The Disease Called Parenting: How your friend circle changes once you're diagnosed with children.

It happened, a positive pregnancy test. You and your partner are so excited. Several weeks pass and you finally announce the news. Over 200 likes! Wow! Everyone is so happy for you!

 

 Nine months pass and now you have a baby in your lap, after the initial adjustment parenting suits you. Your friends stop by and take adorable pictures holding your bundle. You sneak out once in a while for a drink or they help you hold your diaper bag at a local restaurant. Everything is going good.

 

Your baby begins to make noise, yell, blab, and  babble. Now your baby can do tummy time effectively and is finally starting solids. You have a couple friends that stop by every week or so but most of the time it's you & baby and your partner. You love being with your child and don't miss going out and drinking but you wonder what happened to all of your friends.

 

What happened? Where are your 200 friends? What gives?

 

Welcome to the Disease Called Parenting. 

 

You've been diagnosed with children and it's going to hurt for a few months to a year but once some time has passed you'll learn that the friends that are worth your friendship won't stop being friends because you've evolved into a parent.

 

If you're a younger parent like myself (20's) you may be struggling socially a lot more than parents in their 30's. Many of our friends, work colleagues, and possibly classmates don't have children yet, and aren't thinking about it right now. This won't be the case forever, but having a child will test your existing friendships.  There are many type of friends that will handle your diagnosis differently, see below.



The party friend: This friend will seem okay with you becoming a parent but will be displeased when you're unwilling to go out frequently to the bar. They will try anything to get you to go out. Let him watch the baby, you need to have some time for yourself! Time for myself? I get plenty of time for myself, when every one around me is sleeping so I can do things like clean up my kitchen, plan my course work, and blog (right now).


The hippy friend: This friend is more spiritual and laid back, they may have their own vices and still go out but they are the last person to push you to do anything. This friend is willing to make plans, relax, but definitely goes with the current and doesn't force things upon you. If you want to go out, we can go out, if not we can hang here and watch some Netflix.


The career friend: This friend is so busy with work they can rarely find time to do anything for leisure. Even their leisure time is spent networking for their side career. They can stop by every month or so but always have their plates full. I have been working for the past two weeks straight. 
  

The perfect communicator: This friend works, has side projects, but still makes time to hangout on a weekly basis. This friend may be the same sign as you or be a friend that is a better more tidy version of yourself. I have to take photographs of this dog show tonight, but we can still definitely meet up for some Ramen.


 The scared of babies friend: This friend may initially act like they are happy for you but will sometime ghost you either during pregnancy or once baby is born. Oh congrats! That's so amazing! *never responds to text messages or emails again*

So becoming a parent means your friend circle might change, and grow smaller but that's okay. This gives you more room to make friends with people that have kids! Because, let's face it: you love your kid more than anything in the whole wide world. So, why not find some friends that have kids for your kid to play with? Sure, you can fight the kid date thing forever (ugh, I don't want to have coffee with so & so's mom are you serious??), you don't have to be friends with every parent, but if you open up your circle you may find some allies.

Parents, what kind of friends do you have? Also which ones did I miss? Feel free to comment below!