Social A's: Do I Have To Go Visit Those Babies?
Dear Answer Lady,
I'm a lady at or around the age of 30, as are many of my friends. I live way up at the top of Manhattan, in faraway Inwood, but many of my friends live down under Manhattan, in faraway Brooklyn. When I want to see one of my Brooklyn-dwelling friends, we generally get together somewhere in between, so neither of us has to make the 1-1.5-hour trek to the other's house (and back, which is usually worse, or more expensive, on account of it being at night).
But, oh, Answer Lady… lately my friends have started having babies. Like, in the last couple of months. Sort of all at once. It's weird. ANYWAY, I feel like you can't ask a mom to haul her just-gave-birth-body and her screaming 8-pound new-born to Korea Town or the West Village for get-togethers. If I'm not mistaken, the expected thing is that I go visit them. In Brooklyn.
But it is soooo far awayyyy. Is there any alternative? I like my friends, and I'm sure I'll like their babies, once I see them. Can I just wait 8 months until they're more mobile or something? Or pick a baby-friendly venue and invite them out?
Signed,
Selfish?
Dear Selfish,
Your question is trickier than it seems on the surface, I suspect. I mean, as to whether you ought to suck it up, grab a good book, spend an hour and a half on the A train, and try to hit up as many babies as you can in one trip to Brooklyn: yes, duh. You won't have to do it every weekend or anything, and you won't have to do it that many times. They won't be little immobile babies and weary sleep-deprived new moms forever. It will just seem like forever to *them.*
You won't even really notice it, because your life will go on and you'll start spending more time with your friends who live near you and don't have babies, and they'll start spending more time making macaroni crafts and freaking out about how much mercury is in sardines and stuff like that. And also they'll spend more time with their friends who live near them and have babies around the same age as theirs, because that's how it works. And that's what your question is really about, I think: "Can I still be friends with my friends who have babies, even though our lives are necessarily super different now?"
And, I don't know! I hope so. I think probably not, though? Your friendships will definitely change. And that is okay, Selfish. Imagine how boring things would be if everyone just continued to be childless and carefree forever, and your hangs with your girlfriends were exactly the same now as they were in your early 20s except now everyone is older? People are growing up and doing grown-up things like buying apartments and getting married and having babies, there is just no stopping that stuff from happening, Selfish. And it can be a little sad and lonely and inconvenient sometimes for those of us who either aren't doing these things yet, or don't plan to do them ever.
The compensatory thing, though, is that we don't have to constantly worry about a little human being being totally emotionally, physically, and fiscally dependent on us for his survival. Bonus! Or, is it? I dunno. As a very wise cartoon crab once said, the seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make an appointment for my elderly cat to have $1300 worth of dental surgery.
Troubles? We can help! Write to the answer lady's private tipline at advice at TheAwl.com if you please.
Previously: Should An Athiest Tell The Family That She Prays?
As someone who's gone through the whole friends-having-babies thing for several years now, my advice to Selfish is, whatever you do, DO NOT gather with a bunch of new mommies (or mommies-to-be) in the same place. Because they WILL talk of nothing else.
The ENTIRE time.
And you WILL want to kill yourself.
Or them.
Or their babies.
Babies. What's not to like? Their obsessed mommies. But maybe this is a US thing? Whatever. Go, see the babies (SO CUUUUUTE!!) ignore the mommies – and I mean, totally ignore the mommies – and play with any and all kids at the party. You'll have much more fun and intelligent conversation. I've never had a kid, never wanted one, but I love my niece and nephew and truly love the fact that my sister spawned. In fact, if the bitch birth mommies at the get-togethers give you any shit, just compare them to the fecund handmaidens of Margaret Atwood's novel and thank them for their sacrifice. They'll probably never invite you again.
Oh, and part II Рthe thing about babies is that spending time with people who are as self-absorbed as your are (I mean the beb̩s) is a very good life lesson.
This is why gays (who don't adopt) and childless straights have it made. Actually nothing is better than hanging with your friends the same way you hung with them when you were in your twenties, except now you're older.
You know them better, the conversations are more interesting and everyone can basically handle their drugs.
Fuck babies.
Not to mention "older" typically also means "don't have to drink a couple-three happy hour Long Island iced teas since that's all I can afford but I need to get drunk." Instead we can get hammered on reasonably-priced-though-still-not-so-cheap-that-it's-embarrassing wine. Or those shmancy cocktails that are all the rage these days. Or Ketel One.
This sounds fabulous. Fuck babies indeed.
If I want to look at kids I'll go to the mall.
Stop staring at my children you pervert!
I'm glad you got the crab part right, because a lot of people don't know:
http://www.google.com/search?q=sebastian+lobster+crab
Also, ha ha, "Mirandas"
I guess because his claws are so big, but please. His full name is "Sebastian the crab."
I am with the child free and loving it side. Never wanted marriage or children and never looked back.
Re: the question, there will come a time when the new mommies will crave some adult conversation. When that happens meet as you did pre-baby and let the new dad have some alone time with the kid.
Babies are pretty handy when you want to get on a plane first but other than that, the benefits of having one drop off pretty fast.
I have noticed they are also handy when you are in a crowded public place (Rose Bowl Swap Meet, Santa Monica Farmers Market, etc.) you can use your kid in a stroller as a battering ram to work your way through the crowds.
Yeah, those bitches always end up rolling up on my heels. I call this "getting prammed."
Oh, oh, oh, I have an answer for this, because, being old, this happened to me. Here is what you do: tell the ladyfriends that it is high time the partner in the whole childrearing thing watch the kid for a couple hours. Then you and your friend meet, slightly more briefly and more guiltily (for her), at the usual intermediate location.
Of course, one of them may pop off and say to you, "You know, it's great, this meeting like in the old days. But, you know, I've never felt more complete than I do when I'm alone with Baby X. Have you thought about having a child, what with your neediness and all?"
Strongly agree. My lady friends live for their monthly or so escapes out to lunch with the gay guy because they get to dump the kid(s) for a few hours and talk like an adult about adult things. Take them to a nice weekend daytime bar, bring a pack of Marlboros they can bum, and buy them nice vodka drinks.
I like the "bang all the visits out all in one trip" idea. On a Sunday, go down to Brooklyn, bring bagels and lox to the house of the people with the youngest baby. Take your leave and then meet the people with the slightly older baby at a baby-friendly place for a late lunch/early dinner.
Take this advice with a grain of salt because none of my friends have babies (yet). But I imagine that it would work.
Right? Answer Lady is all about practical solutions. (Those who can't do teach, I guess).
Clare is a woman delightfully long on advice.
TO: Selfish?
Let me add some basic math which demonstrates that the hour and a half travel time is actually a blessing.
The visitee should be grateful for the following sacrifice on your part:
90 minute train ride to Brooklyn.
90 minute visitation.
90+ minute return trip to Inwood
Frequency 1/year
A 5 hour commitment should be more than enough to maintain goodwill and keep you reproductively informed. More importantly the length of your stay is pre-determined and limits the amount of diapering you will be forced to observe or participate in. You absolutely have to leave on time because of the long ride home. Being 7 hours away is even better as you will be required to spend only 11 minutes with the infant before turning around and heading home.
The all-of-it-happening-at-once-ness is tricky. If I had just one Brooklynite friend with a baby, I, as a fellow Inwoodite, would suck it up, grab a book, and make the long subway trek out. (One of the good things about living on the first or second stop of the train – you always get a seat!) A new baby is an exciting thing in a person's life, and so worth the trek. (Just like a wedding is apparently a reason I'm taking the train to Darien this weekend? And then back? That night?)
But yeah, with lots of friends in lots of far-flung neighborhoods, I think consolidation is the best idea.
I mean, it depends if the goal is meeting the new bebeh, or spending time with your friend. Because if the latter, then follow the advice of the anti-bebeh contingent and meet mom at a bar in the Village. But if it's not about giving her a break from her mommy life, but about celebrating it and/or being a part of it, a day in Brooklyn is what I foresee.
What's great about someone else's kids is that you don't have to bond with them until they turn about 20 or so. They hate their parents and want to hang out with the cool uncle or aunt and do fun stuff and they're enthralled with the fact that you know of things like worst seasons ever of "The Real World". Also, they have the best pot and can tell you good sex stories.
once every four months will be often enough for visits. and mostly the first visit will consist of the mother divulging disgusting secrets like "i would eat my baby's puke" and generally acting like some kind of advanced primate that you vaguely remember looking pretty good in a halter top but really can't even imagine that now because she only sleeps in, like, two hour increments because the "little bundle of joy" [sic] wakes up screaming in a way you thought only jamie lee curtis could when she was 20 and totally stacked.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there are some benefits to having friends w/ kids. You can stay with the child-free, aka free, life, but you might gain a touch of humility when you try to bond with someone who is completely unimpressed by your resume or where you went to college or how you found this designer blouse at a thrift shop. My approach, having had many friends and close family members reproduce in recent years, is to weed mercilessly down to the few friends who are really worth it (and are not insane parents), and then try to actually enjoy their kids. & to get back to the point, that means going to them in Brooklyn every so often. But also, stroller + the Met is very nice.
Or don't visit at all. As paranoid parents of a newborn we deflect visit requests left and right. People who want their babies around a bunch of folks right off the bat? That's a bad sign. The kid just popped out of a sac of amniotic fluid into the external world and suddenly it's ok for him to meet your friend from high school who still thinks Suicidal Tendencies produced good work in 1991? Maybe not!
As a recent spawner, I really don't get upset if my single friends don't visit. I understand that they have fabulous things to do, Lady Gaga concerts to attend, and long nights of promiscuous bathroom sex, and drunken black out conversations- Good times.
The last thing I need right now is my glowing, childless friend telling me about her Single in the City lady crap, while I sit there, un-showered and blurry eyed, trying to remember how to have conversation with someone who is not one. Really, keep your pity visits- I'll come out to meet you when the kid is 14.
I will visit your babies if you will take them the fuck off Facebook.