C/D: Friends with Babies

In the past two months, many friends have had babies, and I can't help but feel like I'm repressing my true feelings to them, which are:

I don't care about your baby, and I wish you hadn't been so selfish as to effectively end our friendship for your egotistical experiment.

i have high hopes for this thead.

That said, the repression will continue, and yes, I will be making two sets of friends dinner over the next week so they can focus on their new babies.

But my true feelings remain:

I don't care about your baby, and I wish you hadn't been so selfish as to effectively end our friendship for your egotistical experiment.

good thing about friends with babies is that you don't have to see lots of them if you don't want to because they now have a baby and no longer have lives

but if you want to see them you can make the effort

https://live.staticflickr.com/3424/3192435737_6d81f4bb88.jpg

this is a test and I hope you are using a number two pencil instead of black ink

calstars, i just read your posts on the Children in Bars thread.

i am personally in favor of mandatory drugging of children under the age of four before bringing them on airplanes.

omg i entered this situation for the first time about 3 weeks ago

visited them the other day, it was cool, i held satsumas before the baby's face and made loads of unhelpful suggestions

commiserations table

I have several friends who've disappeared over the last couple of years because of babies.

I'm not mad at them, though, any more than friends who've moved across the country or just occupy a different place in life than I do/we used to (ie my friends who married into money and now occupy a different wealth strata). And I hope they're not mad at me for not particularly wanting to hang out around a couple of infants or my inability to pop off for a two week vacation.

Seems like every decade milestone birthday for me has been spent with an entirely different group of friends so maybe I'm just overly comfortable letting relationships wither until they're just the occasional check-in (or less).

yeah. only have a few friends i've seen on a continuing basis for the past ten years or so.

(part of this is kids and part is economic and social stuff, obv.)

your friends' dogs and cats feel the same way ;_;

i'll take their dogs for them. my girl needs more friends.

another stupid fucking thread, we are all big babies.

uh oh, someone has a baby

At this point in my life I'm thankful to have a decent set of friends who don't have kids and don't appear to be planning on it.

For my friends who have kids, at least I get to sometimes feel magnanimous and mature by helping out (and then going home to a peaceful house).

love friends with babies, love the friends, love the babies.

im the guy who goes to their place and makes brunch and plays with the kids while they can sleep or shower or just sit staring at the wall

ppl think this means i want babies like im fuckin blind or something these babies have ruined my friends lives wtf

At this point in my life I'm thankful to have a decent set of friends who don't have kids and don't appear to be planning on it.

For my friends who have kids, at least I get to sometimes feel magnanimous and mature by helping out (and then going home to a peaceful house).

― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, October 8, 2019 4:57 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this a million times. it's just that so many of my friends here are straight, whereas in the last place i lived for more than a year or so, most of my friends were queer.

i never realized how fucked up i'd feel about it, or how weirdly resentful, until now. l

My friends don’t have babies. They have grandchildren.

xp surprised you have any friends at all tbh

friends with retirement benefits

aw mookie

This thread is weird because my best straight friends with kids insist on having me over all the time for drinks and dinner, with or without kids.

Meanwhile its my older queer friends settling down without kids who become hermetic.

As my intimates know, I'm not a person programmed for children or tolerating children, yet I've inspired my best friend to ask me to be the godfather of his child and I have two nieces whom I see often and love. I have non-Hispanic friends whom I see around the country several times a year. Not once has any of them become smug, hermetic, or acted as if I had to love their children. Quite the opposite: they apologize, accommodate, and know that they're the ones with a guest.

So, tabes...I'm sorry? Maybe these people weren't as close as you thought?

Adulthood is friendship's greatest test.

In my experience friends meeting the love of their lives and getting married seems to be the biggest cut off point. But what do I know? I'm a dad.

I don't care about your baby, and I wish you hadn't been so selfish as to effectively end our friendship for your egotistical experiment.

If this was a poll, this is how I'd vote

The problem isn't the baby, it's table's relationship with his friend.

and if you're a musician over, say, 28, babies will kill off the remaining bands that marriages somehow failed to kill

if you dont have kids i dont want to hang out with you. kid gang all day

you all are so young

we really aren't

Alfred, i think it's my friends' relationships with their friends. if yr so willing to just chuck people you've known for years and years to the side because you've had a kid, then that's on you, not me or "the relationship."

i do know some parents who come out of the first few years a lot wearier but certainly pretty social and interested/interesting, but these are the exception to the rule.

lol

Alfred, i think it's my friends' relationships with their friends. if yr so willing to just chuck people you've known for years and years to the side because you've had a kid, then that's on you, not me or "the relationship."

You misunderstood me or I was unclear. If your friend sours on you, it's his/her problem, not the kid or on you.

Also, remember: any parents with a child need a while, often months, to sort themselves out. It's difficult accommodating a strange life with no feelings who cries all the time.

I have trouble maintaining friendships with non kid having g friends largely because work + family just consumes so much of my time and whatever socializing I do kind of just needs to be at birthday parties or across the street at the playground or maybe the occasional brunch. Most childless friends (to no fault of their own) are not really down for the kinds of activities I can handle these days and also (again to no fault of their own) are just on a different sort of wavelength in terms of scheduling and planning needed, times that work for hanging out, etc. I mean it’s really hard to even do the kind of “just hanging out” for long stretches unless the other person has kids who will keep my own kids busy. So I default to other people with kids and I can’t handle late Monday night karaoke or weekend weed sessions.

There’s a good dear prudence column about this, being gay and mourning the loss of friends because they decide to have kids, fwiw

unless the other person has kids who will keep my own kids busy

My parents' social lives unfolded this way. The assumption was that the kids will run off and play in the basement (or wherever) while the adults drank and talked and played bridge (or whatever).

That model has mostly not worked for us, partly because I have an intellectually disabled kiddo who is simply not on the same wavelength as kids his age. Firstly, he needs way more supervision; and secondly I don't always know how other kids will react to him.

Maybe it'll be different some day, but for now "why don't you kids go off and play" has never quite worked for us.

I am not by any stretch of the imagination a 'babies' person. The last friend who asked me to hold their baby (without any kind of instruction or management, mind you), IS2G that baby reacted so instinctively negatively towards me that it wiggled out of my arms to the floor, and I was accused of dropping the baby. Babies are seriously not something that should be left around me. I am not for them; they are not for me.

I know a few straight friends with babies. I know more lesbians / queer AFABs / trans men / Enbies with babies. It's a thing.

However, watching friend groups and social 'scenes' over the years, I have noticed that once babies start arriving, the gestational partners (meaning the AFABs) start quietly disappearing from that scene, but the cis men stay. So whether by accident or intention, removing babies from any social event (or making social events baby-free by accidental design, such as holding them late at night, in a club with an age limit) is an inherently misogynist position. Until we live in a fairer society, banning babies means banning AFABs.

It's quite elucidating, how many *queer* AMABs will reveal their misogyny (or lack thereof) completely openly, in public this way.

The last friend who asked me to hold their baby (without any kind of instruction or management, mind you), IS2G that baby reacted so instinctively negatively towards me that it wiggled out of my arms to the floor, and I was accused of dropping the baby.

i lolled

when I was in my 20s I hung out w/ kids way more often, I miss it! actual babies are often boring but their parents, when they don't shut down completely, can become groupchat mvps ime. the monstrosities of the nuclear family obv won't be tackled through more selfish whining, but it feels good and this is ilx. most ppl are at their most boring between 30-50 & having a kid is less heinous than having a career imo

i became a dad in june last year and i'm so relieved to never have to see my friends anymore tbh, it's easily the best thing about parenthood, a+ would recommend

i v much enjoy children and their work but i can absolutely understand people who hate them

oh holding babies makes me super nervous and I haaaate it when people just shove their baby at me without asking (not that there is a polite non-awkward way to say no) or telling me how to hold it or arranging it in my arms, like "oh you're a woman*, you'll know how to hold this fragile precious wriggly thing and not have all the articles you've ever read about how fragile baby skulls are or how you need to have the neck at the exact right angle flash through your mind except devoid of the bit which says what that exact right angle is"

(* ok, ok, possibly just "oh you're an apparently more-or-less-functional adult human being, surely everyone knows how to do this")

most ppl are at their most boring between 30-50 & having a kid is less heinous than having a career imo

can concede that I am extremely boring and didn't even manage to have kids or a career :(

My two closest friends both became fathers relatively late in life (when they were in their 40s), whereas I've happily stayed childless. It was one of the motivating factors behind my move from London to Glasgow - I could see that they would have a lot less time (and energy!) to hang out, and I didn't want to find myself resenting that, or their kids. What I really like now is when I visit them in London and my pals tell me how good I am with their kids - being an uncle is the best of all worlds imho!

I am internally mildly disappointed to very disappointed when I have friends that decide to have a baby after many, many years of being vocal about not having kids. People change their minds, I get that. I once thought about having a kid after seeing that awesome baby on Series of Unfortunate Events. Just in the last five years, most of the women seemed to have changed their mind because they were pressured by family or money. I had a roommate who was always complaining that her dad helped her brothers and sisters buy apartments only because they had kids and two years ago decided to get in on that deal. I very much appreciate my friends that do not have kids.

Adulthood is friendship's greatest test.

pretty much - you lament that having kids takes you out of the scene for a while but you slowly come to realize that scene doesn't really exist anymore. my group of friends has sort of splintered off and mutated and a lot of my favorite people have become reclusive. of course having kids changes you too, I don't really identify much with non-parents anymore. I mean I'll gladly hang out with y'all but my life is so different.

Xp

That doesn't seem like a good reason to have kids but maybe you don't need one. I was conceived by accident by a couple of irresponsible teenagers and I turned out... oh wait

I do get the feelings of disappointment when friends have kids but I know it's just from a selfish place and my friends' kids are pretty cool tbh. It's not like I am that sociable these days to miss the dazzling social life we could be having instead

I probably should clarify that the disappointment partially comes from me thinking that it's still currently and generally a bad deal for women to get married or have kids. So I agree with branwell's sentiment. I have another friend that is now considering a child too. It's all pressure from the family right now because she's going to be 40 soon.

i am so, so delighted by a big sam reference itt

There is a certain sonic frequency above which I don't like hearing the human voice ... unless it's like, someone singing opera. Once a child's voice descends below that frequency/pitch, I am okay spending time in their presence.

otmfm, that shriek sends me running. even the gurgles of a happy baby send me running because i know that shriek is literally 2 minutes away.

yes, but enough ppl on ilx hate themselves so …

yeah p sure this was where I found out that anyone who had kids after the year 1980 is probably a sociopath

2020 Democratic presidential primary

i live in the breediest breedery in the united states, utah, and i'm surrounded by people who dedicate their entire lives to the importance of breeding and have formed a religious cult for furthering that mindset. even not in utah it's still pretty much the majoritarian default. so i for one am very grateful for (a tiny handful) of voices here that (occasionally) push back and make the ethical case for not-breeding and argue that it's good, actually, because the overwhelming current of the mainstream can make it difficult to keep upright in the eddy of not-breeding without some additional strength and support.

People understandably confuse the advocacy of not breeding with hating your nieces, nephews, godchildren.

oh god, Mormons and breeding ....I had a friend in high school (he was the oldest kid in his Mormon family) and doing the math, his mom must have been constantly pregnant/breeding for 18 straight years.

yeah. maybe. but to my way of thinking, "I don't care about your baby, and I wish you hadn't been so selfish as to effectively end our friendship for your egotistical experiment" or "anyway children should be gestated by paid workers and raised communally" are not great examples of making "the ethical case for not-breeding". They seem, I don't know, sort of shallow when considered as ethical arguments.

well yeah, they're first steps. i was referring to sic saying that having babies after 1980 is sociopathic. also this for more context and depth: https://www.comatonse.com/writings/2017_deproduction.html

Remember to take a moment to welcome ex-congressman (R) Sean Duffy's 9th child into the world.

that's not my ethical case against breeding, that's my political program. my ethical case against breeding is that it is cruel to create an alive person

I've forgiven my parents for having me, but barely

I was born before 1980, so my parents are cool

i would be down for gestation to occur completely without the requirement of a woman's body. But if they want to get paid for it, I am fine with that too.

I missed what happened in 1980 did they outlaws antibiotics or summat?

desire and raising children have been the organizational principles of civilization since time immemorial, there is no shortage of deep ideological backing for the concept of raising children. choosing not to go that way needs more of a coherent solidarity imo. perhaps less based on "having kids is awful" and more based on "the concept of family needs to expand beyond blood roles and into experiential relationships," perhaps fostered by things like silby's political program.

XP Ordinary People came out, iirc.

it takes a paid ass village

I've forgiven my parents for having me, but barely

guys i'm sure sic has a very particular reason for choosing that year i mean he hasn't let me down yet

lol thanks bb

maybe it will be like the military where entering into this program will be a way for more people in the US to obtain affordable healthcare.

on "the concept of family needs to expand beyond blood roles and into experiential relationships," perhaps fostered by things like silby's political program.

this would benefit parents too

everyone

Will silby accept a moderate position, it’s fine to make babies it’s just unacceptable to let them live to be adults

I would accept babies if they grew up to be Nude Jake Gyllenhaal

You just have to purchase a lottery ticket like the rest of us.

No see once you’ve had a baby it’s a person and we have to take care of them

heh this reminds me of conversations with former middle school teachers, who, in their darker moments, thought that between the ages of 11 and 13, all children should just be put on a jungle island and left to their own devices Lord of the Flies style ... because those are the worst ages to try and teach.

I would accept babies if they grew up to be Nude Jake Gyllenhaal

i'm all for publically supported group childrearing as long as the budget includes earplugs and xanax

my sil offered to be a surrogate for our baby because she loves being pregnant??? But I had to tell her that it wouldn't solve the problem of not actually wanting the baby.

hah

i'm all for publically supported group childrearing as long as the budget includes earplugs and xanax

― cheese canopy (map), Thursday, October 10, 2019 12:17 PM (one minute ago)

we kinda have that already though -- it's called "school" -- and earplugs and xanax? Damn, some of our teachers have to buy their own paper!

haha

actually, I have friends who teach kids who would be stoked to get free xanax tho

a chicken in every pot, a xanax in every baby

a chicken in every baby, pot and xanax in every parent

a baby in every chicken, a booming market for soylent green futures

a Nude Jake Gyllenhaal in me

lock thread, we’ve cracked the case

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/29/article-0-0B613BC900000578-752_468x463.jpg

He was born in 1980.

https://media.giphy.com/media/DPTnk0oIJaibe/giphy.gif

I see the passion never died.

does it ever?

I've got little kids - yeah it was hard for me to go out for a matter of months per child - but I think it depends on the friends. A couple of mine (with no kids) just dropped off the face of the earth once we had kids. Loads of texts trying to get them to come out but we were just no longer on their radar.

Getting to the age now where friends who are parents to young kids also have caring responsibilities to their own parents (dementia, health problems etc).

v. self-centered for people to have ailing parents without consulting their friends, who may not be into it

I admit to having "my people!" thoughts when I meet people my age (mid-40s) who do not have kids. There aren't that many of us!

there aren't that many of period. Gen Xers sandwiched between two much, much bigger generations.

many of US