C/D: Friends with Babies

yes OTM I find it difficult enough to cling on to our one myself, shoving them into the hands of someone who may or may not be willing seems foolhardy

v much appreciated not being asked to hold the baby when i visited the other week

imagine judging people for having kids

jesus do some of ye hear yerselves sometimes at all i wonder

people judge one for having kids or not having kids. welcome.

I like holding babies

i couldn't eat a whole one

imagine judging people for holding kids

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I was once watching my friends' toddler while they went paddleboarding and another couple with a toddler came over to play (I was like, oh no this is worse than forced interaction at the dog park) and they kept asking me all these questions about the child that I had no clue how to answer and I felt like such a kidnapper.

you should have just made up a bunch of bullshit answers - 'this is bort, he's 16 but looks a lot younger. he likes eating brass buttons and his favourite friends cast member is gunther'

You ever like voluntarily pick up a baby you know, or in some way entertain it and hold its attention, and its parent immediately teleports to an inaccessible pocket dimension for exactly two hours

how the hell did you find out about the pocket dimension

whenever I used to visit my parents, my brothers would automatically teleport over and mysteriously leave all the kids (5) for the entire day. My spouse would put in a good two hours of pillow fights and twister and then disappear into a well.

xxp youtubes of paul merson volleys while they bawl confusedly

re: original post: that may be your true feeling but IMO it's a pretty selfish and dick feeling.

I used to be very uncomfortable holding babies and definitely don't think it's a good idea to just pass one off to anyone, but enough friends have had kids now where I'm starting to get the hang of it. Why, just the other night I said "do you want me to take him?" for the first time.

Holding babies is terrifying.

hey lemme yeet that baby real quick

my dumping facebook has done far more to cut me off from old friends than their decisions or not to have kids has done. i'm also extremely introverted though and so are many of my friends, i have friends i never see but mostly because i hate leaving the house and they hate leaving the house. every couple months we say "we should totally get together" and then don't.

my experience with my friends who have had kids is that for the first couple years or so the life is all about that child and after that, you know, it's important but one gradually does regain a life outside of the child. i don't think there's anything wrong with becoming monomaniacal on a single topic for several years on end, but then i'm biased.

yes, kids will destroy your friends' social lives. But so will a moisture meter for their houseplants. Got to keep those spreadsheets up to date.

imagine judging a baby

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lmao at referring to having kids as an "egotistical experiment", being a parent tramples on any sense of ego you might've had and it's not an "experiment" if it (hopefully) lasts a lifetime

The main divide among my friends with young kids seems to be whether hanging out with them completely revolves around looking at & talking about said kids, vs having at least a desire/intention to talk about other things. Sure, the kids take a lot of attention, no big deal. But most of our close friends at least want to keep up our relationship on some level.

(there are definitely a few couples that have fallen into 100% babyland, but they're the exception, and we didn't have the closest relationships beforehand anyway)

I was impressed at my cousin's baby's skill at playing fetch when I was younger.
They just bring their object of desire right back to you, you don't have to train them to drop/give like a dog.

Sucked at tug of war, though. No jaw strength at all.

got to be honest all my kids were accidents i'm not sure there was good experimental method

imagine judging a baby

that particular baby's a gentleman's 6/10 at best tbh

imagine judging a baby for having parents

i have friends i never see but mostly because i hate leaving the house and they hate leaving the house. every couple months we say "we should totally get together" and then don't.

I don't know if this is replicable for everyone, but we have hosted a small potluck for friends at our house every week for the last 10 years, same weeknight & time. I cannot recommend it highly enough as people get older, so that they can plan around it and come when they're able. Otherwise it would be impossible to keep scheduling dinners/brunches on weekends or whatever, and we wouldn't see anyone for weeks or months, I'm sure.

Granted, kids rarely make appearances, although one friend is going to start coming again with the baby I think. But it's a great way to keep up with your friends without kids.

children thrive on the incoherent tapestry of a potluck meal plate

bg i judged yr baby a 9/10 fwiw, the dropped point is for not having demonstrated sufficient interest in my puns

thx 4 feedback, i'll pass that along and ask her to seriously consider bucking up her ideas

We'd consider having a kid if we had a modicum of job stability and the slightest inkling as to where we'll be in five years.

ok ILX "rate my offspring" thread needs to happen

what could possibly go wrong

low ratings

time was a good ilx review could launch a baby's career. of course the next could also end it.

One friend (the most baby-centric of them all) has already launched her baby's modeling career. So really they pay for themselves.

whenever people are like "they're growing up too fast!" i always think to myself "not fast enough tbh"

the friends come back into rotation when their kids grow up a little, you just have to tough it out for like A DECADE
which is hard!!

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

My band is still together, the three oldest members have kids (now ranging from kindergarten to high school). In my observation they miss more gigs, often drink more because they're out of the house having solo party-time, and appear to enjoy 4 hour drives a lot more than they used to. Obviously they have very understanding partners.

Personally I'm in way more bands now than I was in pre-kids.

But yeah it takes a lot of consideration of what my partner's up to. And I'm constantly monitoring how many Husband Points I have saved up before I agree to a practice or gig or side project. For example, I handle all morning stuff (breakfast, lunch-packing, getting people on buses). We also make sure to build in reciprocal time / space for her extrahouseular activities.

So far it's working out, and I know how to ramp down if it looks like it may become a problem.

i recall going on some kind of dumb moral crusade on a similar thread years ago but nowadays *shrugs* table i get what you are saying

And I'm constantly monitoring how many Husband Points I have saved up before I agree to a practice or gig or side project

tbf this is how I operate without kids

it's true that friends vanish when they have babies.

i occasionally say "Seeya in 18 years!" and they think it's a joke.

this thread is making an excellent case for procreation

...along w/ your kids hating you for the hellscape they will live through.

if you plan to abandon support for your kids at 18 years, they probably aren't changing your life much before then

but kanye has a song, i get it

tbf this is how I operate without kids

Right, plenty of kidless folx vanish into gaming, LARPing, competitive cycling, booze, etc.

They either make the deals they have to vis-a-vis their partners or they don't.