When you meet up with old friends and all they talk about is their kids..

[BrendaandEddie]

the type of mate you have known for years, but who are SO invested in their kids school and exam results/love life that it is their only topic of covo,,,

How do you move it to more interesting things? ( Once you have done the basic = are they alright kind of stuff?)

[CarlaJones]

What happens when you bring up other topics?

[BrendaandEddie]

they often deviate back

[RaskolnikovsGarret]

Yes, and they forget that you actually have children too, but don't ask a thing about them. Not that you'd want to spend much time on that topic anyway, but still annoying. Agree with the deviating back.

[bigTillyMint]

Maybe they are just boring and have nothing else interesting in their lives - only live through their children? Do they work or have other interests at all?

[BrendaandEddie]

often know every detail about teenagers social lives too - very odd

always do uni open days

[TheHouseOnTheLane]

My mate does the "Right....this is OUR time so no talking about our kids...I want to hear about YOU!" with a big grin when we meet another mutual friend who is like this.

[TheCatsMother99]

I get this, which is difficult as I don't have kids (but want/trying).

I've tried steering the conversation to other things but it goes straight back to the kids & I'm left with practically nothing to say as I can't really join in

I've given up on seeing those friends together, far easier to see them separately now.

[pictish]

I have a friend who begins every meet up with a lengthy update of her dd's comings and goings of late and all the unremarkable cute and funny things she has said since we last saw each other...as though I were a grandparent or someone like that...someone invested in her little girl's life.
Thing is, I have a dd the same age as hers who she never asks about.

Once we get the daughter blether out of the way she is normal and very nice, but she does think her dd farts rainbows and the world is utterly enchanted by her.
In reality she's a rather bossy and forward child who is consistently unpleasant to my son.

Gah.

[WipsGlitter]

My sister went through a real phase of this. It was soooooo boring. It was worse when there were other parents with kids at the same school there.

[WiryElevator]

It's the height of bad manners not to consider what your fellow conversationalists might want to discuss. Ergo child encumbered should realise when child free ask a polite question enquiring generically about kids you should keep the answer short and move on to other topics child free friend is really interested in.

For those that have kids, I find it useful to let them get a boast or whatever out the way, don't bother telling them about my DC unless they ask specifically as they are rarely really interested and don't listen, and then steer convo away to what they are watching on telly, what nights out they have coming up, holidays, what's in the news, something annoying my DH did, a funny story that happened to me not involving kids etc.

[AmazeMe]

I think these people are either bores anyway, and/or women whohave been socially conditioned to think that their children are the most important and interesting thing about them. Tbh, I even see the effects of that on here. It blows my mind slightly to see so many posters continually referring to 'another mum', or 'school mums' - I have a child whom I adore, but I would never think of myself, or other female friends with children, as 'a mum'. It's not the essential thing about me, and I'm under no illusion that my son is of engrossing interest to people other than me, and I have lots of friends without children.

I do think it's perfectly possible to have very interesting conversations about children and being a parent, by the way, but endless lists of facts and achievements about anyone is dull.

[BrendaandEddie]

the thing is Wiry is that I find myself drawn in , then bore MYSELF talking about it.

[BrendaandEddie]

i am sure men just go 'kids ok?' and move on

[OneDay103]

I think these women really just have not much going on in their lives. Luckily it makes them easy to spot and avoid. There's only so much of 'that's so nice' that you can do.

[Bunbaker]

"I think these women really just have not much going on in their lives"

Or their children are having problems and they just want to offload. I know I am guilty of talking about DD a lot at the moment, but she is having friendship issues right now and it preys on my mind.

That said I am as interested in other people as I am in DD's well being so I don't make the conversation all about DD's problems.

[CookieMonsterIsOnADiet]

I'd echo OneDay in that they don't have much else going on in their lives so become boring as they only have one thing to talk about. It's usually the same ones who use facebook a billion times a day with updates and photos that makes you want to block them.

The only thing you can do is spend less time with them and find friends with mutual interests with a wider conversational circle.

[FirstWeTakeManhattan]

Maybe they are just boring and have nothing else interesting in their lives

I think these people are either bores anyway

I think these women really just have not much going on in their lives


Mumsnet is fucking lovely sometimes.

I find that some people are arseholes to talk with, and some aren't, regardless of any offspring.

[KeyserSophie]

It depends- big difference between "X is really struggling at school/has a terrible illness" where I'd just listen as the person clearly needs to offload/ wants advice/ is just fed up, and "X is on reading book Y" or "Today we saw a dog and X said "oh look, a dog"" which is snoresome.

[SpaggyBollocks]

I don't have anything else going on in my life right now. I am really excruciatingly boring.

I don't see friends often but when I do I revel delightedly in their gossiping.

I'd hate it if I was ever called upon to pick a topic of conversation. "so today ds rejected his salmon and cream cheese oatcakes in favour of the dried bits of weetabix he picked out of the carpet fibers."

[DinosaursRoar]

Some woman genuinely don't have anything else going on - if they work, it's not something they find interesting enough to chat about, and all non-work time is focussed on the children and housework.

I haven't met men who only talk about the DCs, but then men are less likely to be the primary carer for DCs so less likely to be the ones to get to the stage they are so involved. I have met many men who can only talk about work or issues effecting their jobs, the woman who only talk about their children are effectively doing the same thing.

OP - before she had DCs, did she talk about work, office politics, that sort of stuff lots?

[pandarific]

FirstWeTakeManhattan Well, what's the other explanation? They have no conversation apart from their babies/children - therefore, one would assume they don't have much else going on.

[tomatodizzymum]

No, I'm lucky my old friends have lives plus our kids are the ones we're trying to pretend we're not with

[LadyShirazz]

Last time I saw one of my oldest friends (travelled quite a long way to see her), she only spoke about and "through" her three year old.

It was awkward TBH - she didn't appear interested in us at all, and we wondered why we'd bothered.

[pandarific]

I may be touchy on this point as I was recently invited to a picnic and then left with two women (while all the men went and talked amongst themselves) who just played with their babies/talked about sleep patterns to each other other, for half an hour, leaving me sitting on the blanket with them pissed off and bored.

I made nice and made a few remarks about baby things after previous attempts at other topics had failed, but after a quick 'oh yes' they were right back to each other and the babies. Utter arseholes - who invites people along to things just to ignore them??

[pandarific]

And I have to go out with the fuckers next week, too. Bah.