People and relationships are constantly growing and evolving and things seem to go in waves at different times (ages) in our lives. People who were your friends in Elementary school may not have made it through Middle and High school because of personality changes and differences and the same being for High school to College and College into adulthood. At all of these life transitions there seems to be a turning point in your relationships that either keep them going (maybe even stronger) or break them or fizzle them off. Mostly these changes occur because the other person or persons may not understand your transition or your new priority. For instance, when you get married or even just a serious couple your friendships towards other married couples (people with lives like yourself) become prevalent and unfortunately I have even been hurt by and seen somewhat of the same trend in my recent divorced life. Same goes for people with children. Your friends who don't have children may not understand that your child naps at a certain time every time therefore you are somewhat confined to the house during that period or they must eat at a certain time to combat crankiness so an 8:00 dinner time isn't exactly conducive. Or that you can't just drop everything and go have happy hour after work. For a lot of people the lack of personal experience can be detrimental to a friendship. With that being said, can friends going through different life changes still be friends?
I really think the answer to the question lies somewhere between the strength of the friendship and understanding of that person. There are a few friends in my life that I may not see all the time or go long periods without seeing or talking to and it doesn't really make us any less of friends when we get together, giggling like school girls like no time has passed. Those are the type of bonds that can last through just about anything not just having children, other major life changes whether it be temporarily put on hold due to a controlling boyfriend, having a new child, having a new live in boyfriend, etc. Deep down you know that person is always going to come back to you, they just disappear and reappear like herpes. Those are the type of friends who realize your absences had nothing to do with how you felt about them, its adjusting to having a new child, having your boyfriend move in, or learning how to get rid of that awful controlling boyfriend. That's where being understanding comes in. It can be hard on a friendship, especially a very close one, knowing its not just about them anymore, they have a life with you and a life with their significant other and family. But these lives can coexist. I take the movie "Ted" for instance. (Stupidly hilarious. A talking teddy bear who throws out the F bomb, has parties, and hires prostitutes. How is that not funny?) This teddy bear has been his best friend his entire life and now he has to learn to balance his time between his girlfriend and his best friend? And imagine how the friend and girlfriend feel? Jealous, left out, afraid of being left behind. But eventually both the girlfriend and the friend (Ted) learn they have to be understanding enough and considerate enough of each other because that's what makes him happy and blah, blah, blah, happily ever after. Now, to all you non kid having friends out there, I'm not saying you have to take into consideration every time you plan something when your kid having friend's child eat, sleeps, and shits and know their schedule by heart but if you truly want to make that friendship work you need to make some sort of effort of consideration to those things like maybe ask what would work better or try to plan something ahead of time where child care can be arranged rather than last minute. I'm not even saying you have to love your friends kids. Hell one of my best friends doesn't want kids, doesn't know what to do with them. But you do have to be tolerant and including.
So the answer is yes, but that definitely depends on the right person and right friendship.
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