If you don't mind me sharing my story, here's my take on this discussion. A few decades ago, my wife (then girlfriend) and I were raising a child at the age of 18. That experience shaped my understanding of friendship more than anything else.

Back then, I often had to skip parties or show up at events with a toddler in tow. Some friends drifted away, but the true ones stuck around. They’d hang out with us, sometimes just chilling in the basement, tossing a one-year-old on their knees, while we were all still barely out of adolescence and rocking Guns N' Roses T-shirts.

Over time, those same friends had kids of their own, and naturally, life pulled us in different directions, careers, families, obligations… all the grown-up stuff. But as others here have commented, real friendships don’t vanish. The time spent together may change, but the connection remains.

Now that the kids are grown, those same teenage friends and I get together more often. What I’ve learned is this: don’t cling too tightly to friendships that can’t adapt to your circumstances. The right people will walk with you through different stages of life. And new ones will appear when you least expect them. Hope that helps.

This assumes the friendships were established and maintained in an environment that could potentially be friendly to kids. If your friend group is based around hanging out at barbecues at each other's home, or more child-friendly environments, it will be much easier and likely to maintain those friendships VS. friendships built on generally less child-friendly activities, like long-distance cycling, weekend trips to other states/countries, bar-hopping, etc... Friendships are often built within shared social settings. Changing up the terms minimizes the very shared experience your friendship was built on

The article feels shallow. It’s real but my experience is that the reasons can be more complex.

- some friends are more selfish than you realized and that only becomes apparent when they put their preferences above short term needs you have

- some parents are exhausted and stop putting in the work needed to maintain friendships

- some friends don’t want to see their social circle become parent-filled, whether that’s because they’d feel left behind or because it doesn’t match their sense of self

- becoming a parent will lead to some sort of change in worldview or who you are, and that’s not always compatible with the friends you had

- as a parent you might just want to talk to people that ‘get it’

People grow apart sometimes and that’s part of life. Other times of course it’s about harder discussions and working through things.

I really resonate with this. Since having a child, most of my time revolves around them. There’s no time for myself, no time for friends. The friends I used to be close with have slowly drifted away. I’ve been living like this for three years now, and while watching my child grow up fills me with happiness, there are moments when I feel lost. It’s like I’ve lost a bit of myself along the way. I wonder if anyone else has felt this way, and how they’ve managed to find balance between being a parent and staying connected to who they were before.

> "You both need to [do] the laundry, go to the bank, go to Target," she says. To make it fun, "you can stop and get a sweet treat or listen to Top 40 radio."

What on earth?

Every single expert referenced in this piece is insane.