When my sister became a young mother, we talked a lot about how she ended up kind of losing all of her friends. It wasn't that they didn't still like each other or enjoy similar things. It was that she now had this totally different life goal. They were feathering their bangs, she was up every 3 hours breast feeding a new human being who depended on her to stay alive. She couldn't really go sit in the ZZips parking lot on the hood of the car and rock out to Bon Jovi anymore, because a baby wasn't really conducive to meeting high school guys. I was only seven at the time, but we were still pretty close. I didn't really have anywhere to go and I liked that she was around more now, but I thought her friends were shits for ditching her.
Now I'm a shit. When my friends who have kids and have had kids right out of high school call, I feel this canyonesque void spreading between us.
"So what have you been up to?"
"Oh, not a lot. Work. I saw Hot Hot Heat a few days ago and Piebald a few days before that...pretty fun. I go to school two days a week which means less theatre, more dish washing. Saw a few plays, went swimming a few times, got my ass kicked at scrabble at three in the morning, worked at the mall, wrote a little more on my script, and am going to help build a set later in the week. Nothing big. Regular stuff. What about you?"
"Well, Little Johnny Junior is teething so we're just kind of doing that. Husband works during the day and then comes home and we have dinner here. Not a whole lot."
and this is where the gap comes in. She's got another human being to think about. Her life has a whole hell of a lot to do with the happiness of that little person. That little person frequently means staying home most of the time. That little person means getting all the sleep you can. That little person is something that she can talk about with people who have other little persons. My whole life is focused on trying not to do things that are going to land my ass straight in hell, which is a pretty big arena of things with very little restraint at all.
There's usually a bit of uncomfortable silence on the line after I've asked about the kid and about her and the family in general and hows your house and everything and it makes me feel guilty. I want to say "I'm sorry, it seems we've lost all common communicational ground. Shall I call you back in a few years after I've had my first child and have nothing to say to all my childless friends with their petty lives?"
mothers welcome to pipe in on how I suck.
Posted by Sonya at January 29, 2003 04:14 PMYou only suck if you had more in common before than, say, sitting on the hoods of cars and listening to butt rock. If that's all you had, you'd probably stop talking to those friends anyway. I mean, you could call them again when you had a kid, but then you'd just talk about your kids. That's a single mutual interest, not acutal friendship.
Besides, there's plenty of other stuff you suck at without this one...(teeheeheeheeheehee)
Posted by: g. at January 29, 2003 04:23 PMNot being a single mother and therefore not qualified to comment on your suckage-quotient, all I can say is that some of the parents I know still manage to maintain their pre-child social relationships, but I think it definitely takes a lot more work on their part for it to happen.
Still, it's all a matter of priorities; everybody knows the wee bebe is priority #1 and so long as there is no lingering resentment over that reality, friends simply drop a few notches on the priority list, but someone don't fall off completely.
The upside is that by doing so, they are amassing a fairly large circle of people to handle the inevitable babysitting chores in a few years...
Posted by: THE COMTE at January 29, 2003 04:36 PMBoy, you suck!
...er.
You said MOTHERS.
Damn.
I hate it when happens.
That is all SO about why I don't wanna have kids.
Posted by: sparky at January 29, 2003 06:09 PMso, if I'm reading into this right, the premise of your entry is that somehow you suck becuase you've not squeezed out little human pups yet... because that's what you need to be able to communicate better with your old friends...
uhhhh... no. You're 22. You have many glorious years of punk-rock Pirate invasions of unsuspecting villages before you even have to THINK about such things (unless of course you want to, but you're still too young. So. Don't.)
You have no respsibility to be a super active friend to them if they don't have the time. But if they are people true to your heart for life, You are still obliged to love them (in whatever way you choose).
and now I draw a Tangent to what Ida said.
Posted by: sven at January 29, 2003 06:19 PMNo, don't read it like that, because I meant kind of the opposite. My life rocks because of my lack of kids, but I feel guilty that other peoples lives are lacking the wonderful triviality.
Posted by: sonya at January 30, 2003 08:05 AMOkay. Funny story about what happens to our white trash friends after we move on:
My buddy from elementary school, Jon, went and got a career at Safeway when we were in high school. He's had three jobs in his life: McDonald's, 7-11, and Safeway. He'd probably still be working at 7-11, but somebody robbed him and he decided he didn't want to get shot for five bucks an hour.
Now he works at the Safeway corporate office. He's in a dart league. He bowls. He's got a mullet. Little mustache. Big beer gut. He's married to this woman who's eleven years older than he is. When they got married, when Jon was 26, his wife had a twelve-year-old son.
Jon 26.
Step-son 12.
So now he makes about eighty grand a year. Lives in Edmonds. Owns a house: a split-level rambler with a game room in the basement. Terrible diet. Bad skin. Surreal home life. And, not to presume on my own coolness here, but for most of our twenties I was his one, like, "city friend". You know? I was the only guy from our scene in Ballard who went to college. I was the only guy who needed to.
So the last time I went up to Jon's house was about four years ago. He invited me up to watch Heavy Metal (we used to play D&D together, and Heavy Metal was sort of a seminal work-- er, so to speak-- for 80's D&D geeks). His step-son was out on visitation. He'd gotten a bootleg of the movie from our friend Brian (it had wasn't released on video until a year later, so the bootleg copy was kind of a coup), and he told me he thought it would be a good time to party down old-time Ballard style.
So I go up there. We have dinner. We sit down to watch the movie. Jon and his wife break out the weed. Get a little baked. And then, half-way through the movie, Jon kind of hops up off the couch, does a big stretch-yawn thing, and says, "Welp, I gotta work in the morning, I'm going to bed!"
"Uh," says I. "Oookay."
"G'night!"
"Mm. Good night."
So I'm sitting there with his wife, watching animated soft-core, when out of the blue she leans over and starts kissing my ear.
You know that thing where one minute you're on the couch and the next minute you're on the other side of the room and you can't remember how you got there?
That.
"Whoa!" I say. "Dang, look at the time! I gotta get home!"
"But the busses aren't running," says the wife. "We're in Edmonds."
"That's okay! That's great! Nice night for a walk!"
"It's raining."
"Yeah! Refreshing! Besides! I left something on the stove!"
"What?"
"Chicken!"
"Why are you shouting?"
"I'm not shouting!"
"I can give you a ride, if you want."
"NO! NO, THAT'S OKAY! I'LL WALK!"
"Okay, now you're definitely shouting."
"AM I!?"
"Uh-huh."
"SORRY!"
"Listen, sit back down. We should talk."
"HAH! No, that's okay! I'll just be going now! Don't mind me! Lovely dinner! Thanks for the movie! Bye now!"
And I power-walked all the way home. Fifteen miles in pouring rain at two in the morning.
Haven't really heard from Jon since, though I look him up on Google from time to time, just to see how he's doing.
You don't suck, sjet. Getting married almost always causes distance in friendships - the same way that having kids, moving far away, getting a sex change, or even shaving your head might do. (Kidding!) On top of which, there might be some hidden jealousies (on one or both sides) that are playing into the mix. You do the best you can, and you get on with it. Don't beat yourself up. That won't help anyone.
Posted by: freesia at January 30, 2003 12:08 PMNo, no. By all means. Beat yourself up. It'll save me the trouble.
'Cuz you suck.
Heh.
Posted by: Joshua at January 30, 2003 12:23 PMOh, who's talking all mister big man now, eh? Feeling a little insecure after I judo-chopped your ass into smithereens the other night? Huh? Looks like somebodys feeling a little insecure about getting their collarbone broken by the birthday girl.
judo-chop!
Posted by: sonya at January 30, 2003 12:56 PMyou don't suck.
i, on the other hand, do suck, because i'm THIRTY-two and have $20 in the bank.
and i want a kid but i'm afraid to have one because i'm convinced i'll totally resent it for making me fat for real.
that and i'm on the pill so it makes getting knocked up a little difficult.
Posted by: anna at January 30, 2003 01:00 PMI originally wrote this long, rambling missive about my disfunctional family, but then thought "you all don't need to hear that crap", so here's what's left.
Believe me, having kids isn't all it's cracked up to be, which is why I've never been much inclined that way. Which is also not to say I wouldn't perhaps be a better parent than my parents or siblings, but there seems to be a very disturbing Sam Shepardish streak that runs through my family, so I just feel better not inflicting more of it on the world.
Posted by: THE COMTE at January 31, 2003 09:46 AM"Believe me, having kids isn't all it's cracked up to be, which is why I've never been much inclined that way."
Why should I believe you if you've never had kids?
Posted by: sonya at January 31, 2003 10:07 AMI had a kid once. My little sister, who's eight years younger than me.
Taking care of her while my dad was in the hospital was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. In the long run, the strain was just too much and when I was forteen I did the only thing that seemed sensible at the time: I left her at a shopping mall.
Boy. Was her mom pissed at me. I wasn't allowed to babysit again for, like, a year.