#159: Falling in love is overrated

+ navigating friends having kids

Good morning!

Welcome back to Dear Baby. Today I’ll be answering questions about 1) what to do when your friends become parents and start expecting you to accommodate their crazy schedules, and 2) what it actually feels like to fall in love versus stay in love. It was interesting to think about that first one as a person who is currently child-free but imminently not, and I was touched to be asked the second one (by a young person who wasn’t sure if they’d felt love yet) given how much my perspective on love continues to change with time. It’s a stuff-of-life kind of week.

On Dear Danny this week, we’ll be answering four written questions and two call-ins. They cover what to do when a joyful relationship with food and exercise becomes haunted by the pursuit of abs, why an open relationship might seem fun in theory then feel terrifying in practice, whether cheating “hall passes” are real, what to do with the unwanted advances of a good friend, how to deal with grief after an abortion, and lastly, another chronicle of a stinky boyfriend (one of our expertises). I also, importantly, do an on-air cereal challenge with Danny. That episode drops Tuesday at 9 a.m. You can always write in with a question here or leave us a voicemail at 802-404-BABY!

On friends having kids

“I have been grappling with what I will call the ‘ethics of parenthood,’ and adapting to new relationship dynamics with friends who are now parents. In the past few years, a large portion of my main social group has had children, and what I’ve found really difficult is that I feel like they expect me and others in our social group to prioritize their children above everything else. It feels like there is an expectation that of course we will do whatever needs to happen for their child to keep to a sleep schedule, feeding schedule, etc—regardless of the impact those accommodations/requests have on the rest of the group (let's say we're on a group weekend holiday or inviting friends over for dinner or some other type of social activity). What bothers me is not that this is a request, but that there is an expectation that of course anyone will change anything any time to accommodate their child and that their child's needs supersede that of other children/adults involved. Trying to talk to my friends about these concerns has caused even more tension.

I think of myself as collective-minded, and so am not sure if my annoyance is coming from their seemingly individualistic parenting styles conflicting with my collectivistic principles, or if I am just feeling the rub of friendships changing and we are experiencing the natural tension of being in different phases of life. I am also thinking deeply about my own desire to have children: if that desire exists at all, if I would like to act on it, and if so, what kind of life I would want to create for myself and my potential children. I am conflicted about whether these frustrations and questions have actually anything to do with my friends at all, or if this is just a projection of my own lack of clarity and frustration. Sometimes I think maybe I am just selfish and I should be bending over backwards for my friends—having children is hard!

All of this is to say, what do we as a society owe parents and children, what do parents and children owe to the community around them? What does ‘ethical’ community-based parenting look like? Your podcast on your decision to have children and all your thoughts about parenting you've shared have been immensely helpful, and I am hoping you can make something of my stew of internal thoughts. Thank you for reading and your attention and care always!” 

I think two things can be true in this situation: Your friends can be right about who has the bandwidth to be accommodating (it’s you), and your disappointment at suddenly coming “second” can be valid. To speak to the former—and I think you know this to some extent—kids are simply inflexible. A parent may try to encourage them to be otherwise, but they’ll never be more flexible than a child-free adult. So as far as being “collectively-minded,” I think your parent-friends have a point here. Being collectively-minded doesn’t mean that everyone’s desires are equally tended to, but that everyone’s varying needs and limits are considered. (You know, from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.) Still, there’s no getting around the fact that this presents a new imbalance. It requires you to give more of yourself to these friendships than your friends might be able to give right now. However understandable that is, it’d be nice if they acknowledged it from time to time.

Unfortunately, when people cross a life-changing threshold, it can be hard to remember how they felt before they crossed it. When this threshold entails new responsibilities and complications, I think it’s especially common to rewrite the simplicity of “before” and how it felt. For parents, I’m pretty sure flexibility is a potent target of this fantasy. As a currently child-free person, for instance, I appreciate when I have an open weekend, but I know for a fact that I don’t appreciate it as much as a parent would. This difference in perspective is fundamental to life-lessons—I simply will not understand the privilege of free weekends until I never have them anymore. It’s devastating stuff (lol). Where I think it becomes burdensome is when that newfound perspective is projected onto someone in a different life circumstance, like when we tell kids to enjoy not having jobs or whatever. Youth is wasted on the young, etc.

Anyway, I think a lot of parents overestimate how free and flexible a child-free person actually feels. It sounds like you’re experiencing that dissonance firsthand. Your friends look at your schedule and see an abundance of “free time,” whereas you see a normal or even busy pace of life. Ipso facto, they assume you don’t mind working around their schedules, and their assumption, to you, feels bold, even rude. This friction would probably improve if both of you were able to extend each other some compassion—them for the fact that you, as someone who has not chosen to have a child, may not want to organize your life around a child’s schedule; and you for the fact that, actually, you are much more flexible than your friends are right now, and you could really help them out by accommodating that.

One other factor worth considering here is whether you’re entertaining some misogynistic ideas about “demanding mothers.” Even if it may feel, in your situation, as if the parents’ needs are always getting met first, I think it’s important to remember how seldom that’s actually true in society more broadly. Our world, particularly in the West, very much caters to child-free individuals, who consistently report higher rates of happiness than parents. This is especially true for mothers. Your parent-friends may be actively managing that burden—of getting less respect at work, of having no time for themselves, of feeling so little social support. In that light, it might be useful for you to reframe their presumptions as a sign that they see your friendship as a safe place to actually advocate for themselves. It’s true that you didn’t choose to be a parent yet, but I do think we as a society owe parents our help. At some point, we all need help from the village. We’re far too atomized as it is. 

I want to finish by saying that I respect that you're considering whether your frustration is a projection. There are so many people who would simply take this irritation with their friends at face value, rather than examining their role in it. I think your hesitation is proof that even if your reaction to your parent-friends doesn’t necessarily reflect collective principles, you’re choosing to consider those principles anyway. To me, that’s a true test of a value. And even if this extra consideration leads you to take one for the team, I still think it’s okay to regret that your friendships with these people now come with hurdles that didn’t used to be there—to mourn the loss of a certain looseness, and to make sure to nurture that looseness in other ways, and in other friendships. I hope your friends can appreciate that, too.

On falling versus staying in love

“Dear Baby, what does it feel like to be in love? I’m 22 and think I’ve never seriously been in love with a person before (romantically I mean, I love my friends and family), but I’m not sure. Is it a “you know it when you feel it” thing, or do I just have an overblown idea of the feeling in my head?”