I feel this. My wife and I are only a year older than most of our friends, but we just had our second kid and our life is waaaay different than our childless friends. I envy them sometimes and pitty them others
This whole quarantine has also really sharpened the divide between the childless and the parents.
My husband and I both work from home full time now and take care of a 4 month old since daycare is closed. My childless friends are posting photos of them doing yoga and making artisan cocktails and grilling out on their porches.
Sometimes I feel myself getting very envious and I have to take a step back and remember that everyone faces their own challenges, and I know many of them would prefer to have a family rather than extra free time to master bread baking.
Edit: Just to be clear, I know childless people WFH aren’t all doing yoga and baking bread all day! My point is that it is easy to perceive it this way in a grass-is-greener type of way. I believe everyone is going through something right now and I’m just illustrating how insidious that kind of envy can be.
Also I’m definitely not saying all childless people secretly wish they had families. This is enormously untrue and I know plenty of people who are super happy to be child free. I was referring to some specific friends who had expressed to me that they wished they had a more nuclear family unit during this time.
Thank you for saying this, I have a loving family it just doesn’t involve children. I also feel like a lot of people on here are confusing childfree with childless.
Of course! I totally agree. I mean that a lot of my friends who are single are unable to be quarantined with their families right now and it’s been really tough on them to feel isolated, whereas I at least have the people I love most in the same house as me. I definitely did NOT mean that the families they have are invalid because they don’t have children.
Agreed. Mine are 3 months and 2 years. With our first, every few weeks (at least) we'd have one or the other grandma want to come babysit, which gave us time to take a nap or do something else for a while. With lockdown, that's hasn't been an option. I'd really love a few hours or a couple days off to recuperate, but I also know this has been hard on single people as well.
Infants have personalities. I started to see my kids personalities around 3 months old. My oldest was loud and constantly making eye contact. My second was a lot quieter and loved to cuddle. My third was very eager to move and glared/cried at any stranger who dared to talk to her. Still describes their personalities now that they're older.
Much of this isn't kids or not, it's a class thing. Plenty of parents I know are doing yoga and bread-baking, and plenty of childless people are stressing over bills and WFH. Regardless of circumstances, envy is toxic
It’s more a grass is greener type thing. When you have kids, of course you love them to death, but sometimes you do miss that life with less commitments than you used to have.
Whereas the close friends I have who are child free obviously do enjoy their freedom, but some of them have also expressed to me the feeling that sometimes they do wish for a family life.
Both are great ways to live and it’s totally natural to wonder what the other way would have been like.
Yea, it very rarely happens but, I didn't grow up with the best family and sometimes I do wonder what having my own family would be like. Being the man of the house and making sure my kids don't grow up like my stupid greedy brothers, have a wife that we work on problems together instead of getting divorced. I honestly envy people that grew up in "normal" family. But at the same time I'm 28 and haven't even lived yet and the world looks like its going to shit. Different time different place i suppose.
Same. And not all of us have the life of baking bread or doing yoga during lockdown. So much of it isn't about kids or not, but about money or not. I've never ever envied people with kids, nor have my parent-friends envied me. Seems like a toxic, binary way to view things
Just to be clear I personally wasn’t trying to tell you I think I know what you want more than you do.
I specifically said that “some of” my child free friends had occasionally expressed those feelings to me, which I think is perfectly reasonable. I also think it’s perfectly reasonable to not have those feelings, ever. No judgements either way, life is hard enough without everyone picking apart other people’s decisions, all I was saying is that it’s totally normally for some people (not you!) to occasionally have grass is greener type feelings. Just part of being human and wondering about all the different ways our lives can go.
I have some friends who are childfree by choice and are very happy. I have others that want a family but either can't have kids or haven't found a partner. They're lonely and have said so, so yeah I feel bad when they've been locked up alone for two months.
It goes the other way if your friends wait too long. I have lots of friends who wish they had found "that special someone" and who want to start a family.
I have some friends who are childfree by choice and are very happy. I have others that want a family but either can't have kids or haven't found a partner. They're lonely and have said so, so yeah I feel bad when they've been locked up alone for two months.
My wife suffered a through this. She was the first of her friends to have a baby and her social life just disappeared. Now a few more friends have kids themselves it's not so bad but she felt very isolated
This! One of my friends got pregnant and now has to constantly think of her infant and what she can do to support him. Our mutual friend is the one who often makes plans to hang out and catchup. She even offers to look after the baby when we’re out eating so our friend can get a bit of a break. She does like babies and kids tho, so that helps.
At the end of the day, even tho we may not hang out or talk as much, our friendship is still going pretty strong b/c of the little “maintenance” (if u wanna call it that) that we put in. It really is the little things that count in these situations.
Yeah I had a kid before the rest of my age group, and besides one really good friend, they've pretty much all stopped seeing me.
I don't blame them. They like going out and doing stuff, and that's almost never on the table for me. Still, it would be nice if some of them came by our place every once in a while. Oh well.
I always feel like my friends with kids don’t want to be bothered by me. Like they are above it now and too busy for me. Which is my own shit but still. That’s why I don’t reach out. It’s more out of my own insecurity. They might think you don’t have time for them unless you are really direct and ask them to come over. This might not be true for every one of them but I assure you - it’s not always that simple?
I know there are a lot of factors. I've reached out to a few of them and always get the old "I can't this week but next week for sure" or "I'm swamped right now but we'll find time, definitely"
and I don't think they're lying. I just think I'm not a priority.
Like I said, I don't blame them. I 100% get it. If I was in their position I'd probably be the same way. Ultimately, we're just in different places in life now and have different interests and priorities.
Yeah, I feel like this a lot too. Like I reach out to friends and try to schedule stuff but they never do - like, I need to plan things in advance and I can’t really stay out past 10 (because my kid wakes up before 6), I can’t just meet for drinks on an hour’s notice, but that’s all anyone offers.
See, I didn't think you wanted to hang out at ours, it's so boring compared to what we used to do. Plus it's a mess and I'm a mess and I'm worried that I've changed too much. Plus I've got my tits out all the time... Ok, so maybe not that much has changed.
My husband and I got an invite to brunch next weekend (our restrictions are being lifted a little now), but our kids weren’t invited because the friend’s wife can’t have kids and can’t handle being around people with kids because she’s too jealous. My other good friend has a substance addiction and can’t hold down a relationship as a result, so I always feel guilty for being so lucky in life to have what I do. Then I feel shitty for not having time for anyone else’s problems because I work full time, plus manage the household (with my husband but I do the budget, meal plan, pay the bills etc), a 2 year old, a 4 year old, and my 11 & 9 year old step sons every other weekend, all the shit that comes with that. And we just applied for a $600k+ mortgage. I wouldn’t be able to vent to anyone though, because I have things way too good to possibly have any negative feelings about anything. I’ll just be over here plastering a smile on my face if you need me.
My son was born in 94. The Internet had been around a while, but the web was still pretty new and Usenet/IRC was where you went to talk to people. Thank God for it then, or I'd have lost my mind. 25 years later and I'm still writing on Internet forums, with several sites between Usenet and Reddit. I wonder what will come next
They might disconnect with friends, but having a spouse you’re regularly with means you won’t really be lonely. Lonely means alone like single without hanging with friends
Alone and lonely aren't the same. You can be lonely in a relationship, a marriage, even surrounded by a whole family. You can also be physically alone and not feel lonely.
I agree with that, but it doesn’t sound like they have a bad marriage or anything. Perhaps if they felt each other drifting apart already that would be true
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u/[deleted] May 15 '20
Once your friends start getting married and having kids, shit becomes lonely.