Dear LFTP: friends who only talk about husbands and kids

• How should the listener handle friends who only talk about their husbands and children?

Dear LFTP letter: a listener befriends women through shared husband-and-children common ground, then finds they talk about nothing else; she is tired of hearing their children's names and is distancing herself. The hosts push back — the common bond of motherhood groups is motherhood; stop meeting women through doting-mothers channels and make friends through sports, travel, work, or church instead. The Secular answer: 'Birds of a feather flock together' — join a college class, a political campaign, a hospital volunteer group, a museum crowd.