Are mum friends, real friends?

I thought they were but I've certainly felt them distance themselves from me recently. None of them wished me happy birthday last week either even though they knew.

I also saw a couple of them in the pub 2 weeks ago as I walked past but no 'hey, come join us for a quick one!'

It's a bit upsetting but not much I can do about it.

In my experience a mum friend can be a great friend but if your kids stop being friends, bye bye mum friend. Which is sad.

A friend is a friend, not sure it matters how you met

They can be but my experience is that if you or that move away you will loose touch quickly. Few friendships last the transition to secondary school too. I'm talking from personal experience. Even those who you think you are close to don't last if you don't list nearby (I've moved a bit!)

I have mum friends and people who started as mum friends who are now just friends who I see with or without kids. The mum friends are not such close friends and I guess are more friends by coincidence of having kids the same age in the same way as work friends. I suspect as our kids get older we won’t see as much of each other.

Yes and no. Some can become genuine friends. Others you're just mates cos of the kids. And that's fine. There's room for different levels of friendship.

Mum friends aren’t some special category of friends you know? They are just people and just as likely or unlikely as any other group of people. The source of the friendship is irrelevant to it’s quality.

I find the premise of the question a bit daft.

Do you usually divide your friends into categories according to where you met them?

I’d say one of my NCT friends is now a friend friend. I have a nice group of mum friends that I know from playgroup but I expect once all our DC are at different primary schools and we no longer all see each other every week it’ll peter out. I believe it’s what’s called a “situationship”.

They can become so.
My best friend devastatingly died suddenly. I made a conscious decision that I needed more close friends to confide in and socialise with.It worked but you have to work on it. The 3 friends I wanted to get closer to over 12 years ago are still close friends today even though our children are grown up.

You don't have a history yet and often that's how friendships solidify.
My dc are teens and I am really close with quite a few of my friends I met at toddler groups and primary school.
This has been amazing because firstly, there's now a good solid friendship even though not all the kids are still friends and secondly, navigating the teenage years can be pretty demanding so it was great to have friends who also know the dc well, to bounce ideas off or share issues with.

I think in life there are 'friends' who are your true, deep friends - would come over to your house at 2am if you needed them etc, then there are the buddies/acquaintances who you like and have fun with but maybe they're not on the same level as the former. Nothing wrong with that, there's no hard and fast rule for how close you should be.

Then there are friends who you are close with, but it's more so that they're right for the time of life you are in and your bond might fade over time - maybe clubbing pals at uni whose friendship fizzles out as you move into your 20s for example. Mum friends can fall into this category too, people you bond with when you both have babies and appreciate the support of someone also sleep deprived who will happily chat to you about weaning and nursery and nappies when other friends may not be keen. But then maybe you lose touch as your kids grow and you realise you don't have much in common anymore. Or maybe there are some that'll go the distance. It's not a one size fits all.

I have some mum friends I click with on a lot of levels, but others where we only really have our kids in common. Both types are appreciated even if we might not be in each other's lives in a few years.

My mum friends are some of my closest friends. I don’t see why mum friends are any different from work/uni/wherever friends.

Mine is still young but I don't hold out much optimism for my mum friendships lasting beyond the point the kids need us to facilitate. There's one or two I genuinely have common ground and would like to socialise with without the kids, but I think most are situational.

Hi op yes some lovely mums through my daughters years and school. Sons year didnt gel as much. Its nice as ours 18 now we still chat and meet. Have v few work friends once i left it fizzled out

This is my experience too. When kids get older (go to secondary school, especially) I found the group drifted as it was mostly centered on days/plans with the children. Looking back the friendships were quite superficial.

Plenty of friends in our lives are situational. That doesn't mean they aren't valuable at that time in your life, nor that you need to connect on a deep level to enjoy each other's company.

My closest friends are a mixture! One uni friend, one ex-colleague, one mum friend. Not school in my case.

They can be, though it ultimately depends on the individuals in question. Friends you met at school or university or work or hobbies tend to be people with whom a friendship developed based on your own attributes, interests, values, sense of humour, personality etc. You developed the friendship on the back of common ground in who you are as people. They have a more genuine basis. Whereas making friends with people who just happened to be in the same room as you because you were all pregnant or all had children of a similar age doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll share other common ground, and it’s easy to get caught up in thinking that you’re great buddies when actually, you just talk a lot about your children which fills up time and space and creates similar experiences without actually developing relationships.

I always find these questions odd. It comes up with work friends on here sometimes too. Anyone can become a close friend regardless of whether you meet them at college or a hobby or a mum group.

I have a group of mum friends and they're probably my closest friends. They've been there for me when I needed them more than some of my oldest friends. We all enjoy each other's company immensely, and our husbands all get on great. We've all been friends now for about 16 years though, so it does take time.