I totally agree with you. I am also divorced, new to raisingbakersfield.com, but do have 4 kids of my own. I think it's great that u want to continue yr friendships kids or no kids. Let me tell u, when I was married, my husband and I had a lot of "family friends". In other words, we would do things together as a family with other families. A lot of my single, kid-free friends would lose interest in the new activites we were into and so friendships died until we were spending less and less time visiting. Now that I'm divorced, it's different trying to hang out with those families like before. I admire a friend who can hold firm to those friendships that can last lifetimes. Children are a blessing. Life is rich when friends and familey are in abundance. My hats off to you for holding on to yr friendships.

i fully understand  your point, but let me offer my version of the story (even though it may not necessarily be your friend's version.)  When and if i get out of the house for something other than grocery shopping and other errands, i WANT my children to be entertained.   the only way to entertain them is with other  little monsters.  thus, i'm likely to call someone, anyone, who has a little monster of about the same age/sex.  it very quickly becomes a decision based not on who i want to hang out with the most, but who my children want to hang out with.  and, on those very, very rare occasions when i want nothing more than to hang out with my friend who doesn't have children, or doesn't have children my chidren's ages, then the LAST thing i want is my chidren bugging me during my friend time.  which is why i'd only hang out with these friends if the kids weren't with me. 

i hope, therefore, that you don't take your friend's choice personally.  those other women she's hanging out with, is mainly for her kids, not her.  and when she's trying to hang out for her, she won't want the kids around.  but, i also don't see the problem in you meeting her at the park and letting her kids run around while you two chat.  she might want something more normal, like doing something she used to do before kids, but at least you two are catching up.

I always take my kids (or kid depending on the time of day) with me when i do lunch or meet up with people, whether they have kids or not.  I'm lucky that my kids are pretty well behaved and can do that.  They get more than their share of kid on kid time, and I think they get something out of seeing me in my "grown-up' relationships.  It also gives them the opportunity to learn respect for adults, and how to interact with grown-ups.

I guess I kinda work backward from your friends with kids.  When people ask me out, I say "Sure, but I have my kids with me."  Then it leaves the decision up to the non-kid-having friend.  And like you, Kristin, most people enjoy my kids as much if not more than they do me.

I am also divorced (but remarried now to the coolest girl in the world), and though I have kids now, I was and am still way behind the rest of my friends in that category.  I've been where you are and I guess that is why I don't cut people off because of the 3 and 6 year old I have atttched to my pants. :-)

You are a true friend but unfortunately I don't think most childless women feel that way.  I drifted from most of my single friends after I became a parent. It's not that we lost touch completely, but we just didn't spend as much time together because they wanted to go to plays, movies, concerts and literary readings on short notice, and being a single mom I could never get a sitter that fast. If you say no over and over and over again, eventually they stop asking. So over time, I just found myself spending more time with people who had kids my own children's ages. Our kids could tag along, they could play together, and that gave the mommies time to talk.  I desperately miss those adults only girlfriend outings, but they just aren't logistically possible for me right now. Sitters are expensive and it takes at least a week to find and reserve a good one. I won't leave my kids with just anybody.