quick clicks

dads today articles

dads today q&a

message boards

research baby names

prepare a birth plan

content channels

ip channel rss feeds

read birth stories

read parenting stories

recommended books

e-newsletters

safety recalls

ip diaries

ip store

mom of the month

dad of the month

editor's letter

letters to the editor

Confessions of the Childless Guy

Learning to be a Friend to New Parents

By Scott Engmann

When the trusted troubadour, Bob Dylan sings, "Times, they are a changin'," his lyrics are embedded with the tumultuous political and social milieu of the 1960s and 1970s, yet they somehow make sense for me right now, in 2001, as a 33-year-old married, childless male. They make sense, not just because of the newfound global-insecurity that I feel since the activities on September 11 (this certainly has changed our times!), but because most all of my closest friends have had babies! Babies entering the world is not such a weighty matter per se, and for many it is simply a matter of course, but for me, it has created disruption to my social life, not to mention significant soul searching as these little ones, who eat, cry, and beg for attention take up most, if not all of my friends' attention. Just months ago, these folks were my friends -- and these little ones were not even in the picture!

I often wondered what it would be like when children entered into my social picture, but I never imagined that it would happen so quickly and with so many of my friends at the same time. Some days it feels as though the spontaneity and fun of life is no longer an option, short of me running out and finding new friends who are childless and more adventurous than my parental friends. You see, for my friends who have been graced with children, there has arisen a pervasive sense of preoccupation with these new lives, and rightfully so. Understandable, because these new lives are utterly dependent on my friends outpouring care and love. But this means that there is less energy and less fun to go around for me and for the things we have built our memories of friendship upon.

Child-centric preoccupation, which most of my friends now seem to have, hit me for the first time when my wife and I, having just returned from a year abroad in London, attended a weekend reunion with old best friends at Balboa Island, Calif. What was long anticipated as a weekend of late nights, deep conversations, filled with good food and drink, turned out to be a weekend of watching their kids and trying to muster up amazement at their heartfelt attempts to walk, talk and play. Surely these are amazing events, and I really do enjoy them, but personally, they didn't compare to the old times where we could sit and discuss politics together. Further, not that my stories of the last year were that important, but limiting our London musings to five minutes hardly seemed enough, but with children starving for "momma's finest," everything gets put on hold.