After writer Mariah Maddox gave birth four years ago, she was surprised by how lonely she felt. She was the first person among her close friends to have a kid, and her friends without children seemed to be leaving her behind. "I sometimes felt like I wasn't included in plans," she says.
It can be tough to maintain adult friendships after kids come into the picture. If you're a parent, you might assume your child-free buds aren't interested in your new life. If you're not, you might assume your parent friends are too tired or busy to hang out.
If you want to keep your relationships intact, regardless of where you fall on the kid divide, lean into communication and compassion, says culture writer Anne Helen Petersen. While she is not a parent, she maintains close friendships with many who are.
"We are not meant to only be friends with people exactly like us," she says. "It doesn't make us more interesting or curious. We need people who are living life differently."
Maddox says her social circle has changed since giving birth. But the child-free friends she has now are especially important to her. "They remind me of who I was, who I am outside of being a mom," she says. "It creates a balance."
Here are four common reasons why it's challenging for some parents and non-parents to stay friends — and how to address them so your relationships grow even stronger.
Reason No. 1: We assume our friends don't want to hang out
If you don't have kids and are wondering whether your friend who just had a baby has the time or energy to hang out, don't presume the answer is no. Ask them, says Justin Kellough, creator of the TikTok account @parentingcheerleader and author of the book You're Not a Bad Person, You're a Parent!. "Give me a chance to say I'm busy."
In return, friends with kids should give their answer clearly, even if it's to say they don't have the bandwidth. Kellough says it's fine to say, "Hey, these next six months are wild. Can we circle back in the middle of next year and try and get something going?"
On the flip side, parents shouldn't assume their child-free friends wouldn't want to come to family-focused events, Petersen says. "The parents think it's a kindness, and the people without kids think it's an exclusion."
In fact, Petersen says, the invitation — to a child's birthday party, school play or family dinner — allows people without kids to develop deeper connections to their parent friends and their families. If they aren't interested in attending, that's fine. They can always decline.
Reason No. 2: We exclude some friends from the conversation
When you're in a mixed-group hangout, make sure the discussion includes both parents and non-parents, Petersen says. Otherwise, the person on the outside will feel like they don't belong.
Petersen recalls being with a group of friends who were all talking about their birthing plans. "They were so invested and enthralled by this topic. And I was like, 'I have nothing to contribute.' "
The next time you're talking with a mix of parents and child-free folks, pay attention to the balance of topics in the conversation. For example, if there's too much talk on potty training or summer camps, change the subject to something that more people have in common.
Reason No. 3: We only want to hang out like old times
After kids, your gatherings may look different from what they used to be, and that's OK, Maddox says. Remember, the goal is to spend time with each other.
For child-free folks who want to hang out with parents and their kids, Petersen says to be flexible. Parents may not be able to leave their children at a moment's notice. So think about activities you can easily do together with kids in tow, like doing chores or running errands.
"You both need to [do] the laundry, go to the bank, go to Target," she says. To make it fun, "you can stop and get a sweet treat or listen to Top 40 radio."
Parents can also ask their child-free friends to join them in their family's daily routine. Instead of going out to dinner, which can be a logistical hurdle, Maddox started "inviting a friend over and going for a walk around the neighborhood with my child in his stroller."
This doesn't mean that every outing now has to include children. But adult-only events generally require some advance planning so the parents can coordinate child care. For Kellough, child-free hangs are so important that he and his wife plan "parent time off" — what he calls PTO — once a week.
Reason No. 4: We shy away from hard conversations
If you feel ignored or unsupported by a friend in a different phase of life, bring it up directly. It may end up strengthening your relationship, Maddox says.
When Petersen discovered that her friends with kids had a separate group chat that excluded the non-parents, she felt left out. But instead of giving in to "passive-aggressive impulses," she says she brought it up to her parent friends. It led to a productive conversation that addressed some of her hurt and gave her more of the connection she was craving.
On the other hand, these hard conversations may expose that you and a friend may be growing apart. "It's OK to recognize we're not the same people we used to be," Maddox says. "Our friendship isn't going to be the same."
Just let the relationship evolve, Maddox says, and maybe life will bring you back around to each other in the future.
The podcast episode was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. The digital story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
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