Child free group of friends. One friend has had a baby

[Shebaguinea]

I'm in a group of about 10 friends in our 40s. Always been child free. Lots of conversations about not wanting children. Several friends do not enjoy being around kids at all. Id prefer to not be around kids, but will phone it in and do my best to try to help out friend.

1 friend unexpectedly found herself pregnant after a short relationship and now has a small baby.

Things are now becoming difficult socially. Friend often requests help/babysitting/people to go to child friendly events and soft play etc. I do not babysit. Never changed a nappy, never wanted a child etc. but I've cleaned her house, helped with laundry, batch cooked for her etc.

She now wants more help and has suggested a babysitting rota so she gets a night off a fortnight. None of us want to do this. I've always helped with cooking and cleaning and have done lots of lifts for hospital and dr appointments...but I most definitely do not want to help with childcare. None of us do.

Are we awful people? Friend seems to want us to step in as family/other parent and help her. I'm happy to assist with other things but honestly I don't want to.

I don't see anyone on here criticising friendships made at NCT groups or in the school playground on the grounds that those friendships are based around reproductive choices, we all change, and life doesn't always turn out how we think it will

I would equally think it just as odd if someone stopped being friends with me the moment my child left primary school if that’s all it was based on 🤷🏻‍♀️ so I’d feel exactly the same in that scenario! I’m not saying anyone in this group is going to have kids now, my point is, if you base a friendship purely on life circumstances then it’s probably not going to go the distance. I also think you’d be missing out on some potentially wonderful friends if your friendship criteria was so narrow.

I suppose if this has been your friend group for twenty odd years, and with it being harder to make friends in your 40s, let alone being a single parent - it's more understandable.

In those circumstances, having a one-night-stand with perhaps unprotected sex is definitely "a choice."

If abortion were unavailable, I'd not be hopping into bed with anyone unless we had a legal commitment and I truly wanted a child. People don't just "fall pregnant" out of the blue.

She's desperate because her expectations are vastly out of line with the reality of the life she has freely CHOSEN! Not because of any external circumstances or misfortune that were foisted upon her by fate.

What did she think her life would be like, having chosen to proceed with parenthood sans any partner at all, let alone a halfway decent one?

No one is required to ameliorate her imprudent procreation.

Well I didn't say they did. We don't know the circumstances in which this woman got pregnant. It could have been a contraception fail, we don't know!

Agreed. Why is she accused of being smug? It just sounds sneery.

The OP said it was a one-night stand. And that the father is not in the picture at all.

I wouldn't be risking a 'contraception fail' in that scenario if abortion were not a viable option for whatever reason. Having done so, she is absurd to expect others to shoulder the burden of her personal choices.

She needs to make mum friends but it sounds like she is clinging on to her old friendship group and getting resentful that you won’t all suddenly morph into mum friends. There is nothing more boring in life than listening to people talking about babies UNLESS you are in the same boat in which case you will find it equally interesting/enjoyable. I had my kids in a different country to my family so did build a group of friends with kids and we would help each other out with kid stuff. Most of my friends did the same. Now my kids are older the only child I want to be anywhere near is my GD and that’s pushing it some days. I think it would be kindest to be really upfront with her, at the moment it sounds like there is a lot of mismatched expectations. It might mean the end of a friendship but that would be her choice.

I think this is why the NCT group is good because it groups women with very similar age babies and because each stage is a new experience then you compare notes, see if a particular sleep routine, bathtime etc works for one baby might it work for your baby

Going through the birth and actively avoiding those type of groups and trying to be a single woman again is going to end in disappointment.

I get the feeling she wants to return to her singe life but hasn’t understood that it doesn’t matter how bright vibrant and well paid you are not going to look cool sitting with your 11 month old on a flying elephant at a theme park or playing in a ball pit at a soft play centre, but it will give your child new experiences. Life is no longer all about her. It is about her little boy.

The only mothers I know who had help with childcare, babysitting, cleaning and cooking were those who had family close by
I have no family and spent 24/7 with my dc from birth Dh worked away most of the time and didn’t really do much when he was at home and all our friends who were all child free dropped us like a stone when we announced we were having a baby. We also had only just moved to this particular area

I never had an iota of practical or monetary help. I certainly wasn’t expecting any help from anyone. That would have been weird

Please come and deep clean my house! What a cheeky nutter she is. As she has plenty of money, the sensible and sane thing to do would be to hire an agency baby nanny for those night outs she is wanting. The rota is ridiculous.

YANBU at all but geez it must be hard on her bringing up a baby with no father and no family around. She really should use her mat leave to go to some groups where she can make friends with parents of similarly aged babies, and build a mutual support network that way. Although I think in her shoes I'd be on a plane back to NZ.

why doesn't she just get a professional babysitter ? Is she hoping that you will become enamoured of the idea of children once you babysit?
I think the problem is everyone's social life changes once they have kids but she is the only one to experience this in your group so she sticks out like a sore thumb - in a more varied friendship group more people compromise and theres a bit more compassion- i do feel sorry for her as it sounds like she has gained a baby and lost her friends

Your friend needs to suck it up, it's the consequence of choosing to have a child (granted she probably had no idea how hard it would be). She's incredibly lucky with the support she has tbh, not sure many friends do what you are giving her now. Has she always been like this?

Perhaps, not having friends with babies and children in her friendship group, she is unaware that this is not what happens? I have gone through multiple rounds of friends having babies, and no-one - single mother, or may as well be single mother, or not - has ever expected all of this cleaning, meals dropped off, etc, etc, after the early weeks, or ever asked for baby-sitting of actual babies, let alone demanded it be done on a rota!

I doubt it, who would think this happened??! I didn't really know anyone with a baby either and never thought this. I think she's just taking the piss tbh. That's why I was wondering if she had form for this kind of thing

I don't think people who want children realise that not wanting children is not just a mild preference, it's part of us. Like sexuality.

Agree. "It's different when it's your own,' etc, etc.

You're a good friend, OP. Don't cave on the babysitting.

I'm childfree and while my life might not be jet set amazing I don't intend on changing shitty nappies for anyone!

Oh well then! If she's chosen it she deserves to be miserable forever! Silly me! What are feminists thinking, imagining that mothers are humans too.

Or perhaps she thought she had decent friends, rather than being part of a social club where 'friendship' is conditional, and entirely dependent upon your life circumstances remaining static.

She's a single, older mum of a young baby with no family support appealing for human connection (albeit getting the request wrong), cut her some slack.

I agree. The writing on the wall has always been there about being childfree, years earlier than my sexuality.

I can remember being given baby dolls as a small child and not understanding why they were meant to be fun to play with.

By my mid teens I was fairly certain I wouldn't be having children.

I've tried holding a friend's newborn and honestly I felt nothing. DP took a picture of me and my face is a picture, I just look deeply uncomfortable. Other women were passing the baby around and cooing and I just couldn't manage that.

Children become far more interesting to me the more grown up and, well, adult like they become. I used to work with teenagers and enjoyed the job.

If a friend has a puppy though, I'll be all over it. Puppy has just chewed my fingers with little needle teeth? Adorable. Cuddles? Magical. I have a dog, I don't have a baby. It's for the best all round.

There's far too many people who have children by default, because it's the 'done thing', or through social pressure, and make a crap job of it because they never really wanted children in the first place. Imagine growing up as a child who wasn't really wanted. I'm sure social services would be far less busy if only people who truly wanted children had them.

Most friendships are conditional to a greater or lesser degree.

I don’t think the friendship group is defined by them being childfree either, any more than a friendship group would be defined by being ‘anti MLM’ or ‘anti dog’ if one member joined/acquired one and expected the group activities to suddenly start revolving around her choice and change in circumstances.

It sounds like actually they have supported her quite a lot, but they’re getting sick of the weight of expectation she’s placing on them.

Exactly this.

Or perhaps she thought she had decent friends, rather than being part of a social club where 'friendship' is conditional, and entirely dependent upon your life circumstances remaining static.

Conversely, you can't expect an entire social group to completely change the way they socialise and spend their free time because of a free choice that one member of the group has made. The others didn't chose that path, why should their lives change?

Have you read the OPs posts? Or anyone else’s. I’m shocked you can say she doesn’t have decent friends when so many posters are saying stuff like ‘OP be my friend!’ ‘I wish my friends were like you’ etc.

How much more slack should the op cut her? Should she actually cancel her holiday and all socialising that isn’t in a child friendly place during the day and babysit a baby she doesn’t want to regularly? Because that is what the ‘friend’ wants.

I can't believe that some posters have read Op's comments (you know, you just click on 'see all' and there they are in a heap).
A woman who is comfortably off got pregnant on a one night stand. Father not involved and she doesn't need him to be. She's got extra long maternity leave. She could easily afford a cleaner, nanny, babysitters, 'Eat' meals etc.

She's busily alienating her child-free group of friends by trying to push them into a child care rota. She's having the strops because she can't do everything they do now that she has a baby. She wants them to change everything they do to revolve around her and her baby.
Meanwhile, we don't know about the rest, but at least one of the group has been really, really supportive. She's batch cooked meals, 'deep cleaned' and is happy to visit, and do some activities that work with a baby. Just not everything. She's not willing to sign up for a rota of unpaid childcare for example.

There are at least some in the group happy to do some meet ups with baby in tow as well.
I'd say this woman needs to give her head a wobble and accept that she needs to start dealing with the inevitable changes to her life that come with having a baby. If she carries on as she is then of course the friendship group will distance themselves.