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So no one told you that you were gonna age—clap clap clap clap!
Are you ready to hear this, Friends fans? Emma Geller-Green turns 15 today. Emma spent two seasons on Friends (most often conveniently located offscreen), making her the most prominently featured Friends kid. And yeah—there were a lot of Friends kids. There are enough Friends kids to populate their own Millennial spinoff, should NBC ever choose to return to the sitcom’s ridiculously affordable version of Manhattan.
To celebrate Emma’s birthday, here’s a roundup of the seven—yes, seven—Friends kids that appeared throughout the show’s ten-season run. And don’t feel bad if you consider yourself a Friends fanatic and didn’t realize the show’s six leads had that many kids. The show forgot most of the time, too.
Ben Geller
First Appearance: “The One with the Birth” (s1e23)
Birthday: May 11, 1995
Age Today: 22
For a show about twenty-somethings, the show included kids almost from the very beginning. Ross (David Schwimmer) learns that his ex-wife Carol is pregnant with their child in episode two. After learning that he’s about to be a father, Ross spends season one—well, mostly trying to work up the nerve to ask out Rachel (Jennifer Aniston). He also goes through a lot of father-to-be plots, but not that many because Carol and her partner Susan weren’t series regulars. On theme, season one’s penultimate episode focuses on Ben’s birth; the season finale is all Rachel and Ross drama. Ben would pop up a few times each season when the show wanted to do a kid-focused comedy bit, which led to season seven’s “The One with the Holiday Armadillo.”
Overall, though, Ross was kind of an absentee father considering he lived in the same borough—possibly even the same neighborhood—as Carol and Susan. He spent a lot of time going on bad dates, screaming about sandwiches, and undergoing weird makeovers and very little time with his son. If you think this had an effect on Ben, just let him tell you.
If you want to feel even older, Cole Sprouse—who played Ben in seasons six through eight—is now old enough to play a teenager on TV.
Leslie Buffay, Chandler Buffay, Frank Buffay Jr. Jr.
First Appearance: “The One Hundredth” (s5e3)
Birthday: October 8, 1998
Age Today: 18
When Lisa Kudrow got pregnant IRL, Friends gave Phoebe a storyline wherein she acted as a surrogate mother for her brother Frank Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi) and his teacher-turned-wife Alice (Debra Jo Rupp). This storyline dominated the latter half of the show’s fourth season and resulted in Phoebe being the only friend that wasn’t able to attend Ross’ London wedding. Also not at the wedding? Ross’ actual son, Ben.
The storyline won Kudrow an Emmy and, since the kids were actually her brother’s, it also gave the show all the hijinks of a pregnancy without saddling it with three kids. Unlike Ben, who definitely lived a couple subway stops away from Ross at most, the Buffay kids lived with their parents somewhere in Upstate New York. The Buffay triplets popped up in Season Six (“The One with Joey’s Porsche”) where they proved to be too much for Chandler (Matthew Perry), Monica (Courteney Cox), and Phoebe to babysit. The trio of tiny tornadoes made one final appearance in Season Ten—when their dad briefly considered giving one of them up to Phoebe! Friends really has daddy issues.
Emma Geller-Green
First Appearance: “The One Where Rachel Has a Baby” (s8e23-24)
Birthday: May 16, 2002
Age Today: 15
Here’s the birthday girl! Emma’s the fifth kid on this list, but she’s the first—and only—kid to actually become a regular character on the show. Emma was a fixture in the last two seasons of the show, appearing in 23 episodes. Some of those appearances were just Rachel placing her in a crib or stroller just offscreen, but still, Emma was around. A number of plots in the last two seasons even revolved around her. She said her first word (“gleba”), celebrated her first birthday (which everyone tried desperately to bail on), and discovered her first favorite song (“Baby Got Back”).
It is weird that Emma, as far as we know, never met her half-brother Ben. His last appearance on the show (“The One Where Joey Dates Rachel”) predates her birth by a few months. Now Emma’s 15 years old, and no doubt giving her mother a lot of grief over her early ’00s fashion choices. Seriously, Rachel, a thick, multicolored wool scarf/deep-v combo held together by a leather strap?
Jack Bing, Erica Bing
First Appearance: “The Last One” (s10e17-18)
Birthday: May 6, 2004
Age Today: 13
Lastly we have the Bing twins, Jack and Erica, who made their debut in the series finale. Monica and Chandler adopted the twins from their biological mother (Anna Faris), although—in true sitcom fashion—they didn’t know they were having twins until they were in the delivery room! Over its ten-year run, a subgenre of hospital-set Friends episodes emerged. The other births on this list got A-plot placement in their episodes, but not the Bing twins. While Chandler and Monica were at the hospital meeting their children, their friends were hanging out at Central Perk, embroiled in one last bit of Ross and Rachel will they/won’t they.
Jack and Erica only spent one night in their parents’ massive rent-controlled apartment before moving upstate. They’re now in middle school and, considering how hard it was for the Friends cast to make time for anyone not in Central Perk, one has to wonder just how often Jack and Erica see their cousins… or Phoebe… or Joey… or even Monica and Chandler, to be honest.
