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The Science of Friendship After Kids: Why Your Network Shrinks (and Where It Goes)

It feels personal when a close friend stops texting back after you have a baby — like proof they never really valued you. Panel studies that track the same people before and after they become parents tell a more structural story: parenthood measurably shrinks contact with friends and grows contact with neighbors and other parents, for practical, well-documented reasons that have nothing to do with how much anyone cared. Here's what changed in the research, and what actually happens to a friendship network when a child arrives.

-19%the drop in mothers' frequency of contact with friends after having a child under 5, in a 12-year within-person panel study — controlling for age and other life changes +32%the rise in mothers' contact with neighbors over the same period — the network doesn't just shrink, it relocates toward people met through the child -7%the drop in fathers' number of close friends after having a child under 5, in the same fixed-effects panel model 1,933previously childless adults tracked nationally by Nomaguchi and Milkie — large enough to show 'social integration' rising for new parents on average, even as specific old friendships thin out

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