Thoughts on this article about being the childless friend

I don’t think she’s expecting to be her friends’ priority, only for them to show some interest in what’s going on in her life. I have been there, being the only childless person in the room and feeling like a spare part with nothing to contribute.

She makes a lot of good points. Parenthood has become an excuse for some very self involved bad behaviour. It’s similar to the way groups with lots of couples can end up excluding single people. Ideas about parenthood have changed massively to the extent that there is still a high level of involvement in the lives of adults who in the past would have been more independent.

Expecting to be someone's priority just shows her sense of entitlement and selfishness.

Just as she’s over her friends banging on endlessly about their kids I suppose.

I struggle sometimes to be interesting and fun to childfree people as somehow DH and I are the odd ones out having a DC. For both of us, friends have opted to stay childfree and also none of them are in long-term relationships. My siblings are the same.

No one asks me about my DC or anything child-related, it’s like this important part of my life is just invisible. They focus on what they have watched or read. I don’t say anything however I secretly wish I had some mum friends just to be able to banter about kids and marriage.

She’d have better friendships if she stopped thinking she can tell people off. She comes across as hugely self absorbed. The it’s a cold not typhoid remark is pathetic. I hope her shiny new friends read this and know what they’re getting into.

I don't recognise these behaviours in any of my friends, either those with children or those who are child free. I think the main problem is the writer and her friends don't seem to like each other very much. When you care about your friends, what's important to them becomes important to you, whether it's their child winning the egg and spoon race, their mother's illness, or their romantic holiday with a fabulous new man.

I don't agree that children always need to come first in the way that some interpret it. In fact as children get older I think that they really benefit from seeing their parents be real people with interests, other relationships and personalities. They don't need their parents to just be generic parent figures that only exist to provide service.

If I'm out with a friend then I'll put my child first in an emergency. If it's not an emergency then they can wait because I'm a person too with my own needs.

Some of her examples are of people just being very rude.

But I think her statement that parents think their lives are more important doesn’t follow on at all. Surely what she’s actually seeing is people (sometimes rudely) prioritising their relationship with their child over their relationship with their friend. They don’t see themselves as more important than her, they see their child as more important than her.

Obviously I wouldn’t say that excuses any of the rude examples she gives.

I find the whole ‘friendship is a pact for life’ thing a bit odd. So it’s ok to get into romantic relationships knowing they might end, and most do, but somehow a friend has to be there forever? Why? As someone else said, some friendships work at a certain point in your life but not for the whole of your life.
Someone who is married, or in a long term relationship, with children, is always going to put those people first, and so they should - they’re your immediate family and will come before any friend or other family member.

Her friends should not be having hour-long Facetimes or sending multiple messages to "children." My mum is a couple of years younger than the author. I ask her about her plans and if she's out with anyone—my aunt, dad, or her friends. I wouldn't dream of calling her unless it's an emergency.

However, the writer of the article needs to realize she is in no way the most important person in her friends' lives. The anecdotes...ooh steamy text and "ready to talk about my date..." No. Like she acknowledges friendship is based on mutual experiences. The friends are not living the same life as her they dont care.

She needs to find some single childfree friends

The pact for life thing is an unusual view. Plenty of friendships don't last with or without children in the mix.

I missed this! The only pact for life I made was marriage, and of course the natural life bond to my immediate family (mother, brother, son)

I was about to say she’s definitely unreasonable: but then I read the article: the “children” she is referring to are actually adults. Her friends are rude as fuck. At the same time, she does sound like the “main character”

I think there are some really interesting discussions to be had around the place of children in today's society, but the author's completely missed the nuance of it all.

She says: "I blame our child-centric society, where high-intensity parenting has no expiry date". I don't think it's apt to say modern British society is child-centric as a whole. Oh the contrary, a lot of it is actually pretty hostile to children/child-rearing, relative to other societies.

A lot of she deems "high-intensity parenting" probably happens precisely because our society isn't particularly supportive of having children, so parents end up setting up their own systems to make things work.

Edited to add: I'm not justifying any of the examples she gives as like others have said they seem more a question of bad manners and are tangential to the more interesting issues.

I think this has nailed it.

Or at least some of her friends.

But she sounds dreadful. Thinking her friends should put her first because she needs them more 😳. Friendships don’t work like that. And yes it’s boring when you are with a group of people who have something in common that you don’t. It’s one of those things you need to suck up sometimes rather than demanding at group of people enjoying the conversation stop having it to please you.

She does sound like quite a demanding and self centred person though. I can quite understand friends wanting to place her lower down the pecking order.

Her friends sound rude and self obsessed
She sounds quite rude and self obsessed

They all sound dreadful.

I don't think I'd want to be friends with someone who'd slag me off in the national news either.

The examples given here MUST be exaggerated. Surely after the first five minutes of being ignored for Facetime, you'd make your excuses and leave? My parents are almost an identical age to this woman and I'm nearly 40 with teenagers of my own. I certainly don't phone them when they're out with mates.

Part of me wonders if her friends being retired (as they're in couples so more financially free) is more the life schism she's experiencing, as she is still working? If they're off all week but have to meet her on weekends, which also overlaps with when their adult kids are off work, then it could easily feel like a compromise too far on both sides.

I’m child free, I couldn’t read that twaddle.

Her friends are rude, FaceTiming anyone while having lunch with someone else is ridiculous but she sounds equally awful, I don’t want to hear about ‘risque’ texts, ugh they all sound awful.

My friends who have kids obviously have other priorities but that’s totally understandable, it’s perfectly normal to prioritise family.

I think one problem is how older kids and teenagers are still babied by many parents. Even adult kids with children of their own are often still act dependent on their parents to provide childcare. Take that thread where the OPs friend wanted to bring their 12 year old to a meet up because the diddums didn't like being home alone, that never used to be normal.

She sounds insufferable, and the journalist is incapable of writing an article without mentioning being ‘child free’. Some people make it their whole personality.

Her friends' children are more important to them than she is. And the issue is...?

About to tell her friend about ‘risqué texts she’s exchanging with a charming man’ maybe the friend knew what was coming and hung up 🤣

I think its a load of self indulgent, moaning negative bollocks, frankly.

Ive seen this woman write other articles about how she's worried she'll have noone to look after her in her old age due to having no kids as if thats the only reason to have them.

I have children and I have never once slammed the phone down on a friend, childless or not. I've always been there for my friends and supported them even when my children were small. I was my best friend's bridesmaid when my youngest was 6 months old as an example.

The most flaky friend I have ever had in my life was childless - he used to let me down constantly at the last moment, often when I had booked and paid for child care or when I had invited him round for a meal and was just taking it out of the oven. I'd get the inevitable "oh so sorry darling, I cant make it now, something has come up". After several decades of this I finally had enough and we are no longer friends.

As for assertion that I should be putting my friends before my own kids - WTAF? what does that even mean?- I have a parental responsibility to look after them, I dont have a legal responsibility to look after my friends because they are all capable adults. I have never once thought my life was "more important" than anyone else's - I might have more responsibilities but that isnt the same as thinking "I am SO damn important".

She sounds like she has a huge, unpleasant chip on her shoulder and I dont appreciate her generalising about parents as if they are one huge monolith. I am quite sure she wouldn't like it if I did that about people without children.....

I read some if this but got too annoyed 😝 if anything my good, single friend without children is much more flaky than me! I always stuck to tines/arrangements but she often didn’t. Obviously if a child was ill then I had to pull out, but if it was a minor illness dh could cover.
ive always been v conscious of the fact she didn’t get an opportunity to have children and she loves my children too and enjoys seeing them when they’re around.
id never take a long call from one of them -I do answer in case it’s urgent but if not I’ll say I’m busy and we’ll call later.
i do have a couple of other friends without kids but I don’t see them as often - that’s not on me though!