I mean they really aren't your friends now are they? The relationships are really conditional on your children, not on your own interests and personality. You are basically agreeing that you can no longer have friends, but countering that you can choose to socialize with fellow parents.
I mean, that's pretty dystopian when you look at it unless you really think that raising children is the highest purpose a person can have.
Female friendships also follow that pattern and the loneliness problem is supposed to be smaller for women. The big thing is that having kids really changes a lot - times when you are available, amount of money you have, the sort of acute problems you have in your life.
An adult person with children can not have as much free time as childless one, can not go on longer weekend away as often, can not spend as much time in hobbies.
Children's parents are people you meet naturally, in exact same way you meet collegues of people in se share hobby activity.
>unless you really think that raising children is the highest purpose a person can have.
While I don't think that, what's encoded in your DNA puts that up really high on the priority list. No children = DNA line extinction. Therefore the most likely DNA you see are the lines that put a lot of effort into reproducing.
The particular issue with having children is you've made a commitment. It's perfectly fine to have non-children conditional relationships until there is a conflict of interest between the two groups. If one group says "come out and drink all night" while the other says "teach your children things make sure you provide them a stable environment", you are probably living a life of regret and should not have had children in the first place.
>I mean they really aren't your friends now are they? The relationships are really conditional on your children, not on your own interests and personality.
Is it any different from your "church friends" (contingent to going to church) or your "gym friends" (contingent to going to gym) or your coworkers (contingent on staying at that workplace. i.e. not being laid off or pursuing a better job) who may or may not be friendly? It's how school friends are made, and I'm guessing we all lost contact with many of them upon graduation.
Some may become regular friends outside the activity, many probably won't. But bonding over a common interest seems to be the most common first step, and (for better or worse) "having a child of X age" is certainly a vested interest to bond over.
>I mean, that's pretty dystopian when you look at it unless you really think that raising children is the highest purpose a person can have.
Some may indeed feel that way. But for it being dystopian, I just see it as a way of life. you don't HAVE to make friends with other parents, but it's an avenue that you have that I as a single male would have less access to.
> unless you really think that raising children is the highest purpose a person can have.
No, it's not that, but there are purposes in life aside from social gathering, for which social gathering is a natural side-effect.
Going to school or work is a big example. But it can be more subtle: try sometime, look actively for opportunities to help others. That is, don't try to fix them or their situation, but rather look for genuine opportunities where your skills, resources, or luck puts you in a place where your'e able to do something without great cost to yourself, but which has a massive impact on another person.
> You are basically agreeing that you can no longer have friends, but countering that you can choose to socialize with fellow parents.
wut.
you make friends from the people you're around, not the ideal people you'd like to talk to.
like in HS, where often you were friends with the kids in your classes.
if you're desperate for people just like you then move to get them, or make the effort to find those groups. there is a cost there, in terms of moving, or babysitters, but that is a choice that can be made. otherwise learn to love people for their foibles and make friends with those nearby.
Maintaining relationships is the hardest part. When you are young you don't maintain relationships with friends you see them everyday at school and this is true all the way through college.
Once out of college it is the people inside your routine that are your friends, be it a work or a hobby. Upon having a child your routine changes yet again and will change rapidly as the child grows. It is the difficulty of maintaining relationships through the shifting routine of life that is so difficult.
You need one aspect of your routine that has stability through the change. Mine is physical activity.
Also co-signing, though it involved choosing my friends over the course of the last decade and making an effort to stay in touch, my friend circle has a fair amount of parents and non-parents. Paradoxically, I talk to one of my oldest pals more frequently now, because he logs on to a game after his kids go to sleep and is always happy to party up. We are also pretty distanced from one another, but make the effort to check in with each other so we stay close.
Not saying it isn't hard, and not saying it isn't a challenge at times (I certainly don't see my friends in person as much!) but the idea that having kids forces you to be friendless is absurd.
In the past, lets say baby boom years, almost everyone had kids so the family friction coefficient was very similar between different friends.
But these days it's quite different. We typically don't leave our kids at home alone any more (GenX represent!). There is also a much larger group of people without kinds (DINKs and SINKs) that have far more free time than those with kids. So for them the equation changes.
They have the cost of inviting you and the friction you experience. Or the cost of inviting the childless friends they know. Or the cost of the myriad of entertainment options we have these days.
They're not friends, they're acquittances that I (have to) tolerate.
I don't think my bar is high, or that I'm much of a snob in this respect, but I find other parents insufferable. Were they always like this? Did this happen to them after they had kids? Is it that only those types of people have kids, and I'm in the exception group? Whatever it is, I can not have any fun with them.
For a long time I thought it was me, but then it occurred to me that I shouldn't be able to have fun with non-parents if that were the case. The problem with non-parents is, they're not parents :/ Your lives are just too different, but I _can_ have fun with them!
