This is both hard and easy to set up. I think we generally know that around 24–27, if not earlier (and often now later), people start having kids, and once people start having kids, the nature of adult friendships can shift. There is oddly a lot of assumptive behavior that goes on from about 25 to 55 (lol, wide range) where people with kids assume one thing about those without, and people without assume stuff about people with. It’s confusing, and honestly COVID made it more confusing, because I think a lot of people with young kids kinda secretly longed to be without young kids cooped up all day, and I think a lot of people without kids were like “Well, this is lonely and sad in its own right.” We did that for basically a societal year (relative to where you live). At the same time, the planet is ostensibly on fire, things cost a lot, automation is coming for jobs, we probably have a health-related decline in fertility, and you got people like AOC asking if it’s even OK to have children anymore. (My over/under on the amount of children she will have is three, FYI.) It’s a complicated little dance we’re in around this topic.
If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written, you know that I’m in this bout of infertility right now and trying to make stuff happen. So … I’m on the “no kids” side and I’m “pretty old” (usually added with “but not for a guy!”) at…
