As parents continue their journey, they tend to spend more time with other parents – playdates, park parties, etc. one thing Having something in common just makes it easier to get along and talk. That makes sense, right? People with common interests tend to be attracted to each other. vice versa.
I’ve heard from several of my mom friends that they lost touch with their childless friends and once they had a family, they felt slighted and discouraged or were too busy to have time for everyone.
One TikTok user suggested that this divide between those with children and those without may actually be the parents’ fault. In fact, she created a list of some things people with kids should do no way Something you do when hanging out with friends who don’t have kids, and…it really pisses some people off.
After hearing some discussions about childless and unpartnered people, one TikTok creator @circulargurl wanted to provide some “rules of etiquette” for parents, pleading not to just talk about their children.
“So when you’re with friends without kids, parents with kids, try to keep the conversation as adult as possible. I know most of you think you’re not talking about your kids. Cut it down by 80 percent,” she said.
“I can guarantee you that most of the conversation is about your kids. While we want to hear about your kids… we don’t have kids, so we can’t really relate, so it’s a very one-sided conversation. .
OP’s second rule states that childless people don’t want to “hear about logistics issues.”
She continued, “This summer, when I was talking to friends who have kids, a lot of the conversations I heard were especially one-sided and were about the logistics of taking your kids to activities, summer camps, etc. That’s really not A) Funny thing. I mean, in the best case, no one wants to hear about the logistics. Second, it’s like leaving it to your friends who have kids. It’s something you want to talk about, but it’s a one-sided conversation.
Next, she asked parents and people in relationships to never ask their childless or partnered friends about their dating lives.
“A lot of us live very, very full lives. We’re busy, and believe it or not, the center of our lives is not trying to have your Life, trying to have relationships, trying to have kids. This is not the case. So maybe try exploring other topics rather than trying to live vicariously through our dating lives,” she said, before also requesting that “glad you don’t have to do this anymore” comments are never posted.
“Our personal lives, especially if you’re dating after COVID-19 is over in 2024, are often not something we really want to talk about unless we provide you with that information, because the dating landscape has changed so much, it’s a Massacre,” she said.
Next, she came up with a weird and specific “rule” that personally I wouldn’t even consider doing to my friends who don’t have kids, but I guess, that’s true for everyone.
“Fourth, if we’re visiting you from out of town, please don’t take us to your kids’ birthday parties. Frankly, that’s rude…and then you put us in a situation where we’re with a bunch of other parents and The other kids were together and we didn’t identify with that at all, and it wasn’t a place to have an adult conversation,” she said.
“We usually get stuck, because if we visit you from out of town, we’re stuck wherever you take us, with a bunch of kids and parents we don’t know, and you know, they’re all talking about us. matter.
Turning to her next “rule,” the OP implores partners to never “use ‘my husband won’t let me’…as an excuse not to come to us,” noting that her “number of friends” all use The excuses for this and that are shocking.
“I’m sorry and I totally understand if you have to work things out between you two. But to phrase it in such a way as if you need someone’s permission is really offensive and there’s something Something that makes it feel like spending time with you is something they have to agree on somehow because it doesn’t matter,” she said.
She also asked friends with children to “please, please, please” attend events for their childless and partnerless friends.
“Please, please, please come to our events – our birthdays, celebrations of our career milestones. These are our events. We are not having a wedding. We are not having an engagement party. We are not having a bridal shower. We are not having a wedding. There were no baby showers. We didn’t have those. If we had an event, it was as important as those and it would be an insult if you didn’t get to attend,” she said.
Next, she hopes her friends with children will “check in.”
The OP continued, “If you have a friend who lives alone and you haven’t contacted them for months, that’s not okay, that’s not good. People who don’t have a partner and don’t have kids often spend an inordinate amount of time alone .I don’t know what you think they’re doing, but they’re on their own a lot of the time. It can be very isolating, so please, please, make it a habit to contact them and don’t expect them to contact you all the time.
The OP goes on to say that not checking in is an example of a friend valuing their time more than a friend without kids “because even if they are lonely, it doesn’t mean their lonely time is less important than your busy” time. So just hurry up.
Finally, she asked friends with children not to be jealous.
“Don’t be envious of the time you think we have, because we don’t necessarily have a lot of it. Don’t be envious of our career advancement, because we do have the opportunity to focus more on our careers often, or choose not to have a partnership and/or children Let’s focus on our careers. We all make our own choices,” she said.
“The best way to lose your adult friends is to be jealous of them. I’ve seen this happen…between very successful single childless women and their mom friends who were a few years into their careers.” Talent is slowing down, and there is so much tension going on between mom friends who can only talk about being a “mom” and don’t want to hear about their female friends’ concerns about their careers and the success they’ve had as a result.
“It’s just, we don’t talk about it enough, and we all need to be more comfortable with it. It’s not that mothers can’t be very, very successful, very, very successful, but they are there. You can’t have it all at the same time. Or this It’s very, very difficult and has to put in some effort.
Uh, okay…that’s a lot of!
Several TikTok users immediately agreed with the OP, noting that they felt left out of conversations with their mom friends to talk about logistics and topics they had no interest in. It’s like sitting around a table with a bunch of hockey players discussing plays and terminology you don’t know. This absolutely makes sense.
“This is a very important subject that deserves discussion + dialogue. For too long, couples have been prioritized, celebrated + centered. Adults coping with life alone need recognition, respect, and support,” one user noted.
However, there needs to be mutual respect and understanding. One user noted, “You don’t want to hear about the most important things in their lives or attend related events like parties, but you do want them to be very interested in what’s going on with you and attend your milestone parties.”
“As long as it’s a two-way street and the single/childless friend also asks how the parents and kids are doing and shows interest in their kids, that’s fine. In my opinion, it should be reciprocal ,” wrote another.
Another childless person wrote: “I always realized that if a friend had children, it would be a huge part of their conversation because it was probably the most important part of their life – when I was single , husband too, will be very difficult as most people with children have very little to talk about, at least in my case when I had my son my hobbies were spent spending free time with him etc. replaced”
