What has frustrated me about our pre-baby friendships is that our pals seem to have decided for us that we'll now have more limited contact, rather than keeping the info channels open on dinners and happy hours. We'd like to take turns going out, or bring the baby when we can, but our pals have seemingly condemned us to suburban parenthood. We'd like to maintain those friendships, but our childless pals are making that difficult.

I so totally get this. I had just turned 22 (not 21, sorry for the typo the other week) when my first daughter was born. Now I'm 28. Only two of my "old" friends have children, and their children are much younger than my oldest. We've really re-connected since they've had children.

My friends weren't surprised and didn't ask rude questions when I got pregnant the first time - by and large they knew I wanted kids. I didn't realize we would grow apart, but then it just became clear we didn't want to do the same things any more. (I stayed in e-mail contact with some of them, because we did often want to talk about the same things.)

What isn't addressed here is what I felt most painful: When I was pregnant, strangers asked if it was planned, if I was married, if I had a financial plan. When I had given birth, strangers assumed I was the nanny, my daughter's hired help. Rude comments from strangers were in abundance for about two years. Then started up again when I got pregnant with my second.

The nasty comments and snide looks made a situation where I had to build a new support network from the ground up much, much more difficult. And it took me four or five years, but I'm finally back to having a really great group of friends who want to do the same things as me. (And not all of them even have kids the same age as mine - they just don't mind my kids being around most of the time!)

I've been noticing a rift developing between my best friend an myself over the past 18 months or so. Her daughter is 2 1/2 and is just an absolute sprite. It doesn't help that my friend refuses to stop her from screaming in restaurants (and kicking the adjoinging booth, throwing food, etc.). We are simply too embarrassed to go out with them anymore. Our daughter (8 years old) seems to make the situation worse by laughing at the other little girl's antics, thereby egging her on. I'm not sure what to do. We enjoy their company but it seems too hard to get together. Their house is impossibly small, ours is not toddler-proof (or at least that toddler), and the little one does not behave well enough to go out. Has anyone else ever made it through a time like this?

Real friends will still see you. You'll alternate going out and leaving the baby with one parent, or you'll get a sitter, or your friends will come by your house. You may miss out on the last minute plans to go to the bar, but, really, do you need to go to the bar? Things change. If you're miserable with your life, you need to change it or your attitude and expectations.

You should have thought about all this before you got knocked up. After you have kids you can't send them back like a defective toaster. Get a grip. Either resign yourself to a life of baby vomit and poopy diapers or a life of enjoying life. Get over it and stop whining. You made that bed, now lie in it.

I had my first son in law school in my 20s. I was the first. At the time my relationships didn't really change. My husband and I didn't do couple things because we had the baby, but I still went to dinner and hung out with my single friends. They didn't mind when the baby cried and was a little crazy. We would just pass him around the group. It was all fun and they really took care of him. It was as if my son was in law school with me. It's funny to talk to people from that time. They are amazed when they see my son because he was around so much. I think your girlfriends are a little more forgiving about the kid. They understand that you can't party, but they also don't mind knowing that the kid must tag along. Now, 10 years and 2 kids later, things are really different. I'm just in a different state of life then the friends I had when I was single. I have a job, husband and big kids with homework. It's harder as your kids get older to hold onto single friends.

My wife and I had the twins when we were 25 and 28 and now that they are six we have found things have not changed much. With the nanny and all the help we get to sleep late, go out, etc. My wife as a stay at home mom with a nanny has a busy schedule with yoga, spa treatments, shopping, lunch with other tribeca mom's seems to have a good balance of having it all. She even helps out with the school PTO. So we have not noticed a restriction in time. I am not sure why others seem to have that problem.

In fact the other day we were talking about couples w/o children. We think someone like Ron Paul should put into law that couples over the age of 38 w/o children should be mandatory organ donors for couples with children. And they should also be required to serve as nannies for couples with children once a month. Sort of like a work/community service function. It is only fair. Of course they would have to be trained, tested for diseases, background checks, confirmed in their religious beliefs, etc. I think their choice of no children should not be rewarded in anyway. Hell, at my business people with children get an extra five days a year off to go to school plays, play dates, etc. (We even have monthly show and tell... bring photos of your children in and everyone has to watch in the large conference room.) Those without children (married only) have to make up the lost productivity.

Singles without children seem to be motivated to get married and reproduce. It is wonderful being special and having children we are blessed.

This come and go with friends and family circumstances never ends.

Now that my children are grown my friends who didn't have children until their late 30's/40's are so out synch with our life.

Oddly, couples we knew in our 20s who dropped off the radar as they had kids are turning out to be available companions for us. Their kids are moving out, and they'd like to go out to eat.

Don't forget those with ailing parents. When your folks are ailing the next thing you know you're gravitating to friends in the same circumstance. You figure out Medicare with them and have events their parents can come to.

I'm sure when Grandchildren come along that we'll have another shift as we probably won't be available for as much weekend fun.

The moral of the story is not to burn bridges with your friends because of their family circumstances. You never know when you're going to cycle in and out with them.

I'm experiencing this one too. I got married at 19, right about the same time I became good friends with a college classmate. I became pregnant just before beginning medical school, and made the difficult decision to drop that dream in favor of raising my son. My friend went on to med school without me. It was like a painful breakup, in a way. We're still friends, but it's harder without the bond of sharing the same classes, knowing all the same people, etc. He's now living a totally different life than I am, and we really don't relate so well to each other any more.

But you know what? It's ok. We all make our choices, and I made mine. And I'm more than happy with it. As atb said, you either suffer, or you change something.

I also learned you also can't sit around crying about not having any friends. You go out and find new ones, or you tell the old ones that you still want to be included. You clean up your house and have everyone over for Monopoly. Even if you never meet a "closer-than-a-brother" friend again, you at least have someone to talk to.

09:21, I don't think it's about whining so much as trying to figure out something that most people don't think of when deciding to have children. People talk about about colic and onesies, not "Who are you going to hang out with once you are no longer interesting to your single friends?"

I think that meeting new friends is a skill you hone throughout life, and having children is a time when that skill comes in handy. If meeting people always came easily before, then you might not know what to do when there are fewer fish in your sea of potential friends.

"But just as important, I made new friends -- moms with kids the same age as mine."

Did your husband need to make new friends?

anyone heard of Mom's Club?

I saw an ad on a bulletin board for a local stay-at-home mom's group. I thought it was more of an informal thing. After chatting with the woman for a while, she casually mentioned that they have a $25/year fee that has to be collected at our first playdate. What?? For the privilege of having my kid play at the park with hers? It was strange, like she was interested in the fee more so than in me as a potential friend, or my kid as a friend for hers. I don't know about the whole organization, but this woman was weird.

As my husband said, I'm charming enough that I don't have to pay to spend time with friends.

Too true. And I'm with 21117. We have several good friends and we all basically had our children at the same time. The sticky bit now is that our parenting styles are very different and it's getting hard to be around them because it makes for a good three days of de-programming when we get our kids home.

My one friend lets her kid eat ice cream for dinner and he gets to play video games until "he's ready to go to bed"--somewhere around 10 pm. The kid is NINE!

On the flip side-- I'm sure she sees us as being too strict. It's tough...

I do think it is a difficult shift. People who don't have children have a hard time understanding what it is like to have kids (esp. little ones) and have less tolerance for the challenges (fussing at dinner, interrupting to take things out of the baby's mouth) - this I know because I was that way before I had kids. I just didn't get it. Having a conversation with a 2 year old around is a unique skill set that one develops over time.

We have found that most of our friends are currently people who have children around the same age. Why? Because we are engaging in the same kinds of family activities. The kids have fun playing together and the adults can enjoy themselves at the same time. This does not mean that we are not still friends with people with other cricumstances, it just means that we see the kid people more frequently because it is easier. I'm sure that the kids reach a certain age where this is less of a concern.

RE: tradeoffs - I have found myself spending more time than I would like with people I don't like because they are in the same school or my child adores their child! I'm sure it goes both ways! haha

Wow, NYC. And that's a Haxian "wow." I really and truly hope you are a master at sarcasm. If so: brava. If not: wow.

My relationships certainly changed. Not really with my first- I was 19 and in college and she just hung out on Campus with me most of the time. She attended the on-site Day Care and I would pick her up during my breaks and we'd have lunch and play. My mom picked her up at the end of the day so I could go to work. I had a different social life than my friends,no bars or late night partying, but it did not bother me.

When my Husband and I married and had more kids (and then a few more :) ) is when it changed the most. Our friends have always been great about planning dinners and nights out ahead of time so we can get a sitter or we take turns going alone. They will often spend Friday or Saturday night hanging at our house after an impromptu meal out. The thing is, we just have different interests. Neither one of us wants to stay up late and drink anymore. My point is we have had to grow up while our friends have not. It isn't a bad thing, I still love them, and I am sure our relationships will become stronger again as they begin to have kids. For now though, the friends we have made since having kids are the ones we enjoy spending time with the most. And, yes, my husband had to find some new friends, too.

On another note- I do belong to a Mom's group with a fee to participate in their activities (you can attend for a month without paying). The fee covers the cost for snacks (so you don't have to fuss with bringing your own) as well as art supplies for the kids and some great Moms-night-out activities including a spa night and wine tasting. I would find out what the fee covers before closing your mind to the idea.

NYC is just being snotty. I think breeders should be the organ donors and only donate to their kids because of the DNA match. And those kids will breed and donate to their kids, thereby keeping the same kidneys and rectums in the same family for generations to come.

I would encourage parents to have fun with their friends WITHOUT their children once in a while. My brother- and sister-in-law have declined or re-invented more invitations than I can count for us to have dinner together, go to a movie or attend a play. They insist on everyone being all together all the time. That's a lot with three little boys all under age 7. And tending to the kids during these outings means that we don't know as much as about the parents' lives as we would like to. Of course, we're thrilled to be Aunt and Uncle, we just didn't realize it would come at the expense of our sibling (and sibling-in-law) relationship.

In my experience, once your friends have kids, you're not going to see or hear from them much. You can't have a telephone conversation because they're constantly stopping to talk to the kid. You can't do it after the kid is in bed, because the parent is too tired to stay up past the kid's bedtime.
You can't meet them after work because they have to take the kid to karate and piano lessons and soccer practice and for some reason, the spouse can't handle any of these things.
Weekends are out because they're booked with the kid's busy social schedule, soccer games and birthday parties.
They won't get a babysitter to go out on a weeknight because that would make them HORRIBLE, AWFUL parents, to leave their kid with someone else just so they can go out and have fun.
It doesn't matter anyway, because their only topic of conversation is their kids. Their world has shrunk to the size of the kids' world and they have no idea what's going on beyond that world, nor do they care.

"I think breeders should be the organ donors and only donate to their kids because of the DNA match. And those kids will breed and donate to their kids, thereby keeping the same kidneys and rectums in the same family for generations to come."

A-holes run in the same family!!

NYC - bravo....very good! I think some of you need to look up the word "sarcasm" and refresh yourself on the definition.
I stayed friends with most of my buddies who had kids...except the one who had a daughter who broke something every time she visited. And the mom thought it was "cute". bleh.

My friend of twenty years has had kids ever since I've known her; I have no kids. We make it work. We make time in our lives for each other because we value the friendship. I understand that her children need her and their needs may supersede our plans. She understands that she needs to have friends just like her kids do.

If the friendship wanes because you grow apart, that's life, but I wouldn't necessarily blame it on the kids. People get real caught up in the "shoulds" and the stereotypes. And for the parents in their twenties--believe me, it's a rare single thirty-seven-year-old who's out partying. Once you get a job and a mortgage, that part of life is over.

Too much navel gazing around these issues? Perhaps.

Life goes on. I lost touch with friends when my father was ill. Yes, I also worked, had a kindergartner (I was in my early 30s). But my biggest challenge was a terminally ill parent 300 miles away. I devoted a lot of resources to driving, flying, taking the train back and forth to visit my father, and then when he died, helping keep my mother company. I put my life on hold (unnecessarily in some respects).

This went on for a few years, and I think I could have done it all differently. I know my siblings did. So it's not always about kids. Life changes. Our circumstances are not always in lock step with those of our friends.

I found that there were absolutely no unexpected shifts in my friendships after having kids. My wife and I were well aware of the social impacts of having kids and had joked throughout her pregnancy which of our friends would abandon us and which of our friends would want to be an "aunt" or "uncle." We were right about all of them and not surprised in the changes.

If you go into it with the fantasy that you will "be the cool parents who take their kids to see bands" you're just being ignorant. If you look at your life and your friends honestly, without self-deception then you won't be surprised.

An interesting question. After 14 years of watching my friends have children I have to admit that while I always try to be adaptable, I start steeling myself for friends to drift away when the kids start arriving.

What's funny is that friends who haven't disappeared fall into two camps. I've noticed that moms who work are reluctant to be parted from their kids during their non-work time, so you're really making a date with the whole family, not just them. Stay-at-home moms seem to have much less guilt about getting a sitter, getting out of the house, and so on.

It doesn't matter anyway, because their only topic of conversation is their kids. Their world has shrunk to the size of the kids' world and they have no idea what's going on beyond that world, nor do they care.
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Wow, so your friends dumped you because of your non-stop whining. I had to do that to my loser friends too who wouldn't stop hogging the conversation about themselves or things, such as shoe brands, that really don't matter to all but the most shallow.

Two kids and happiest

"Wow, so your friends dumped you because of your non-stop whining.

I had to do that to my loser friends too who wouldn't stop hogging the conversation about themselves or things, such as shoe brands, that really don't matter to all but the most shallow. "

Wow! When did your friends become too shallow to be YOUR friends? After you had kids? Weren't your friends just as shallow before you had kids?

in my observation, people who have kids have an automatic set of friends/activities/ associates that come with the plan - to me it often seems like one way for previously friendless people to finally have meaning in their lives - people have kids in order to finally have friends (which includes the captive children). It is those of us who have chosen not to have children that are excluded from our horrifyingly and irresponsibly prolific country.

Most of my friends have just started having kids--I definitely see them less but I think I enjoy seeing them more when I do, because we treasure the time more and because I enjoy learning from them about parenting (both what I want to do when it's my turn, and what I DON'T!). Change is the wonderful part of life...

I want to correct my previous comment. I think I strayed from the topic but did address it to some point.

What my wife and I have done regarding friends etc. When the twins were born we began to send pictures, stories, updates on the twins etc. We still do. When we invited these friends and family over to dinners, parties, events, etc we expect a little something. (We do throw some lavish events and the gifts we give--can you say we rock).

Here is what we do to confirm our daughters are first in our minds and THEIRS. When we see them there a pop quiz on the girls (i.e. when they were potty trained, what designer shoes they wear, foods they like, vacation fun facts, recitals, etc.) There is extra points for knowing the girls first words beyond daddy and mommy. If they don't do well on these test they don't return. Easy as that. Of course these are friends with children. The ones without, well need to really up the girls birthday gifts.

I won't point fingers, but there are some posters here who need to seek counseling, or, more likely, get better counseling.

If you look at your friends and don't see single ones, married ones, those with kids, and those without, there's a problem. Either your "friends" dumped you when your life changed and you need to find better friends or you exclude an entire group of people because you're an a$$hat. OK, OK, maybe all your friends got married and had kids, so there isn't any diversity left in your group, but you get the point.

Wow! When did your friends become too shallow to be YOUR friends? After you had kids? Weren't your friends just as shallow before you had kids?

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Yes, they were pretty shallow beforehand, but like human interest news stories and video games, there's nothing wrong with a little fun, taking a break, and dealing with them once in a while. But when someone wants to talk in-depth about shoe brands, or hollywood gossip, or some vague, ill-defined green initiatives, but refuses to focus and actually DO anything but whine that "I've changed" when I simply MATURED or that "You only talk about your kids" when in fact, I don't wish to talk about what we should be doing in Darfur when I meet a kid on the playground who doesn't have a good jacket and wolfed down the granola bar his mother OK'd like he didn't eat breakfast... merely talking about the shame of Darfur is worthless compared to giving a kid a hungry kid a granola bar.

Yet, you know, I was told I was "self-centered" for talking about that kid instead of talking about shoes!

Those childless people will be lonely at 50. My coworkers are lovely people and make great aunts, but I've heard that story repeated ad nauseum- not having kids seemed like a great idea at 30 because of the diapers and a lousy idea at 45 when everyone's taking their teens to museum exhibits and book readings and they realize their world has grown so much broader with them than focusing entirely on the self.

It is those of us who have chosen not to have children that are excluded from our horrifyingly and irresponsibly prolific country.

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Zero population Growth has been disproven as a theory. What evidence do you have, besides some inner faith, that what you say is true?

Irresponsibly prolific? Sounds like what David Duke writes about. I know where you're coming from when you use his language.

I think it depends on the parents- I personally like the old fashioned style that if kids are around, they are expected to entertain themselves and generally keep out of the way of the adults. Today's over paranoid and over kid centric parents tend to be way too attached to their kids and make THEM the center of any social gathering.

So if parents play it right, I haven't found it to be much of an issue.

"those childless people will be lonely at 50" - talk about self -centered! you are having kids to have friends! 900 billion and counting - that is all I have to say - zero population growth is not a theory that needs to be disproved - it is merely a recognition of our impacts on the world. David Duke is in the "we are put on earth to procreate" camp. why everyone needs to have 'their' own baby, there are so many orphans - it is incredibly selfish! We need to think of the impact on the earth. China is way ahead of us in population growth, and they have had a one-child policy for years. You want to see where human self-centeredness and need to have your own baby gets us, go visit India, bangladesh, really the rest of the world just about. Just travel, learn, think, before mindless doing what every mouse can do. Nothing special in becoming a parent...! We need to stop, and we need to stop having children like commodities,like a new toy to play with. To keep you company when you are 50! There are Plenty of people already, to keep you company when you are fifty. Bad reason to have kids!

Most of the 50+ childfree people I know are busier and happier than ever. They have full, interesting lives. They travel, go back to school, learn to scuba dive or ski, volunteer, give back to the community, read whatever they want, watch whatever they want on the boob tube. No soccer practice, orthodontia, or night-time visits from the cops saying Junior has been arrested for peeking into windows. I'm taking music lessons and looking into going back to college to finish a degree. The breeders can only live their lives through their kids' colic, circumcisions, acne, and psychotherapy. Dull, dull, dull.

Nothing more boring than being trapped beside someone at a social event who talks incessantly about their kid(s).

"Most of the 50+ childfree people I know are busier and happier than ever. They have full, interesting lives. They travel, go back to school, learn to scuba dive or ski, volunteer, give back to the community, read whatever they want, watch whatever they want on the boob tube. No soccer practice, orthodontia, or night-time visits from the cops saying Junior has been arrested for peeking into windows. I'm taking music lessons and looking into going back to college to finish a degree. The breeders can only live their lives through their kids' colic, circumcisions, acne, and psychotherapy. Dull, dull, dull. "

--Good God! I would hope that when one is 50 years old, their child(ren) would well into adulthood. (20 years+) I know I would be doing all those things you just listed as my daughter would be 30 years old when I'm 50. This country is so backwards to have kids after 30 years old. I know times change and yadda, yadda, yadda, however biology does not. Biology says the best time for women to bear kids is between late teens- thirty years old.

"Most of the 50+ childfree people I know are busier and happier than ever. They have full, interesting lives. They travel, go back to school, learn to scuba dive or ski, volunteer, give back to the community, read whatever they want, watch whatever they want on the boob tube. No soccer practice, orthodontia, or night-time visits from the cops saying Junior has been arrested for peeking into windows. I'm taking music lessons and looking into going back to college to finish a degree. The breeders can only live their lives through their kids' colic, circumcisions, acne, and psychotherapy. Dull, dull, dull. "

--Good God! I would hope that when one is 50 years old, their child(ren) would well into adulthood. (20 years+) I know I would be doing all those things you just listed as my daughter would be 30 years old when I'm 50. This country is so backwards to have kids after 30 years old. I know times change and yadda, yadda, yadda, however biology does not. Biology says the best time for women to bear kids is between late teens- thirty years old.

To address the topic at hand-I find that I still remained friends with most of my single friends at the age of early 20's. If I wanted to go out at night to a bar/club, my daughter's father would just watch her. He works alternate weekends, so I have plently of free weekends.
I never bored my friends with incessant chatter of parenting or baby this/baby that. I wasn't interested in talking about those kids of things and I'm still not to this day. In fact, at my office, it took SEVERAL months from when I was hired for my co-workers to realize that I had a child.

As far as we child-free being "lonely at 50, 60, 70, etc.", having kids is no guarantee that you will have them around you. My ex worked in a nursing home and made an effort to visit many of the poor old men and women who had kids. These kids, by the way, dumped them in the home and very rarely visited. Very heartbreaking.
I am 44 and anything but lonely! Fortunately I live in the D.C. area where I have many friends, go to museums, play (old fogey) sports and volunteer. Lonely? Not a chance...

Well as a childless older American I can tell you that I have a rather unique opinion of my future.

1. Use as many of the natural resources as I can so children of the rich have less and may in fact suffer.

2 Create the biggest carbon footprint I can. (That includes eating leafy greens so I am extra flatulent) Hell with that commie Al Gore.

3. Teaching my dog skip to do DNR. He knows how to unplug the TV. Next is the life support system

4. When I die alone in my apartment and no one notices (no children and I a mean to the ones in the building) make sure my body decomposes.

5. Tell the neighbors I keep lots of krugerrands at home so their kids will check on me. Like looting.

I don't know any parents who are going to book readings and museum exhibits, with or without kids (and certainly not with teenagers). Unless it's a special museum event for kids. Or a book reading with the author of a children's book.
And that's my point. I'd like to do something like that with a friend. But she can't drop her kid off at the birthday party and meet me at the museum. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Leave the child alone for a few hours and do something adult? The horror!!
I'm not a non-stop whiner, in fact I don't whine at all. I'm frustrated and tired of losing friends when the have kids. Participating only in children's activities and only talking about your children doesn't make you mature. And continuing to go out and enjoy doing adult things and have adult conversations doesn't make me immature.
Giving a hungry kid a granola bar doesn't make you a saint. And it doesn't make you superior to someone who's concerned about what's going on the world. But you seem to think it does and that's the attitude that's so annoying.

NYC Geezer and Jake are my soulmates!
I recall a story a few years ago about a woman living alone in Sydney, Australia, and died at home. Judging from the mail piled up inside her mail slot she had been dead about a year. Utilities had been cut off, nobody bothered to visit her, INCLUDING her daughter and grandchildren who lived in the same city!

Goes to show you -- even with kids there's no guarantee you'll be taken care of. They'll dump you in a nursing home and use your money to pay for it.

i think as you age your friends can shift with or without kids depending on how much you change as you age. granted i have a child so how much of these changes were generated by him i can't say. my interest in the latest music? gone. latest movies? couldn't care less.
my desire to be cool is totally gone. is that because i'm older or because i'm a parent (and therefore will never be cool again) i couldn't say.

I am glad to be a parent. Seeing single people come into work hungover and leading aimless lives of work,bars, lonelieness and hookups. No thanks, I would not trade my family life for that.

Come on now, let's not fall into the stereotyping trap. I am single and childfree, but definitely do not come into work hungover after a hookup. I leave that to the college kids. ;-) You don't have to have kids to have a full rewarding life. You don't have to be childless to have a full, rewarding life. See what I did there?

Most of the 50+ childfree people I know are busier and happier than ever. They have full, interesting lives. They travel, go back to school, learn to scuba dive or ski, volunteer, give back to the community, read whatever they want, watch whatever they want on the boob tube. No soccer practice, orthodontia, or night-time visits from the cops saying Junior has been arrested for peeking into windows. I'm taking music lessons and looking into going back to college to finish a degree. The breeders can only live their lives through their kids' colic, circumcisions, acne, and psychotherapy. Dull, dull, dull.

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This is what's so confused.

I've got two kids and am in graduate school. My son and I are taking karate lessons and we both want to take scuba lessons when he's old enough. You act as if having children precludes you from this stuff. I know that in my family my brother and sister always ACT like I've given up things to have kids, but when I have to get up at 7am on weekends when the kids do, I get my grocery shopping and laundry done by 11am and then I'm off. My sister likes to watch TV until noon on weekends.

I'm not friends with any parents who are living quieter, more boring lives after having kids. Nor do I know any parents personally who don't have interesting, intelligent, educated kids. None have been arrested, none are ruder than we were, none are less productive than we were. One has a teen who's a published freelance writer- as a KID. Another has a teen who's posted some really well-done films to youtube.

Anyone this angry about children has displaced hatred of their childhood. It's time to get help and let go of your anger! None of the stories you talk about are remotely true.

I don't know any parents who are going to book readings and museum exhibits, with or without kids (and certainly not with teenagers). Unless it's a special museum event for kids. Or a book reading with the author of a children's book.

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In Washington, DC? Are you joking? Go to Politics and Prose! Little Jimmy and Janey Sidwell are there for College essay fodder. You don't go to book readings, do you?

Man, I take my LITTLE kids to museums every Sunday- count the Zoo as a museum and it's probably 6 times a month. Why? Because we live in DC! It's what we do here!!!

10:58: If that is a personal attack on me, you are very wrong. Everything I have posted is very true. I am not a politician or a writer for the Post so I don't make my living by writing lies.

As for singles being barflies and drunks, that is a very false stereotype. Just as 'happily married' is a stereotype. I wouldn't trade my life for yours either, tootsie.

IT BASICALLY DEPENDS ON THE PERSON, THEIR LIFE SITUATION, AND HOW CLOSE THE FRIENSHIP WAS PRIOR TO THE CHILD.

The most important point is that people need to consider the environmental impact of another human being in the world, before having kids. We have lots of people already - 9 billion. Many of the people already in the world are poor, orphans, in desperate need of help. If you are only having kids so you will not be lonely when you are fifty, that is not enough of a reason. Each human being has enourmous enviromental impact - we already have plenty of human beings. If you have to have another, try to compensate by also adopting an orphan, like angelina Jolie, or working hard at reducing your carbon impact in other ways. If we can't think about this intelligently, we may face some draconian governmental policy, like china's one child per family rule. They have 1 billion people - we only have 350 million. they have 100 cities of over 1` million population. We only have 10 cities with over 1 million population. So their density is our future, unless we use our brains. this is a long way off from kids/friends, but I can't understand why people don't conside the impacts of having children...

mhoney is the only voice of reason on this blog. Cheers! In the past 3 centuries, families needed kids to work the farms and fields. Medical care was not very good so a lot of children died before reaching adulthood. However, how many of you need to produce children to work in your fields? Why do both parents need to work full time jobs just to keep your head above water and out of bankruptcy? I'd be all for that 1 kid per couple law. Maybe we should go so far as to say 0 kids per couple. Or make couples adopt one kid for each kid they produce themselves.

As mhoney said "We don't need your individual contribution to the population explosion." We are all paying for what you've produced already.

Each human being has enourmous enviromental impact - we already have plenty of human beings.
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This theory has been completely disproven. you are wrong.

The earth can, of course, support many many more people than we have currently. David Duke and the Eugenicist types were proven wrong in the 1930s.

Sometimes when people talk about this old canard of overpopulation they start talking about developing countries (why is it that it's people in "poverty" who don't look like us that's the first example). Secondly they talk about people spending non-renewable resources.

Using non-renewable resources is not part and parcel of being human. Solar and wind power are inexpensive and when the technology is improved in our lifetime, no one will care about "peak oil."

As I said, the overpopulation argument has been disproven, so MHoney must just be ignorant of science.

10:58: If that is a personal attack on me, you are very wrong.
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If you found a PERSONAL attack in what I wrote, I dare say you made that up in your head.

I'm not sure why the unamed person states that "overpopulation has been disproven". As a sentence, it doesn't make sense - does he mean it is impossible to overpopulate? That is ridiculous, just ask the Easter Islanders - oops, they died out due to overpopulation! We have already lost species because of human overpopulation, most recently the blind meiji dolphin. So I don't know what this person is talking about....Just google 'overpopulation,' whoever you are, and read the wikipedia entry. The kid that is born today is using diapers today, so any future advances in technology are not lessening the new child's environmental impact right now. Potential parents must consider their impacts on the earth, as must we all.

We have already lost species because of human overpopulation, most recently the blind meiji dolphin.

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This is absolutely not true! There is no such dolphin as the "blind meiji dophin!" The Meiji was a Japanese period prior to the Showa period (great depression).

Are you confused with the Yangtze River Dolphin?

That dolphin was spotted on videotape in August 2007, so it's still around, just very threatened.

The Yangtze River dolphin population was drastically reduced due to the industrial use of the Yangtze River. Industrial use of the river was not caused by overpopulation, it was caused by river mismanagement.

Not only is there no such dolphin that you named, the amount of population in China had no bearing on Chinese ecological laws. Because, after all, a big city like Washington, DC can support the bald eagles we saw for the last 10 years on the Wilson Bridge.

You really have to stretch your faith long past scientific analysis to blame bad ecological laws and river mismanagement on "over-population."

But if you didn't mean the Yangtze River Dolphin, please, pray tell, what the Blind Meiji Dolphin is. Without that info, your story has no factual basis.

The kid that is born today is using diapers today, so any future advances in technology are not lessening the new child's environmental impact right now.

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What possessed you to pass off the parent's responsibility (diapers) on a kid? Who thinks that way?

Judging from these blogs (and the On Balance tripe) you people aren't capable of producing a normal, healthy child and you don't know how to raise it once you get it. Every kid mentioned in these blogs is ADHD, autistic, slow development, suicidal, runaway, drug addicted, or 'special' and has constant dirty habits, allergies, or ear tubes. They're all being evaluated, studied, analyzed and scrutinized by experts and the rest of us have to put up with your defective products. Why don't you just hang it up.

So, we will all be extinct by reason of stupidity in a generation or two.