to stay out of voicing my opinion about such things. But I find this an interesting and educational post.

Free Range Kids! I love this!

There's been studies, TedTalks, podcasts, etc about this very topic.

[robin3mj]

There's been studies, TedTalks, podcasts, etc about this very topic.

Recently read a very good book call The Last Child in the Woods that advocates more unstructured time outdoors.
I try to do this with my kids as often as possible. They may not be able to hike very far (or fast, given their attention span is diverted by every rock, worm, and bug we see) but I firmly believe familiarity at a young age with the outdoors is important.

[m_b_b]

The crap that sure seems to stress them out can't even loosely be described as a need, though.

No kid needs to grow up in a house with 1500 sq ft per human. There were royals who occupied less spacious quarters.

No kid needs to be on a steady drip of $$$ educational activities as a preschooler. Cello lessons as a three year old? Mandarin group at the community center? Kid's yoga?

No kid needs to go to a preschool that requires an "interview." What does that even mean?

No kid needs to be in the state's best school district. Hell, we could homeschool these kids and have them college ready by age 12.

No kid needs to have a parent food journal everything that goes in their body to confirm the optimal nutritional plan is being executed. We all grew up on Cherios just fine.

These aren't cliches, these are actual examples from friends' lives.

It's endless, and I can see how it's stressful. But none of it is needed.

Yeah, none of that stuff is needed. But even if you don't do all of that, it's not like you can just leave the kid at home by themselves and go do something else. I have single/childless friends who used to ask me to meet up on a random weeknight for drinks or whatever. Before kids I could do something spontaneously. Now, even though I don't have to rush my kids to some ridiculous activity, I also can't just plop my 2 and 4 year old in an uber and ask them to make themselves dinner when they get home.

Also, some of that stuff is driven by the kids. My daughter asked if she could do ballet. She tried it with a friend, loved it, and now I have a new weekend morning commitment. So now I'm not as flexible to go ride when I want or to meet others for brunch. But am I going to tell one of the people I love most in the world she can't do something she wants because I need to maintain flexibility? No.

I also just moved out of the city to the suburbs, so now I'm much further from friends. Shortly thereafter, many of them moved as well, but we're still further apart than we used to be. There are economic realities here too. I moved from a place where I would enter a lottery to find out what public school my kids would attend (which may or may not be near my home), then would still have to hire a nanny since school ends between 2-3pm (and my job doesn't). Plus I would be choosing to not own a home while my kids were in school because rising real estate prices meant I couldn't afford to stay in the neighborhood I was living in. Instead I moved to the country, where there are great schools with before and after school programs. Plus now my kids have a yard to run around in. I would have been great if others had moved to the same town, but real estate doesn't always work like that.

The bottom line is that when you become a parent, your kids become the most important thing in your life, and other things fall by the wayside sometimes. It's not personal.

[NYCfixie]

I will try and not repeat what others have said.
- My wife and I chose not to have kids.
- Living in Manhattan/NYC was great because I had friends from childhood and my wife had friends from college who moved there.
- Then many started getting married, having kids, and moving to the 'burbs and we slowly lost touch.
- We decided to move to a 'burb that was one of the most diverse towns in NJ which had many child-free couples like ourselves and a neighborhood of couples with kids but who also liked to party. That meant they would get babysitters and we would go out - locally - so in an emergency they could get home. Mostly Saturday nights but anything during the weekend days was off limits due to kid activities.
- Then we moved to Boston...not the friendliest town so no comment.
- We are at that time when long lost friends have teenage kids who do not need as much oversight and/or are going to college so those relationships are being re-kindled.
- We are also at a time when couples are getting divorced which sometimes makes it even more awkward - who do you choose?

- And last, we are lucky to come from big and very close families (I have 7 siblings and she has 6) so that is great too because at least our siblings think we may -once in a while- be willing to go to a Saturday/Sunday soccer game, kids party, etc, if it means we will get to spend time with our siblings, brothers/sisters-in-law, nieces, and nephews.

Our best advice is to move to an urban area which has couples of similar age to you and do not have kids. These areas tend to be the most diverse neighborhoods but not always with the best school districts because child-free couples do not want to pay high property taxes for no reason.

[NYCfixie]

...I have single/childless friends...

If we are being politically correct, most couples without children would prefer child-free as childless assumes a deficiency in one, the other, or both people (and no, I am not kidding about this one).

[bironi]

I'm of a similar mind as Joni.
Great thread, and a bit surprised by how personal many have been.
Thank you.

[e-RICHIE]

Things stop. New ones start. Orbits collide then retreat then maybe collide again. Who. Really. Knows.

Friends are for life, even when the space is wide. If you're that desperate for company, troll Netflix.

[Saab2000]

I’m another never-kids DINK.

I was a DINK. Now I'm a SINK. Membership in these exclusive clubs has its privileges!

[ZenNMotion]

We don't have kids, and miss old breeder friends. Yeah it sucks, and probably from both sides. I love to cook and feed people, that's a great venue. Except our house is far from kid-proof, and if I'm being really honest, usually too much of a clutter disaster to comfortably entertain. Plus, kids need to be in their own space with toys and routines and maybe occasional brief moments being non- (adult)conversation disrupting kids. So we try a couple of times a month to invite friends with kids over to dinner- at their place. We try to make it easy and cater a big pot of something we've made at home with a couple bottles of wine and schlep it over in the car and eat in Alien territory, instant dinner and gives them a break from cooking and an opportunity for "adult" food. Sometimes the meal goes over well with the young'uns, sometimes not but parents know and are prepared with kids' ever-changing diet preferences from their own cupboard (Cheerios for dinner? really?). Conversations are often captured in brief moments, and often center around the kids- but after all this is our friends' new reality and so we meet them sort of half way and we still get a good dose of what we used to share as well as laugh about the kids, and tsk tsk support about all the challenges of parenthood that we'll never fully understand. Change is hard, friendships take work. On another note, how do you keep track of old friends you used to ride with every week who have more or less given up the bike? Do you bother? What were those friendships really based on?

[Tom]

Karen and I have no children but our constant friends who do we didn't do things with unless we went to their kid's ball games (which were some of the best times ever because our friends didn't give a damn how the game came out and we reveled in kids being kids) or big family get togethers where we aren't family but they invite us anyway and we saw how their whole lives were their children... until the children grew up. Now we get together for music and stuff because they have time. And they must have raised their kids right because the kids like the same music we do and come out if they can get a baby sitter.

But some friends or family drift away as things change. Bedrock connections abide.

[m_b_b]

If we are being politically correct, most couples without children would prefer child-free as childless assumes a deficiency in one, the other, or both people (and no, I am not kidding about this one).

No offense intended here. I referred to myself as childless until I was not, so was not aware of any potential negative connotation. Now I know for the future.

[e-RICHIE]

I never wanted kids.
I married a women who never wanted kids.
We're we never wanted kids people.

[Corso]

Before my first child I raced mountain bikes EVERY weekend, every chance I got throughout New England. A little 'cross too. No distance was too far to drive.

With each child, my racing steadily declined. Until I was down to a few races a season, then zero. I have 3 kids. My weekends slowly evolved into soccer, hockey, figure skating, baseball, lacrosse, music lessons, dance, school activities, dirt bikes, family bike rides, etc. Children are the ultimate Vampires: They suck your time, money, emotions--your life. But you gladly give them all you can.

We drifted from close friends, as everyone seemed to move into new waters, children or no children.

I was recently thinking about friends I haven't seen in a very long time. It happens. Had a crew of around 8 guys I raced with. I only see one of them now. But in my book, a true friend is forever. When you think that "Joe hasn't kept in touch"...well, then again, I haven't called Joe either. It's nothing to get mad or blame anyone for. Only so much time in a day. Week.Month. Year(s).

Racing was replaced by the Pan Mass Challenge and other charity rides. I've raced some 'cross just for fun-(live too close to Gloucester not to) and to remind me I'm far from racing shape. Yeah, someday I'll get back in shape...yeah.

I have a bunch of bikes, none custom. The reason? Kid$. I've put all 3 (my youngest graduates in May) through college. My oldest through Med school too.

We have 3 young adults now. All doing well. Where the F*K did the time go? It's a cliche, but damn, it happened.

Do I have a point here? I guess things just naturally change/evolve. I just happens, our family saying: Go with the flow.

[m_b_b]

Ultimately, I don't think this is about kids. It's just about competing commitments. I've certainly seen the same thing happen when a friend has a new partner. Or a sick relative. Or parents who are no longer independent. Or a new job. It's not necessarily about living in a place that is "urban" or "diverse" versus rural and less diverse - I've had friendships change when living in either environment. I hope others don't judge me for having children (although the term "breeder" feels a bit judgmental, acknowledging that it may not have been intended that way). I also hope they don't judge me for having a job that requires frequent nights and weekends, because that gets in the way of social interaction too. I do try to do my best to not judge friends for the decisions they make, understanding that only they can set their own priorities.

I've had friends drift nearer and further depending on life circumstances, and find that the good ones always drift back eventually.