Why Having Kids Kills Friendships (And What I’ve Learned To Keep Connection Alive)
I was folding second-hand toddler pajamas when the text popped up: In town Friday for a conference. Want that margarita you’ve been talking about for two years? It was from Lila, my college roommate. We’d stayed up 12 hours straight the night I graduated, crying about how we’d always make time for each other, no matter what life threw at us. I stared at the text for five minutes, thumb hovering over the keyboard. My 7-year-old son Jax had an unexpected U8 soccer playoff that night, my husband had picked up an urgent last-minute shift at the clinic, and every sitter I knew was already booked for a high school homecoming dance. I typed back: Ugh, can’t. Jax’s playoff. Rain check? She replied ten seconds later: No worries! Next time! That was 14 months ago. We haven’t exchanged a message since.
I used to lie awake at night after moments like that, thinking I’d done something wrong. I’m bad at keeping up, I’d tell my husband. I don’t prioritize people the way I should. Then I started talking to other parents at soccer drop-offs and preschool bake sales, and I realized almost everyone I know has the same story. The group chat that went dead two years after the first kid was born. The best friend you used to talk to every day that you now only see once every three years, if that. The pre-kid friend group that’s down to one or two people, if you’re lucky. I used to think it was a me problem. Now I know it’s just what happens when your whole life rearranges around tiny people who need every bit of your extra time and energy.
Before I had Mia, my second, I had a monthly girls’ night with three other moms from my early parent group. We’d leave the kids with our partners, get cheap wine and appetizers at the bistro down the street, and complain about our husbands for an hour or two. Then one of the girls’ oldest got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and she had to start doing late-night blood sugar checks that she didn’t feel comfortable leaving to anyone else. Another got pregnant unexpectedly, and had morning sickness so bad she couldn’t leave the house for six months. I had Mia, who had colic for eight months, and I couldn’t go more than three hours away from home without panicking that she’d need me. The last girls’ night I went to, I left halfway through because the babysitter texted me Mia had a fever. I never got around to rescheduling the next one. The chat hasn’t had an unplanned message in 11 months.
I used to hear that old line, “If you really care, you’ll make time,” and it would make me feel guilty. But that saying doesn’t account for the math of parenthood. When you’re already squeezing in a shower, a 15-minute work call, and a grocery run between dropping one kid at school and picking the other up from daycare, there’s no extra time. Not for 3-hour dinners, not for cross-country road trips to visit old friends, not for all-night catch-up sessions. The first thing I changed that helped was I stopped holding my current friendships to the standard I had for pre-kid friendships. I stopped thinking a good friendship had to involve long stretches of uninterrupted conversation or big planned trips.
Now I meet Sarah, a mom I connected with at Jax’s soccer practice, at the neighborhood playground every Tuesday at 9 a.m. We both have a toddler in tow, we push swings and break up sand fights and chug cold coffee that’s been sitting in our water bottles for an hour. We talk about our messy houses, our kid’s weird eating habits, and the occasional fight with our partners, in 10-minute snippets between interruptions. It’s nothing like the all-night movie marathons I did in college, but it’s connection. It counts. If either of us has a sick kid or a doctor’s appointment, we just text “Can’t make it this week” and no one takes it personally. That’s a low bar, but it works for the life we have right now.
Another small change that’s kept more connections alive: I stopped sending only the “let’s plan a big trip” or “let’s get dinner” texts to old friends, because those feel overwhelming for everyone, especially if they also have kids or busy schedules. If I see something that reminds me of Lila, I send a quick 2-line text, no pressure to plan anything. Last month I saw a rerun of that terrible 90s rom-com we watched 10 times in college, so I texted her “This terrible dance scene just made me think of us doing it drunk in your dorm bathroom. Hope you’re doing okay.” She wrote back a few hours later, sent me a photo of her new golden retriever puppy, told me her mom’s cancer is in remission, and that she just had her first baby six months ago. We sent four more texts back and forth, and that was it. No plan, no pressure to make more out of it. That little check-in kept the connection alive without draining the little time I have.
I also stopped feeling guilty for letting friendships fade that don’t fit anymore. I had a close friend Jenna who never wanted kids, and every time we met up, she’d make little comments about how all I talk about is potty training and soccer. I’d leave every conversation feeling like I was boring, like I was a bad friend for not having more interesting things to talk about. We stopped talking a few years ago, and I used to beat myself up about it. Now I know it’s okay. Not every friendship is meant to survive every big life change. It doesn’t mean either of us is bad, it just means your lives are going in different directions now.
Last week Lila texted me she’s coming to town in October to visit her sister, and she’s bringing her new baby. We’re planning to meet at the city zoo. We’ll both be chasing our kids around, we’ll pay $8 for a cone of ice cream that will melt all over our hands, and we’ll probably get less than 15 minutes of uninterrupted talk the whole time. I don’t know if we’ll ever get that all-night margarita session we talked about two years ago. Some friendships change, some fade, and new ones grow in the gaps. It’s not the friendship life I pictured when I was 22, sitting in Lila’s dorm room planning our futures. But it’s what I have right now, and it’s enough.
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