As our baby approaches seven months outside the womb, our living space appears to have been taken over by rainbow moose, rattling jaguars, and containers for diapers at every stage of use. The books I handle most these days have krinkly cloth pages with one word per page. Some of the novel and vibrant objects in our lives have just been contained by the living-room-sized playpen now set up in our living room.
The little human is developing his crawling muscles, in part by getting on his hands and knees as he thrusts his hips in the most comical, carnal way. He smiles and grunts, then lies to rest for a moment before getting back up and continuing. Before the playpen arrived, he wriggled across the floor at remarkable speed with the primary mission of gnawing on electrical wires. Toward evening, he tolerates not being held for one hundred twelve nanoseconds only.
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A couple of weeks ago, an amazing group of men showed up for an Engaging Fatherhood workshop near the Oregon Coast. I love leading workshops partly as a way to drop into deeper conversations with folks. Turned out I was the second least-experienced father in the circle; the first being a yet-to-be-dad. I asked a handful of questions of the group, among which was ‘what would you like your child-free friends to know about how to roll with your family, how to show up and support you?’
I compiled some of their responses in a notebook, added some thoughts Heather and I have talked about (having now experienced both sides of the dynamic), and brought them together into the following guide for folks who might benefit.
Your feedback and thoughts are welcome. Add your own in the comments!
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The Child-Free Human’s Guide to Navigating Friends Who Have Kids
This aim of this guide is to help willing non-parents be supportive of their friends who are parents in ways the parents can receive in a good way, and also to foster deeper relationships between kids and unrelated adults.
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Consider the following a menu of ideas with which you can show up, help out, support, take initiative, learn something new, and potentially deepen your connections to the parents, child(ren), and yourself.
Disclaimer:
This guide is not comprehensive, complete, or even, in many cases, correct. Just as individuals and family systems vary wildly, so do our preferences, needs, wants, levels of overwhelm, coping strategies, willingness to accept support, and ability to even know what we want or need and to ask for said thing(s) in a given moment.
Special Note:
Although there are a few points in this guide that point toward the doing for, I want to emphasize the being with as an even more effective form of support for new families. Whether you can empathize or “truly understand” what your friends are going through is less important than your willingness to just be wild creatures, present and aware, bringing up the next generation—together.
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On Initiative
For me, taking initiative is sexy. I love to do things that need doing—clearing the dinner table, washing dishes, cleaning the stove, taking out the trash, etc. Working on commercial fishing boats in Alaska taught me to really appreciate it when others do things that need doing without asking. But as a wrung-out new parent, I had no effing idea how much I would appreciate someone else doing the dishes.
It’s possible that not all parents are going to be into people just doing stuff in their living space. Some people prefer things in their space happen in a particular way, especially when objects they value are at stake (e.g. washing a favorite mug), or when hormonally-heightened senses get involved (wearing scents or fragrances around a pregnant or nursing mama, using certain cleaning products, etc.). When in doubt, ask.
Although asking questions (like the babybrain-taxing “how can I help?”) may incite the very overwhelm you may hope to help alleviate, asking is often—so very often—the best course of action in most cases.
One efficient method is to pair an offer with a yes-or-no question: “I noticed that there’s a stack of cardboard boxes near the back door; may I recycle them for you?”
On Meal Train Visits and Post-Partum Socializing:
In the early days, it sometimes felt like work to keep conversations going with folks during visits, especially when humans were coming through every evening for the meal train. It was a blend of feeling deeply grateful and also exhausted—wanting to connect and also feeling obligated.
Normally, in life, when I’m resourced and able to think, I can take responsibility for my own experience and say, “hey, I’m really tired right now, thanks for the food, love you and see you soon!” and all would likely be fine.
But new parents are not often resourced, or able to think and advocate for themselves in the same ways you might be familiar with. It may be a big help to remember that when the parents invite you in “just for a few minutes.”After a few minutes of visiting, check in: “hey, we’re loving hanging with you, and wonder if it would be helpful/restful if we headed out?”
For Consideration, Mostly
The following is the material from my recent workshop, and smatterings of conversations with other parents through the summer. It’s in no particular order of importance.
Show love and attention toward the kids
Kids don’t bite, but they do tend to live in the present moment. “They don’t care if you like their shirt,” one workshop participant said. “Ask them what they’re into.”
Obviously, this goes more for older kids. Engage with them. Meet them wherever they’re at. Ask them to tell you a story, or to show you their favorite toy, game, or hiding place.
What if friends were more “on” with parents?
If the parents are the only ones tracking the kids while others are present, it can make connection difficult and disjointed. (Perhaps at some point, you’ve been asked a meaningful question by a parent, only to offer a reply to their trail of dust, as they ran after their child into the street, toward a cliff, into a lion’s den, etc.).
While one might interpret being “on” as being present and available, which are both great, consider sharing some responsibilities, even for an hour or two. Learn to change a diaper; if that’s not you, don’t be afraid to just sit and be quiet together.
Parents would love friends to know that the parents’ priority is the child and their well-being.
One participant offered the following idea: Consider the triangular shape of a visit with a parent and little one. Perhaps you want to see and hold baby for a bit, but also get some conversation and connection in with the parent. Great. What about those lion’s-den moments when the parent’s attention splits, mid sentence, to take care of this or that? Maybe it happens fifty times in an hour. Maybe there’s frustration for you, because your needs aren’t getting met. Just be aware that dynamic can also be a lot for the parent to hold, being the fulcrum between you and kiddo(s).
What if we formed a circle instead of a triangle, then we can all hold this and be in this together, and look out and support each other in the dynamic rather than in a push-pull for the parents’ attention?
Know that each moment of being a parent is an opportunity for us to be looking at our personal experiences around childhood, how we were treated, and how adults and others were (or weren’t) with us.
For those who accept these opportunities, doing that core wound work is exhausting. I’m not saying that you, child-free-human, need to do that work, but I would invite you to track your own nervous system and the roots of your responses when the baby begins to cry, or why you might say things like, “I’m afraid I will break it” or “I’m just not into kids,” etc.
I have often felt awkward with kids, particularly ones around age 8. For a long time, I just didn’t know what to say, how to connect, what to ask, how to be. When I recalled my own experience of being that age, there was a lot of pain, dissociation, and negative experiences that came from connection with and proximity to others. It made a lot of sense that my inner 8-year-old wasn’t skilled at or open to connecting—not without my working through some of that material.
Acts of Service Go a Long Way
When there’s a baby around, everything becomes a hundred times more difficult, especially when the parents haven’t slept in weeks.*
When you visit, do something helpful. Socializing is lovely, and also requires energy on the parents’ part, so try to put some energy back in the pot. After a shared meal, take the dishes and wash them. Don’t just put them in the dishwasher. Clean the stove. Wipe the countertops. Take out the trash and/or recycling.*If you have never had an experience of an extended period of lack of sleep, try the following experiment: Sleep for only four hours per night for a week. Throughout each day, notice any changes in your physical energy levels, brain and memory function, sexual arousal, social engagement, and your personal relationship to sleep and wakefulness. For a more advanced practice, continue for six weeks up to two years, reducing daily sleep to two hours.
Sometimes, the baby just needs to cry.
It doesn’t mean that something is deadly wrong. Also, if you are holding baby and they begin to cry, there is nothing that has suddenly gone wrong with you. If it scares or bothers you, sure, hand baby off to parent. But also see if you can just be with it for a moment.
Breathe, do some squats while holding baby in your arms (it can be an instant off-switch), or rock them in a new way. You might surprise yourself—and others—with your ability to self-regulate and even co-regulate this litle being who is simply looking for a calm nervous system to sync with.
If you host a gathering where kids are present and food is being served, please ensure that families (and elderly and alter-abled) get served up first.
No one benefits from hungry children and underslept parents watching others eat.
Single parents do not get a break. Some parents who do not have family support have a 24/7 job.
If you have an hour or two, and want to develop a relationship with the child, take them for a walk, hang out in the yard, etc. if you’re up for it and can genuinely offer it, ask your parent friends if they’d like a break.
This is different from childcare. This is an opportunity to build relationships with the kids and to provide the parents with a much needed break to do what they need to do in order to remain sane and human.
Lastly, and this one cannot be overemphasized: allow yourself to feel all of the things. Being around babies and kids brings up a lot of things for a lot of people. They are Life Happening.
Every now and then, look around you at any given moment, especially in adultland, and imagine the humans around you as babies. All of us were kids once. Someone once told me that growing up is not exclusively a process of self-abandonment. The little you is still in there, maybe under a pile of old blankets, waiting for you to join and help build a fort.