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Why some friendships end after kids come into the picture

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35 points mooreds | 1 comments | 18 May 25 12:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.229s | source
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logicalfails ◴[18 May 25 13:50 UTC] No.44021412[source]▶
This assumes the friendships were established and maintained in an environment that could potentially be friendly to kids. If your friend group is based around hanging out at barbecues at each other's home, or more child-friendly environments, it will be much easier and likely to maintain those friendships VS. friendships built on generally less child-friendly activities, like long-distance cycling, weekend trips to other states/countries, bar-hopping, etc... Friendships are often built within shared social settings. Changing up the terms minimizes the very shared experience your friendship was built on
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rainsford ◴[18 May 25 14:21 UTC] No.44021610[source]▶
I think there's some truth to that, but my experience has been that at least closer or longer-term friendships can adapt to new shared activities because you care about the people more than the activity that first brought you together.

As an example, my close friend group initially bonded over going out to eat at fancy restaurants, bars, and traveling all over the world. When many of them started having kids, our shared activities shifted more towards cookouts at each other's homes, kid-friendly breweries with playgrounds, and trips closer to home where we can rent a big house with things for the kids to do.

I think whether friends can make this transition depends on the depth of the friendship. In my case, most of the group were friends for 10+ years and done a ton of different things together before kids entered the scene, so the strength of the friendship was really activity agnostic at that point. I could see less long-lasting friendships or ones built more around specific activities having more of a challenge navigating the change.

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1. bossyTeacher ◴[18 May 25 15:49 UTC] No.44022231[source]▶
> I think there's some truth to that, but my experience has been that at least closer or longer-term friendships can adapt to new shared activities because you care about the people more than the activity that first brought you together.

It really depends on the people's values and lifestyle, the nature of your change and the degree to which your persona/life changes. If we bonded over vegan activism, and you decide to become a meat eater, it might not work. We bonded over art and now you decide to go live in the mountains as an ermit, might not work. We bonded over living off-grid and now you want to move to the city, might not work. We bonded over travelling and now you can't travel anymore and are stuck in a city with a kid, might not work.

People change over their lives. Your values are not the same as 9-year old you or 17-year old you. Life experiences and choices change you. Just because I was friends with 17-year old you who had a personality and set of values I aligned with, does not mean that I need to be friends with 40 year old you. 17-year eco activist turned homebody money-obsessed 40 year old man or 25 year old athlete turned into exercise-avoidant 50 year old man.

There is no soul or magical core to like here. The only thing that links you to your past selves is a memory of shared experiences