AIBU - Friend inviting adult children to meet-ups.

I think it’s very odd her kids even want to be involved with the mothers meet up.

Its quite difficult to do without giving offence.
I would phrase it more as a question at the planning stage - is it just tbe 8 of us, or is for family too?

Also do men get this? Or is it just women’s socials that are seen as a free for all for the whole family?! 🙄

i love that you brought Balonz into this. Is he/ she all grown up now already?! 😍🙌

Then she doesn't sound like a good friend. Maybe this group has run its course and you need a different group.
ETA I meant to quote OP saying this woman aggressively controls some of the other friends.

You obviously don’t like this woman so stop meeting up with her and her children/grown-up Adults

You either have to bite the bullet and say let’s meet up on X date can the seven of you make this in the big group?

And if she does say I can come +23 of my children, then you just say I was talking about us do they not want to go out of their own friends?

Sometimes Need to be blunt

I think it is possible to put your boundary down in a friendly way. “ Lovely as it is to see the kids Cheryl I think Friday it’s easier if it’s just the 8 of us or it gets abit unwieldy” big smile. That said here I would bin for other reasons.

Definitely not normal. I would have a word with your other friends in the group and if you are all unanimous would tell her it’s you girls only . Agree it totally changes the dynamics. When me and my friends all meet up we talk about personal things that are just between us.

Go out as a group of four then?

The kids must be really boring if they're happy to hang around with a group of middle aged women! I would have to have bribed my DCs at that age to join a group of my female friends.

This applies to husbands too. A group of us used to meet for lunch at each others houses. One of the group asked us all round to her garden for lunch. I knew there was going to be a problem when 'Keith' her husband was out in the road telling people where to park and doing annoying gestures and shouting "reverse" and "wheel hard round!"
He then got a chair and said 'move up everyone, I need to sit in the middle so I can hear all your conversations'.
FO Keith!
The group died out after that!

Nights out are too precious to waste with this crap.

That's not a friend. That's an ex friend.

But you currently don't feel you can see the other 6 because of this unpleasant woman and her unpleasant adult children . You are putting yourself outside the group judt now so what have you got to lose. Either say something, potentially break up the existing group but with the possibility of a new group forming with people who don't want to meet with children. Or contact the ones you like and meet separately with them and leave them to meet with the existing group ( and woman and children) if they wish to whilst you give that bit a miss.

Yuk! Ive had this and think its something I need to be more alert to and check. Just spent a fortune on a weekend with a couple. Had loads i wanted to discuss. I have a dying relative and really needed to spend 20 mins just chatting to friend about this. Finally i found some space to talk to her privately, however the kids were close by (late teens and adults) and she actually stopped me after I'd been talking for about a minute to say that she could hear the kids having a climate change debate and she really needed to contribute. She hadn't even been listening to me!!

OP I'm very curious to know how the bill split works with these 3 extra adults? Please tell me you at least don't pay for them?!

And even if the adult children are nice, they're not your friends and not your generation and you can't talk to your friends the same way if they are there. For example, you can't talk about what a pain your parents are in their old age, or maybe how worried you are about their health. Those parents are the grandparents of the children present, so that conversation is never going to happen with the younger generation there, and Lord knows, the middle-aged need solace from each other about the challenges of elderly parents.

Another example is that I would not ask my friends if their bladders are much weaker in peri, with their kids there.

Nor would I talk about how I don't want commitment after a bad divorce or about my latest squeeze's marvellous manoevres in bed and how he's so much better than my exH.

Then there's conversation about midlife careers and retirement stuff. The concerns of the middle-aged are not the concerns of young adults, and these conversations are not for them. I can imagine that with young adults there, most of the attention goes on them. It just changes rhe dynamic, and I don't know why some people can't see that. This isn't the first time someone on here has posted with a very similar question, about one woman in the group bringing her child to all the meet-ups (although that child was younger).

OP, you need to be direct. You need to say that you want to talk about things that you don't want the younger generation to hear, since they have different concerns and that her children are not your close friends. Say that you would prefer the group to go back to being your generation only. And you could end with "What do you think?" I noticed that my old boss would always end difficult propositions with that phrase. I think it's socially elegant because it softens what you've said before, and it gives the receiver the impression that you care what they think and that they have some sort of choice, even if that's not really true. And even if it's not really true, they've still been invited to express themselves, which tends to go down well.

If she gets all huffy, fine, then the group doesn't invite her again. Either way, the result is that you get your evenings back with your own generation and not having to edit yourself because there are three people there who aren't your close friends and who don't understand the concerns that you might want to talk about. I'm tempted to say "conversation that isn't for little ears" 🤣 but that's not quite right, considering they are adults. But there are shades of that.

If you don't say something, your gatherings are just going to be miserable. You've already sacrificed one.

Why are you spending time with a woman who isn't very nice within a complicated friend group dynamic? You know that group socialising isn't compulsory? And inviting every friend in a 'group' to every event isn't compulsory? Just arranged things with the friends you actually like!

Can you set up a smaller WhatsApp group with just the sensible friends and meet up without the dragon lady and her minions?

Like other posters, my kids (teens) wouldn't be seen dead at a gathering of me and my friends! They've got their own lives and social circles to attend to, which I'm pleased about as it means I've done my job raising independent children who don't need to hang with Mummy and her mates!

Good luck OP, your "friend" sounds tedious and it's time to say goodbye and leave her to her playdates.

I’m part of a couples group and the mum with the oldest children who are mid teens suggested a couple of times that their children joined us on a meal out - fortunately one of our group without kids nipped it swiftly in the bud. The mum obv thinks her kids are great and family meet-ups like BBQs they sit with them the entire time without mingling. It’s lovely that they get on, but some ppl do assume everyone thinks their particular child/ren is amazing and enjoys their company as much as they do.

I have one friend who always brings her son who is a bore. I’ve not seen her for 2 years.

I used to have a friend who would bring any old random person he’d seen recently along to group gatherings where it was totally inappropriate. Some people just seem completely clueless about this stuff.

I know that taking my own adult DC along to social events completely changes the dynamic - you can't let your hair down/have a good old gossip - so you are so NBU.
I really value my time with old uni friends and my sisters - free of all our DC.

Life’s too short to try and train other adults to become considerate and socially aware.