I’d like to offer a different perspective on being child free and friendships with people who have kids. My husband and I are childfree by choice, but the majority of our friends have young kids. I love hearing about what their kids are learning and achieving, funny things they’re saying, and hanging out with them. I also want to hear about the struggles my friends are going through. This is part of a relationship, and I care deeply about my friends even if I can’t relate in the way another parent could at that moment. I want to be there to support my friends where they’re at, and my parent friends are deep into being parents. I want to cheer them on and celebrate the good and support in the hard times, just like I would with any other thing my friends are going through. I find though, that often my friends don’t seem to believe me when I offer help or driving kids around, dropping off medicine for a sick kid, and then not being a parent it’s hard for me to know if I am being helpful or not. Weird balance and change to relationships, but I guess what I’m saying is to give your childfree friends a chance to be involved in your life as a parent instead of immediately going to the thought that you’re boring them. Yes, there will be some like that, but there are others like me :)
I found my family closing ranks after my kids. We already had a hard time sustaining friendships, but kids, COVID and our own anxieties and insecurities made it impossible to think of anything beyond our family unit. It’s a hole I’m trying to climb out of, so the timing of this couldn’t be better. ♥️
Katie, I've been thinking about this essay all day, since I first read it on my phone earlier this morning. You've put into words -- yet again! -- something that I've been tossing around in the back of my mind, but haven't been quite able to find the words for, for a while. It's that feeling of "yes, I'm not as ambitious as I used to be, and I feel fine about it." Having children has changed me probably more than I realize, and I do feel the same sort of contentment about it -- I love being a dad, and a stepdad (I'm both, actually), but I do see in myself that I don't strive for things, especially career achievement, the way I used to before I had a family.
Do you remember the Julia Roberts movie "Eat, Pray, Love," based on Elizabeth Gilbert's book? Especially the scene near the end of the movie, when Javier Bardem plays the father of a son, and just looks at his son and tears come to his eyes? That's the way I feel regularly about my kids, and I know I've been changed by that in ways I probably am barely aware of. There's one other thing about this, especially for men who've become fathers -- being a dad allows us to open up emotionally in a way society really doesn't allow men to much in other areas of our lives, that I think parenthood is freeing in a way for us that it probably wasn't for men in earlier generations.
Last year, my wife and I went to a small concert just outside Atlanta (at the Red Clay Music Foundry in Duluth), when Radney Foster was performing. He played a song I'd never heard before, called "Godspeed," which he wrote about his son after he and his then-wife had divorced. As I listened to the lyrics, tears started streaming down my face, almost involuntarily. I'd of course known how much I love my kids before, but the song reminded me of it all over again how powerful that love and that experience really is.
(Okay, I should probably stop writing now before I get too emotional again!) Love, love, love this essay.
I was not ready for this. “Our personalities have dimmed a little...” I don’t know who I am anymore and I was grieving something—that until I read your essay—I could not define. That’s a whole other thing... I feel small and invisible most days, just an old man walking his dog who is also old. Most days are ... wasted... anyway, I didn’t mean to share that but it helps me think through it all. Covid is not over even if the virus subsides, it upended everything...
I’m an unwilling grandfather... my grandkids (4, 21/2, 2) are great but I wasn’t ready and not sure I would have ever been... being a parent was an easy, welcome transition for me, but from parent to grandparent... hard AF and still not there... I feel like I’m part of the audience instead of the band... still processing but unlike parenthood, there are looming deadlines... 😬
"My life feels smaller." Yesss!! So beautifully said. Covid (among other things) has made our lives smaller. We've let go of the parts of us who used to enjoy larger crowds. Instead, we have retreated into the more intimate parts of our lives.
OMG! yet again, you hit on a topic that I have and still do live through, but slightly opposite. When all my friends and even my older sister were having kids, I felt like an imposter for not having children. I felt judged and that everyone thought I hated kids (not true). What you think you see through other's eyes is not always what is happening. I would get annoyed when someone would say 'well you don't understand because you don't have kids'. That's true but that doesn't mean I don't understand priorities and where they need to be placed. It made me feel like I was doing something wrong or that I was being viewed as someone who had endless freedoms, which tbh, in some ways is true but in other ways is not. I guess it comes down to empathy and compassion. Life is hard. Find your support crew and shut out the noise. You are seen as a compassionate, loving, caring human. Don't ever sell yourself short on that. xo
What’s exciting? Everyone has exciting moments in different ways. One who gets excited by a falling leaf may be happiest of all. Wow. I’m like, so zen.
Hi Katie! I'm a new reader but your work really resonates with me. And I'll say as a childless person, your childless friends have probably felt the flipside of your insecurities even if they don't regret not having kids. ("Who am I to complain...not raising a kid," "I haven't had a Life Event in wahile..." etc.) And I promise, more of them might like hearing the details of your kiddo's life than you think. And I'll say this: "she may have been more enviable, but she wasn’t as happy." Well then she wasn't enviable, was she? The happiness is what it's all about.
I am so glad you are feeling content. I do want to say that I am a childfree person who absolutely loves hearing about and interacting with my friends' kids. I know that isn't everyone, but please do not assume that childfree people are not interested in hearing about your kid!
Sharing my perspective as a person with 3 decades of parenting. My kids are 30 & 24.
Cass will recall the ‘moments’ with you and your chosen community, not the square footage of the home. Instilling curiosity and creating memories of adventure doesn’t require travelling to exotic places. It can be taking public transit to ‘discover’ new places nearby. Camping in the home or garden. Taking your lead from their interests, you can support Cass learn and practice the skills and confidence to be able to identify what they want/like, and plan to achieve it, celebrating each step in the process. Then, Cass can take the ‘bigger trips’ independently in the future, if they choose to.
As you said, parenthood is a transformative journey. My journey has been, and continues to be, fighting my anxious mind from controlling my kids in my effort (PERCEPTION ) to protect them. I also BATTLE with my instincts to compare my parenting choices and my children to others.
I am now striving to listen and communicate with intention so my children feel deeply loved, accepted and safe to be themselves. Not who I or society think they should be. This is not easy as I must address my anxious and perfectionist thinking constantly. Thus the personal transformative journey. It is the realization that I am continuing to evolve and I am learning to accept that I am human and incapable of being perfect.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, thoughts and vulnerabilities with us. I truly hope the responses show you are not alone. ❤️
You've got a great group of supporters here! Which means you are adding value to other persons lives through your own lived experience. What trip/event/happening can top that?
Love your writing, Katie!
I’d like to offer a different perspective on being child free and friendships with people who have kids. My husband and I are childfree by choice, but the majority of our friends have young kids. I love hearing about what their kids are learning and achieving, funny things they’re saying, and hanging out with them. I also want to hear about the struggles my friends are going through. This is part of a relationship, and I care deeply about my friends even if I can’t relate in the way another parent could at that moment. I want to be there to support my friends where they’re at, and my parent friends are deep into being parents. I want to cheer them on and celebrate the good and support in the hard times, just like I would with any other thing my friends are going through. I find though, that often my friends don’t seem to believe me when I offer help or driving kids around, dropping off medicine for a sick kid, and then not being a parent it’s hard for me to know if I am being helpful or not. Weird balance and change to relationships, but I guess what I’m saying is to give your childfree friends a chance to be involved in your life as a parent instead of immediately going to the thought that you’re boring them. Yes, there will be some like that, but there are others like me :)
I found my family closing ranks after my kids. We already had a hard time sustaining friendships, but kids, COVID and our own anxieties and insecurities made it impossible to think of anything beyond our family unit. It’s a hole I’m trying to climb out of, so the timing of this couldn’t be better. ♥️
Katie, I've been thinking about this essay all day, since I first read it on my phone earlier this morning. You've put into words -- yet again! -- something that I've been tossing around in the back of my mind, but haven't been quite able to find the words for, for a while. It's that feeling of "yes, I'm not as ambitious as I used to be, and I feel fine about it." Having children has changed me probably more than I realize, and I do feel the same sort of contentment about it -- I love being a dad, and a stepdad (I'm both, actually), but I do see in myself that I don't strive for things, especially career achievement, the way I used to before I had a family.
Do you remember the Julia Roberts movie "Eat, Pray, Love," based on Elizabeth Gilbert's book? Especially the scene near the end of the movie, when Javier Bardem plays the father of a son, and just looks at his son and tears come to his eyes? That's the way I feel regularly about my kids, and I know I've been changed by that in ways I probably am barely aware of. There's one other thing about this, especially for men who've become fathers -- being a dad allows us to open up emotionally in a way society really doesn't allow men to much in other areas of our lives, that I think parenthood is freeing in a way for us that it probably wasn't for men in earlier generations.
Last year, my wife and I went to a small concert just outside Atlanta (at the Red Clay Music Foundry in Duluth), when Radney Foster was performing. He played a song I'd never heard before, called "Godspeed," which he wrote about his son after he and his then-wife had divorced. As I listened to the lyrics, tears started streaming down my face, almost involuntarily. I'd of course known how much I love my kids before, but the song reminded me of it all over again how powerful that love and that experience really is.
(Okay, I should probably stop writing now before I get too emotional again!) Love, love, love this essay.
So much of this is exactly my life and I am glad to hear it from the outside. Contentment is a precious place. And it’s a gift to have it. ❤️
Wow! This essay is everything I needed to read today. Thank you! <3
I was not ready for this. “Our personalities have dimmed a little...” I don’t know who I am anymore and I was grieving something—that until I read your essay—I could not define. That’s a whole other thing... I feel small and invisible most days, just an old man walking his dog who is also old. Most days are ... wasted... anyway, I didn’t mean to share that but it helps me think through it all. Covid is not over even if the virus subsides, it upended everything...
I’m an unwilling grandfather... my grandkids (4, 21/2, 2) are great but I wasn’t ready and not sure I would have ever been... being a parent was an easy, welcome transition for me, but from parent to grandparent... hard AF and still not there... I feel like I’m part of the audience instead of the band... still processing but unlike parenthood, there are looming deadlines... 😬
This was the most lovely thing to read this morning. I feel so seen. Thank you.
"My life feels smaller." Yesss!! So beautifully said. Covid (among other things) has made our lives smaller. We've let go of the parts of us who used to enjoy larger crowds. Instead, we have retreated into the more intimate parts of our lives.
OMG! yet again, you hit on a topic that I have and still do live through, but slightly opposite. When all my friends and even my older sister were having kids, I felt like an imposter for not having children. I felt judged and that everyone thought I hated kids (not true). What you think you see through other's eyes is not always what is happening. I would get annoyed when someone would say 'well you don't understand because you don't have kids'. That's true but that doesn't mean I don't understand priorities and where they need to be placed. It made me feel like I was doing something wrong or that I was being viewed as someone who had endless freedoms, which tbh, in some ways is true but in other ways is not. I guess it comes down to empathy and compassion. Life is hard. Find your support crew and shut out the noise. You are seen as a compassionate, loving, caring human. Don't ever sell yourself short on that. xo
What’s exciting? Everyone has exciting moments in different ways. One who gets excited by a falling leaf may be happiest of all. Wow. I’m like, so zen.
Hi Katie! I'm a new reader but your work really resonates with me. And I'll say as a childless person, your childless friends have probably felt the flipside of your insecurities even if they don't regret not having kids. ("Who am I to complain...not raising a kid," "I haven't had a Life Event in wahile..." etc.) And I promise, more of them might like hearing the details of your kiddo's life than you think. And I'll say this: "she may have been more enviable, but she wasn’t as happy." Well then she wasn't enviable, was she? The happiness is what it's all about.
I am so glad you are feeling content. I do want to say that I am a childfree person who absolutely loves hearing about and interacting with my friends' kids. I know that isn't everyone, but please do not assume that childfree people are not interested in hearing about your kid!
Oooh. This hit in all the right spots. Completely and unflinchingly relatable. Thank you for sharing.
Laura,
Sharing my perspective as a person with 3 decades of parenting. My kids are 30 & 24.
Cass will recall the ‘moments’ with you and your chosen community, not the square footage of the home. Instilling curiosity and creating memories of adventure doesn’t require travelling to exotic places. It can be taking public transit to ‘discover’ new places nearby. Camping in the home or garden. Taking your lead from their interests, you can support Cass learn and practice the skills and confidence to be able to identify what they want/like, and plan to achieve it, celebrating each step in the process. Then, Cass can take the ‘bigger trips’ independently in the future, if they choose to.
As you said, parenthood is a transformative journey. My journey has been, and continues to be, fighting my anxious mind from controlling my kids in my effort (PERCEPTION ) to protect them. I also BATTLE with my instincts to compare my parenting choices and my children to others.
I am now striving to listen and communicate with intention so my children feel deeply loved, accepted and safe to be themselves. Not who I or society think they should be. This is not easy as I must address my anxious and perfectionist thinking constantly. Thus the personal transformative journey. It is the realization that I am continuing to evolve and I am learning to accept that I am human and incapable of being perfect.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, thoughts and vulnerabilities with us. I truly hope the responses show you are not alone. ❤️
You've got a great group of supporters here! Which means you are adding value to other persons lives through your own lived experience. What trip/event/happening can top that?
Beautiful. The simple quiet meaningful joys. Thank you for sharing your insights. Truly appreciated🙏🏼 with kindness Rae