Best friend only wants to catch up with me (childfree) at kid-oriented venues

LaviniasBigBloomers and
Empressaurus of the Scathing Tinsel (page 2) are on the money here.

It is healthy, I think, for families to spend some time away from each other (even just an hour or two occasionally when children are young). Children should get 1:1 time with each parent, parents have occasional time together and/or with other adults. Sometimes that is difficult (very young bf babies, health issues etc) but it helps everyone's resilience and relationships

You can’t make this friend change what she is offering you and what she is offering you is quite selfish and all about her and her preferences.

You have accepted this but wish you didn’t have to.

Why not just slowly back off. She is over invested in being a mother, so let her crack on

These meetings sound extremely dull for you. I would just let the friendship drift for a while and not meet up very often.

By the time your friends children grow up and move on she is going to have lost her friendships if she is not careful.

I think that she's a bit of a CF to put her kids over you every time. You cannot expect a child free adult to enjoy meeting up at a children's venue. In fact, most women I know with kids would leave the kids at home and pop out to a cafe or restaurant to have a proper catch up with a friend. I wouldn't be going along with this. How utterly boring she must be.

The 3 year old will be getting free nursery soon. You’ve waited this long. Ask her when child starts and then suggest arranging a few hours out when children at school/nursery. Maybe your friend is a little depressed and doesn’t feel like going to adult places but once kids are taken care of she probably wants to give it a go. If kids go to bed no bother- you could pop round when they in bed in meantime. If they don’t sleep she probably can’t be bothered. Don’t say anything if you want to remain friends- she’ll take it as an attack on her kids. She might well say something though when you have a couple of hours at spa …….

She's an old friend of yours but the goalposts have kind of changed right now. You obviously don't want to back out of the friendship but I'd be more assertive about meet up destinations and I'd step back with helping with the children while you're out.
I wonder how she'll adapt as her children get older and pull away from her a bit. She may be Mother Earth but she sounds quite boring to be honest.

Even when we do have a convo it's all about pooping/sleeping/a problem at school. They never ask how you are or what you've been up to. I struggle to really relate to what they're saying and I really struggle to have long conversations about nappies or baby led weaning because I'm used to adult conversations on a whole different plain about business, or travel, or politics. I can't imagine my days being about placating a child because their ice cream is too cold, it would drive me up the wall.

@moomoomoo27 I’m child free and can’t speak for all parents on this thread but all my friends with kids are definitely not like this. It sounds like unfortunately you had some bad luck with self-centred people. As I’ve said upthread my friends don’t only talk about their kids and definitely do have adult conversations about politics and travel etc. I don’t mind when they talk about their kids school or a new hobby their kids does - the same way they ask about and listen to things going on in my life probably not that relevant to them. but it’s definitely give and take.

I am an educator though and love getting to know my friends kids, so I do genuinely find hearing things about kids especially school aged ones interesting. If that was all they talked about it would be a different matter though.

How you feel is fine. However she probably choses places where she thinks the kids will behave well because they are not bored and won't get into things they need help with. This will give her more time to concentrate on you than if they are bored and arguing, or start doing something they need help with. It's fine to suggest other places or even suggest that you do something child free, but it's also fine for her to decline if she thinks she won't be able to get a sitter, or will have to pay you less attention, because she'll need to be more involved with the kids in the places you suggest.

@Wednesdaysphiltrum

I have a kid and it is boring AS FUCK and is impossible to have a conversation at these godawful places.

Truer words were never said.

I think you need to stop suggesting meet ups and decline any she suggests. She might finally get the message (that her own head is up her own arse). Stop putting yourself through it.

I have a kid and it is boring AS FUCK and is impossible to have a conversation at these godawful places.

She is being a selfish friend. Just because she is a parent it doesn't mean she gets to constantly dictate the nature of your meet ups. It seems like there is no compromise and that isn't good in any type of relationship, friendship or otherwise.
I find it odd that she hasn't considered whether there are things you'd like to talk about that are inappropriate to discuss in the presence of kids. Maybe you'd like to share a wine etc..
I'd find it so boring to spend time with someone who based their whole identity around being a mother.

Oh and I reflected on this and thought maybe it’s worth asking yourself the question of whether she would accommodate you as much if the roles were reversed? If you had a new puppy, or a child, or were a carer of some description, would she be working something out so she could see you? Because that is key to working out if your friendship is worth fighting for.
In my case, I did go on to have children and I still felt as though the demands were one-sided and there was expectation about what I ‘should’ do, despite the fact I was now the exhausted one with little people - hence the friendship still slowly drifting.

This is what we do once or twice a year -not as often as pre-little ones and hopefully will see more of each other once we're both out the other side but it does work if you can't/won't leave them. Arrive once the kiddies mealtime carnage is nearly over but early enough to see them & pitch in with bathtime, stories etc. Once they're in bed you can enjoy a whole evening in peace and have a proper catch up. Down side is probably an early morning wake up but it's not too often and you've had your get-together.

@PopandFizz

yes and children don’t need to experience joy every minute of every day either. It does kids good to be bored sometimes and see that their mum is a person with her own needs, wants and friends etc and not just their mum.

Agree with this. It became palpably obvious that unless I was going to be useful or generous with gifting, I was superfluous to the needs of pretty much all of my friends who had kids during our late 20s and 30s.

The only ones who I remain friends with are the ones who actually made an effort to remember that I am also a human being and not an unpaid babysitter/therapist/parenting advice service/bank.

Can you sleep over at her house? You can all have dinner together and then she can get the kids to bed and you can have a proper catch up with a bottle of wine.

You have made room for her and her kids in your life, but it doesn't sound like she is making room for you. Can you ever talk about yourself, your relationships, sex life, job, family, mental health etc? Sometimes you might want to talk about things that aren't suitable for little ears or that you want to go into more detail about rather than 2 sentences between interruptions, and it doesn't sound like she is acknowledging that at all.

I agree with this but the last time I said it on here I got jumped on.

I have read the thread with a wry smile thinking of how every childfree/less person I know has at least one friend like this, but all the parents posting seem to be astonished by the behaviour.

What's wrong with meeting at the cafe after her kids have let off steam? And if you're trying to extract yourself from extra paid of hands role, why on earth did you go with her to the playground and not just leave after you'd had a catch up?

I'm coming from it the other way - I have a good friend who started her family much later than me so she is running around after a toddler whilst mine are flying the next. I can't think of anything worse than meeting her at soft play or petting zoo to catch up but then can't ever imagine her asking! I happily look after her kids on the odd occasion and do all these sort of fun things, but girlie catch up with a takeaway coffee freezing my tits off in a playground - not a bloody chance!

Is everything OK with her husband? The only person I know who literally wouldn't ever leave her kids later discovered he was a nasty piece of work and she didn't trust him alone with their DC 😧

I feel exactly the same.

@moomoomoo27 youre spot on about the resentment. I wondered if I was seeing something that wasn’t there but you’re right. I’m still in the phase of wondering if the friends I’ve lost will come back and how I’ll handle that if they do. I’m upset at being ditched due to not having young kids and I want to move on, but I also miss my friends and would love to see them again.

@Tinysoxxx

*Unfortunately this friend is long longer my friend. I am really sad about it...I wish I could have made my friend realise that it was not her or me."

Reading your post it's clear that it was you. You were envious of her life and you were dismissive of her problems. I should imagine she was sad at the time that her friend treated her like this. Are you really surprised that you're no longer friends?

I get the whole "It's intense for a few years and then we come out of it" but sometimes the amount of "take" in those years is just too much.

For those saying "Just step back for a few years, it's just a phase"...not always, it's not.

A group of my old friends all formed a new group when they had children and I thought things would improve after a couple of years. But it didn't because now they have new lives that childfree people don't fit into; they have a social life that revolves around their children and other people with children. As a PP said, I wish I'd spent less time and energy trying to maintain those friendships because it hasn't been worth it.

Maybe in years to come they'll be wanting non-childed friends again but it will be too late.

@Tinysoxxx Your husband could never ever get time off work? How long was this for? Do you mean just for the first couple of years?

I don’t have kids but majority of my close friends do and they all still made time to see me when their children were under 5, whether it was travelling to the other side of London or in some cases even travelling to another part of the UK.

I had a friend who has not got children. She wanted to talk about her relationship problems, her travels, her lack of money, her work problems. Her sentences all started with I.

Firstly, I didn’t much of any ‘I’ anymore. I was ok with that as I knew it was only going to be for a few years. So all the ‘me’ talk from my friend sounded irritating for lots of reasons. It’s so chaotic during the day having all that ‘mental load’ being responsible for little lives that I didn’t want or have the capacity to listen to anyone moaning about a life that I was envious about.

My friends are all really interesting smart people and they always had more to talk about than their kids and a lot of their sentences began with “I” too. And they seem genuinely interested in my life, my travels, my office drama, career and in fact many of them are more career driven and well-travelled than I am! The majority of them very deliberately chosen their life and were happy about their particular life stage and not envious of me at all. The couple who were jealous or bored of me , well I ended the friendships once I realised.

I wish I could have made my friend realise that it was not her or me - it was that are lives were so different at that point we had so little in common - but it would be better in a few years.

I see this a lot on here but I think the thing is often people without kids don’t really want to hang about for years waiting for certain things from friendship or for their friend to be able to talk about something other than baby clothes. Your friend also probably picked up on the fact you had a lack of interest in her “holiday getting ruined” etc.

I’m really fortunate most of my close friends did not fall into that pattern. Myself and my friends are all low maintenance in the sense we don’t all have to meet and talk regularly, and some live super far /abroad so that might have made it easier, since we didn’t make huge demands on each others time but that’s very much a mutual thing.

When we do meet though , I’ve never felt that I’m boring them etc and we are there for each others big events - baby showers, birthdays, performances (some of us are creatives) etc.

I think when you are both not listening to each other it’s fine for one or both to decide you’ve outgrown each other and to move away from the friendship forever, irrespective of if it will be “better in a few years “ because once you feel very sidelined and unimportant in your life it can leave a bitter taste, so even if the situation changes in the future the feeling remains.

O honestly feel the true friendships are the ones that can thrive even when you’re at different stages of your life or following different paths. If I become uninteresting to a friend with little kids because I am child-free or vice Versa I think it’s best we go out l separate ways.

Of course I expect some things to change eg. Not expecting them to be able to go on last minute girls holiday, Friday night drinks etc or not always responding to my message the same day, etc but the fundamental nature of our friendship in being there for each other remained in tact

I have a friend who had Two toddlers, once my family were abroad for Christmas and I was single, I’m not really bothered about Christmas tbh so I’d have been on my own but they invited me to spend it at theirs and they were so hospitable. Yes we did visit playgrounds etc but most of the time we were in their house cooking, talking, catching up while the kids ran around us.

I’m super grateful for friends who still remember you while juggling young kids.

I think there's a lot of truth in the pov that those with young kids and those without, are in different places in life and it's hard to reconcile them.
But friendship has to be give and take. And as things stand you are doing all the giving and she's doing all the taking.
True friendship means that you sometimes have to meet at the park, but she also has to sometimes forego her early night and see you when her kids are in bed. Or leave them with her dh and have lunch with you.
You aren't being a massive diva to want to do grown up stuff with your friend.
It is true that often you lose common ground when your lives go on different paths and it's hard for a knackered mum to relate to things she no longer has in her life and for people without (or past this stage) kids to be that interested in her kids' stuff. But friendship means making that effort to care because your friend cares!
She's not doing any of that for you and it's okay to (gently) remind her that you exist too.