Why do so many mums ditch their childfree friends?

But fewer activities doesn't equal more free time... My kids need exercise and looking after on a Saturday morning either way. In fact, at least if they're at a club I can faff around on my phone for an hour. I'm not less busy if I take them to the park instead am I?

You are no longer useful to them. They need people with whom they can share their experiences. Your life is different from theirs.

Nobody said anything about "refusing to take your kids to a sport" though

But there's a huge difference between your kid liking football so you take them to the park at weekends or for the odd kick-about after school, and spending hours every single week taking them to football games. The former is normal parenting, the latter is a choice.

Children don't need to go to multiple activities every week. Yes, they need exercise. Yes, they need a parent to encourage their interests. Yes, they need to try new things - but there are ways of doing that that don't involve hours of driving and shuttling them about here, there and everywhere every weekend.

Of course they’re free to make that choice but they can’t expect their friends to be fine about it, or to be waiting around for them once they decide they can be bothered again. Friendships take effort, and if they’re important (which they should be) to you you need to put that effort in, not just expect it to all be done for you. If they’re not important then crack on but don’t expect to have any friends when you decided you want them again.

Yes, it is a choice.

Technically kids just need food, water and a shelter. Being a parent is providing more than basic needs 😂

No parent needs to spend every weekend stood by a football pitch in the pissing rain for years on end. It's a choice.
refusing to take your kids to sport because you are lazy is not great parenting let's be honest, they like football, you encourage football. Sport is essential in life.and you buy a dry robe and make friends with other parents

*this stream of constant activities for kids is very new - it absolutely isn't "just being a parent"
It really isn't. My parents were doing exactly the same. Sport competitions and tournaments are not a new thing, we had them at the weekend and training during the week. Kids have always done sport/ music/ foreign language/ art/ drama, it's not a modern fad

I don't know why people act like it's a recent thing for kids to have interests

Totally agree with this.
I’ve had people tell me I don’t know tired until I’ve had a child, don’t know busy, don’t know real love etc 🙄

I am very supportive of my friends who are parents, I love their kids, we hang out, I babysit. I understand when they cancel etc I haven’t always seen the same understanding come back to me and my difficulties.

Also, I hate the pointed comments about being so lucky to have spare time, what a luxury to sit down and binge a box set, stay out until 4 etc
It’s always said with a tone of ‘your life is so easy’ or ‘you are lazy and need to grow up’.

No thanks. 😀

Luckily as we’ve got older I’ve pulled back from the people above and have a lovely mix of friends. Single, married, child free, older kids, still in the early years. It’s great and we’re very accepting of each other, our lives and our choices. They do still think they have the monopoly on tired though. 😀😉

My two closest friends dont have children (and dont want them) Maybe you just werent as close as you thought?

I have Mum friends of all ages and have tried to be a good friend to them and support them. I work 4 days and sometimes on my day off I meet a friend and her 2 toddlers to be an extra pair of hands and we take them somewhere and we do days out in school holidays with mine too.
I would never ditch good friends because my kids are at a different stage. It just isn’t something I’d do.

What's unpleasant about not wanting to see someone else's kids in your free time and telling someone they should allow themselves time with their friends without their kids in tow?

Unfortunately until you have kids I don’t think you realise how busy many people with kids truly are. It’s like people saying they are tired before having kids - okay, well take a nap on the weekend, go to bed earlier, have a lie in?! When you have kids and (especially when you are working & have kids) your entire schedule is often dictated by meeting someone else’s needs before your own.

Many kids wake up at the crack of dawn, then need sorting out before work/school, then parents do the school run, straight to work, finish work, collect the kids, feed/homework/clubs/spend time with them/bath and then straight into bedtime. By the time you have then tidied the house, sorted things for the next day & got yourself ready for bed many parents have absolutely nothing left in the tank - add to this the constant overstimulation of little people, it’s quite hard to muster up the enthusiasm to message people and make plans. Typically other mum’s are more understanding of all of this & therefore you tend to have more in common with them. To add to this even more, I often find myself ‘boring’ compared to a lot of non-parents & feel like I don’t have much to add to the conversation because whilst my kids are small they are the main priority in my life.

Of course they're free to make whatever choice they like.

But if you choose to spend all your time on your kids/job/ferrets - you can't then complain when your old friends have moved on and aren't interested in picking up with you once your kid/work/ferret phase of life is over.

I have kids. I also have a normal DH so we take turn to spend quite a few weekends away with friends or doing various hobbies (we also do go away together sometimes 😂). Many of my friends are child-free.

I am not glue to my kids.

But if someone was telling me what you just wrote, I wouldn't see them anymore. It's very unpleasant and patronising.

Nobody said anything about "ignoring your kids all weekend".

But taking your kids to multiple activities is absolutely a choice. No child needs to attend activities every weekend as well as after school. No parent needs to spend every weekend stood by a football pitch in the pissing rain for years on end. It's a choice.

There's absolutely no way my parents would have indulged that - this stream of constant activities for kids is very new - it absolutely isn't "just being a parent".

Interesting. I don't see friendship that way, even absent the kids issue. I think if an adult decides not to spend as much time on friendships for any reason - work, marriage, volunteering, raising ferrets, whatever - they are free to make that choice.

Projecting what? It’s literally what people with children say. That they never knew what real love was until they had children. I don’t have them. And I’ve never said it. So why is it me projecting anything when it’s being said TO me?

but that's being a parent.

It's not normal to ignore your kids all weekend, it's literally your job to give them opportunities and take them to activities. It's possible to say you are exhausted without actually complaining about it.

When people run a semi or a marathon, they'll tell you they're knackered. They are not complaining about it, they WANT to race. It's just factual, they are tired.

They could spend the entire weekend slobbing in front of the tv, they don't want to.

I was raised in the nineties and I was just expected to fit in around my parents' most of the time. There was just no way they would have entertained the idea of driving me around to multiple sports or activities or classes, especially if that class was on a Saturday morning 😂

But isn't that just...normal?

I don't want to see my friends kids. One of the reasons I'm childfree is because I don't want to be around children.

You still exist as a person outside of your kids - you owe it to yourself to still spend time with your friends without them.

Yes I get this. I grew up in the 60s and 70s under the benign neglect model of parenting. Was expected to entertain myself most of the time. Made my much more self reliant.

I think it's hard here because the mums feel they need to constantly put the kids first and arrange playdates etc so their kid has friends at school. We are afraid of our kids not having friends or being bullied etc
You sound like a lovely friend and it is a shame you've been cast aside but I would try not taking it personally. It's lack of time, being knackered, being ill, dealing with more admin with nurseries or schools. Fucking everything!

Er.... they dont.

I have two kids and am still great friends with people in my social circle who didn't have kids, and ive known them since I was at school with them.

However, this involves effort on BOTH sides, not just on the person who has kids. It's really unfair to think that only the person who has kids should be making an effort to keep the friendship going.

Thankfully my friends are great so we have all made the effort to be flexible and accommodating because we care about each other.

None of my friends have been accommodating with my kids and that's with them being mums (to older kids) themselves.
Some very close friends have never once asked how my youngest was, or asked to visit etc etc. it is very hurtful.

With friends who don't have kids I struggle to suggest stuff that they will like to do where I can take the kids along. It's either just me without the kids or I don't see them. So it's hard.

Not about busyness per se but life before children isn’t the same as life without children.

but people with children have been child-free before?
They KNOW what it's like. They can make an easy comparison.
No one is saying you can't be tired, but it's fair to say it's not the same, at least for them. They have lived through both.

What real love is. I don't know what you are projecting here 😂

This was me, too. Always organising baby showers and parties, babysitting and going to soft plays only to be kicked to the side once the new mum or school group friends made an appearance.

I don’t do any of it anymore and if I’m being completely honestly I distance myself before the birth now because I know what’s coming anyway.