How to maintain your friendships after kids : Life Kit

MARIELLE SEGARRA, HOST:

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You’re listening to LIFE KIT…

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SEGARRA: …From NPR.

Hey. It’s Marielle. I think we all understand that our friendships are going to morph somewhat throughout our lives. Like, if you and a friend met in the sandbox at age 3, you’re not expecting to sit around building sandcastles every time you hang out. Though, if you do do that, kudos. That actually sounds super fun. There are few changes as dramatic, though, as when one friend becomes a parent. Suddenly they can’t make plans as often. They’re experiencing a whole new set of stresses, and they may only want to talk about their baby. For the child-free, it can feel like their friend with kids just disappeared into their own world. And for the friends with kids, it can feel like nonparent friends just don’t understand.

MARIAH MADDOX: I would say a lot of the friendships that I held before becoming a mom – I saw how those kind of just transformed.

SEGARRA: Mariah Maddox is a writer, a photographer and a doula. When she had a child four years ago, she was the first parent in her close friend group, and it was lonely.

MADDOX: I sometimes felt like I wasn’t included in plans a lot because, of course, you know, people assume, oh, well, you have a baby. You won’t be able to go out as much or do certain things. I think it’s easy to feel disregarded.

SEGARRA: People without kids often feel the same way. On this episode of LIFE KIT, reporter Emily Siner is diving into how parents can strengthen their relationships with the child-free folks in their lives. She’ll share scripts and creative ideas you can use, and she’ll be speaking primarily to the parents in the room. But if you don’t have kids, you might learn something, too, about how to keep a friendship alive and flexible in different stages of life.

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EMILY SINER: When my son was a newborn, I went to a moms meetup in my neighborhood. It was my first entree into a world of socializing that revolved around kids. It’s a whole thing. I now get invited to many, many toddler birthday parties. There’s family programming at my synagogue, playdates, clothing swaps. It’s nice to have these moments of connection, especially because I know many people feel isolated during this stage. But I also see how this social life that’s easy enough for me to tap into excludes an entire set of close friends – people who I love, but who don’t have kids. It’s sort of like a social silo.

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SINER: Culture writer Anne Helen Petersen has thought about this a lot. She does not have children. And a few years ago, in her newsletter called Culture Study, she asked readers how they showed up for friends without kids.

ANNE HELEN PETERSEN: I think a lot of people were kind of stunned by even the question. I think a lot of the discourse is about how you show up for friends with kids.

SINER: When your friend has a child, there are social scripts. You bring over food. You work around their schedule. You offer to babysit.

PETERSEN: And there was very little discussion of reciprocality just in terms of, OK, how do you make time for your friends without kids?

SINER: What Anne Helen heard from readers was that a lot of people without kids felt ignored once their friends started families. Like, their friends were in this new stage of life and too busy to care about their nonparent friends. But she also heard that people with kids felt the same way. Like, the nonparents were out there having a great time socially and never inviting them to hang anymore.

PETERSEN: That whole entire, like, series of conversations illuminated some hurt that – some unspoken hurt on both sides.

SINER: Overcoming this mutual hurt is a good idea, and not just because of any individual relationship between parents and nonparents. It’s a good idea because friendships and communities are really important. Research shows that people with friends are less likely to suffer from depression and more likely to live longer and healthier. In other words, it’s in our best interest to keep up existing, healthy friendships. And that means we got to stop unintentionally shutting each other out.

JUSTIN KELLOUGH: What I found was guys were telling me like, well, I just thought you were busy, so I didn’t ask. And it’s like, well, I mean, give me a chance to say I’m busy.

SINER: Justin Kellough is a father of two and runs a TikTok account called Parenting Cheerleader. And he brings up our first takeaway. Instead of making assumptions about what your friend wants or allowing them to make assumptions about you, communicate clearly. This is good advice for every single relationship, but especially when you have friends across life stages and assumptions run rampant. You have to be extra intentional about communicating what you want.

KELLOUGH: Like, you have to say, I am busy, but this friendship is important to me. Please don’t give up on me.

SINER: If you have to decline an invitation to hang out, you might even explicitly say, I can’t go to this, but please keep inviting me to things.

KELLOUGH: Or, hey, this next six months is wild. Can we re-circle back up, you know, middle of next year and try and get something going?

SINER: Do you think that friendships can still be maintained at the same level if you’re really having to schedule that far out?

KELLOUGH: I think that friendships that are strong can survive a break, especially when it’s open communication. If they perceive you as you just ghosted them, then yeah, that friendship may not last. But if you just say, hey, listen; the kids are wild right now. I think just being honest because so much of friendships break down because people just aren’t saying what’s actually going on.

SINER: This open communication gives the other person a chance to respond and decide whether this hypothetical six-month break works for them. And if not, we’re going to talk later in the episode about how to find creative ways to maintain a friendship even during the busy seasons. Honesty in friendships can also look like saying explicitly that something the other person did hurt you, and you can say you want to talk about it because this friendship is important to you. Mariah Maddox says think about this kind of communication as an opportunity to deepen the friendship.

MADDOX: I just wish more people, more friends would be willing to have the hard conversations. But I don’t think that people realize that on the other side of those uncomfortable and messy and vulnerable conversations lies an intimacy like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.

SINER: For example, Anne Helen realized at one point that there was a secret text thread among her friends with kids. It was like a subset of her big friend group chat with just the parents. Instead of stewing on it passive aggressively, as some of us might, Anne Helen decided to talk to them about it.

PETERSEN: And I was like, I – like, that makes me feel left out that I’m not on that thread. And they’re like, well, we thought you wouldn’t want to be on it ’cause it’s just, like, pictures of rashes. And I was like, that’s OK. You know, like, you can include me on that.

SINER: Another time, Anne Helen asked if she could support her friend’s child in a school play. Her friend had assumed she would never want to go. But she saw it as a way to deepen her relationship with this friend and child and family that she cared about.

PETERSEN: I think oftentimes parents don’t invite their friends without kids to kid-oriented things because they find those kid-oriented things kind of wild and/or boring. They’re like, why would they want to come to this, like, birthday party of 3-year-olds? When, in fact, all of these things that are ways that you can include someone in that tight focus of the family are meaningful.

SINER: This leads to takeaway No. 2. If you have children, invite friends without kids to be involved in your family life. It’s an active inclusiveness that can reap benefits for your friendship. For example, maybe you have a child-free friend who’s been hanging back a bit. You might assume that they just aren’t into kids. But remember, we are not assuming. So you can say something like, hey, I want to see you more. Would you be willing to come over during a family dinner? If they’re interested, it can be an opportunity to strengthen your relationship and their relationship with your kids. And if it turns out they really just aren’t into kids, we’ll talk later about how to make time for kid-free hangs. Or plan a gathering with a mix of parents and nonparents so you can introduce your friends from different parts of your life to each other.

PETERSEN: Like, this is a way to integrate them into that group of parent friends, right? So that’s not just, like, a weird other world that you talk about sometimes, and that it feels like you’re getting cheated on with parent friends, right?

SINER: Now, this isn’t without its pitfalls. I told Anne Helen I have a vivid memory of being invited to a friend’s house before I had kids, and the whole conversation revolved around potty training. I didn’t enjoy that. Anne Helen says, yes, it’s good to be aware of who’s in the room when you’re having in-depth conversations about parenting. But that’s the case with any group of people and any kind of commonality, whether it’s a life stage or a job or a mutual friend. Just keep the conversation inclusive. Including friends without kids in your family life also means honoring the fact that they have a full life, too. Maybe your friends have come to your baby shower or brought you meals. You can find ways to reciprocate with moments of support or celebration.

PETERSEN: Or, in my case, my friends threw me, like, a really big – a book party, but it could be a birthday or something like that. But it could be a celebration of your friendship, right? Or when someone moves into a new place or, like, things that I think aren’t always celebrated, but deserve to be celebrated. That seems very basic, but it sometimes needs to be, I think, articulated very clearly.

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SINER: OK, so you and your friend have talked about what you both need out of the friendship. Maybe you’ve started breaking down the silo between family and friends. But the fact remains, parenting takes a lot of time. It’s just a logistical challenge to hang out. So Justin says, in order to actively maintain friendships, you have to be more flexible about what it means to connect. For example, a lot of men he knows like to do activities together rather than just talk. But that’s hard for Justin to make time for. So he started scheduling phone calls with a friend every other week.

KELLOUGH: And I don’t love talking on the phone. But because I don’t have time to grab lunch or to go do an activity with them, that’s the best I can do, and it is good. Every time I hang up, I’m like, I’m glad I did that.

SINER: Takeaway No. 3 – get creative about quality time with friends. For Mariah, this meant finding activities where the kids could be present without being too distracting.

MADDOX: So my friendship hangouts turned from being able to go and get dinner late at night, if I wanted to, to inviting a friend over and going for a walk around the neighborhood with my child in his stroller. It allotted us time to catch up while kind of relieving me of any worry of having to find a babysitter or wait until my husband was off of work in order to be able to go out by myself.

SINER: Or maybe you invite a friend to run errands together. Anne Helen has written about the joys of having an errand friend.

PETERSEN: You both need to go to the laundry service. You both need to go to the bank. You both need to go to Target. And that’s easier when you have two people doing it together, and you can, like, stop and get a sweet treat or listen to dumb top 40 radio. Like, it’s just – it’s wonderful. It’s better together.

SINER: I feel like I just, like, want a friend to come over while I’m, like, folding laundry. But that feels like a – I don’t know – like, kind of a presumptive ask.

PETERSEN: No. I mean, you could be like, bring your laundry. Like, you both take your loads of laundry, and you fold them together.

SINER: Anne Helen says this has the added benefit of removing some pressure for your house to look perfect when friends come over. Whether or not you have kids, we should all embrace the unfolded laundry. But not every friendship hang has to be some kind of creative compromise with kids in tow. It is possible to go out to dinner with a friend – adults only, just like old times – but it takes more planning and additional help.

KELLOUGH: For people who have a strong partnership, I think one thing you can do is create what I like to call PTO for parents.

SINER: PTO as in parent time off. That’s takeaway four – schedule parent time off with other people in your life. It could be something you plan ahead with family members or even a babysitter, if you can afford it, or with a partner, like in Justin’s case.

KELLOUGH: Let’s agree, like, OK, one night a week, each of us can bail, and the other one has to manage things. You have one guaranteed night a week where you can go be alone. You can go be with friends. You can go to dinner, whatever.

SINER: And then, Justin says, he and his wife take it a step further. In addition to this one night a week, they also give each other a full day off a month and then a full weekend off at least once a year.

KELLOUGH: Like, you should be absolutely able to go away, visit with friends, visit with family without having to manage children. And each of you get that. I think if you make a structure like that, you’re more likely to do it.

SINER: I love this tip because it’s not about waiting until you’re already drained by the demands of parenthood and then making time to get away from the family. It’s something you’re doing proactively and consistently. By making it a habit, you can fill your own cup and invest in friendships at the same time.

So once we’re all communicating what we need and we’re finding creative and structured ways to make time for friendship, everything should be great, right? Well, not always. Takeaway five is that it’s OK to let friendships evolve.

PETERSEN: Not every friendship has to be forever and for life.

SINER: Anne Helen says different seasons of life bring different configurations of relationships. Whether you’re moving to a new city or starting a new chapter with children, you just won’t maintain the same level of closeness with every friend.

PETERSEN: And so either you can resist that and get angry about it and resentful or look at it head-on and be like, I can’t offer them what they’re looking for in this particular moment. That doesn’t mean I don’t love them. That doesn’t mean I don’t cherish them. It just means that, like, our friendship isn’t working.

SINER: Before you let the friendship go entirely, go back to takeaway one. See if it’s time for some more open communication. Maybe there’s an opportunity for repair. See what happens after you give feedback and do your part to show up. But at a certain point, it is OK to move on.

How would someone know if that is, like, the right step for their friendship with someone?

MADDOX: I think it’s all about just feeling how you feel in that relationship. Do you feel supported? Do you feel seen? Do you feel valued?

SINER: Mariah says when the answer to these questions is no, it’s better for everyone to just take a step back. And she says you don’t have to have a full-on friend breakup. Just let the friendship evolve.

MADDOX: And who knows? Maybe life will bring us back around to each other, maybe not. But it’s all about allowing yourself to just go with the flow of the process.

SINER: Justin has noticed this evolution in the context of group relationships, too. He’s part of a church community that has a lot of families, but he’s noticed how some people try to cling to an old congregation that’s no longer serving them.

KELLOUGH: I’ve seen people have to leave their churches as their kids got older because they didn’t have a youth ministry. And I think you got to be honest. Say, listen; I love this church, but it’s not actually geared towards me, and I can’t be mad at them because they can’t be everything for everyone. I need to find what works for me and my life situation.

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SINER: And yet, Mariah, Justin and Anne Helen all agreed investing in friendships across life stages is incredibly valuable – for one thing, logistically. Justin says he finds it much easier to schedule a hang with someone in a different stage of life.

KELLOUGH: So, for me, my best friendships are sometimes with older guys whose kids have gone beyond, you know, the bedtime routine. And I find myself gravitating to those men because their schedules are way more flexible than mine is.

SINER: But also because of our identity. We are multifaceted people, Mariah says, not just parents.

MADDOX: My friends without kids – they are able to help me live a little, remind me of who I was or who I am outside of just being a mom. Being able to have those people at different stages of life – it just creates a balance all around.

SINER: By contrast, when your whole social life revolves around other parents, it’s easy to get lost in the minutia of sleep schedules and day care options. Anne Helen says your child-free friends will keep you grounded.

PETERSEN: Having someone who is not in the thick of that to say, like, your kid is really kind and loving and curious, and you’re doing a great job parenting, it can kind of remove you from that incredible anxiety of, like, what if I’m not doing everything exactly right, the way that I feel like these other parents are doing?

SINER: Like, giving some perspective.

PETERSEN: Yeah. Like, we are not meant to only be friends with people exactly like us. It doesn’t build character. It doesn’t make us more interesting or curious. Like, we need people who are living life differently.

SINER: So invest in your friendships across life stages by taking these steps. Takeaway one – instead of making assumptions, communicate clearly about what you both want. Takeaway two – invite friends without kids to be involved in parts of your family life. Takeaway three – get creative about quality time with friends. Takeaway four – schedule PTO, parent time off, with the help of other people in your life. And takeaway five – it’s OK to let friendships evolve.

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SEGARRA: That was reporter Emily Siner. For more LIFE KIT, check out our other episodes. We have one on how to make friends as an adult and another on how to prevent burnout when you’re a parent. You can find those at npr.org/lifekit. And if you love LIFE KIT and want even more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org/lifekitnewsletter. Also, we love hearing from you. So if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share, email us at [email protected].

This episode of LIFE KIT was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan, and our digital editor is Malaka Gharib. Meghan Keane is our supervising editor, and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andee Tagle, Clare Marie Schneider, Sylvie Douglis and Margaret Cirino, who helped with production on this episode. Engineering support comes from Ko Takasugi-Czernowin. I’m Marielle Segarra. Thanks for listening.

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