Friends With Kids Versus Friends Without Kids

This cycle, based on what happens between about 25 and 40, boomerangs back around every so often.

We’ve had a few bombs in the child-rearing culture wars in the last few weeks to bring this issue of “Can those with kids and those without kids be friends?” back to the forefront. Let’s run through some of the assets.

You had this long, generally-good essay/article in New York Magazine.

You had this, from Anne Helen Petersen.

(Hey, that’s actually from

Anne Helen Petersen

and

Culture Study

.)

Then you had Julia Mazur, 29 and child-free, discussing how she would watch TV shows and learn to make new food on a Saturday post-Beyonce hangover — a clip that drove conservatives into a tizzy.

Alright, so all this stuff happened within about a week and a half of each other.

Back in July ’22, I wrote about this too.

The topic is not new and people have been dealing with this and trying to navigate it for generations. It’s potentially become more complicated of late since it used to be 1 in 8 couples that inexperienced infertility, and now the estimates are closer to 1 in 6. Plus: it does seem, anecdotally, like younger women are less interested in having children re: economy and climate change and lack of suitable men around, but that might change as more young women get closer to 30 and see their friends having kids and wanting that form of the Joneses for themselves. We don’t know that part of the story yet.

This is a hard discussion to navigate for various reasons.