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.

As money is no object to her, then Ice tell her clearly that she is alienating the group with her demands and to get a live-in nanny/au pair or something. If she 's always been demanding and trying to make things revolve around her in the group, she needs a reality check. The rota idea is laughable. Being CF means peace and not having to put up with child filled environments as you don't have to. She also needs to widen her circle of friends.
You have done more than enough!

Exactly 👌🏽

Abortion isn't a crime, unless you are living in a country where it is illegal... What about people that have been raped or have things like "one night stands", or a man who is abusive towards them etc ...

OP doesn't sound smug at all! She sounds like a very good friend.

And I still don't understand why friend can't hire a babysitter and go for an evening out with the rest of the gang when the baby is nearly a year old. I used to leave DD with DH and go out for a couple of hours when she was asleep.

I think most women whether they be the company director or the office cleaner have a much easier time when they disassociate their old life and job title from the fact they are mums and make their child the focus for their maternity leave.
Which also means being around other mums and their babies being around other babies just to start off their socialising.

The mothers I know who really struggled with parenthood were the ones who didn’t embrace it and struggled to do everything as they were comparing it to their job title or old child free life.

It doesn’t mean you can’t ever go out with your old friends or have child free nights out with your mum friends. You can get a baby sitter It just won’t be a spur of the moment thing.

Your friend might be super bright with a high flying job title and salary to match but she reminds me of Denise from the Royle Family trying to get everyone else to look after her child. As well as cooking and cleaning for her as well.

If she has such a high flying career and a good salary then she needs to start paying for services and not relying on her friends.

And start to embrace motherhood.
It is about going along to different baby and toddler groups until you find other mums who are on your wavelength.
Trying to solely pursue your old friendship group is not going to end well.

She has been through something that her child free friends haven’t. She needs to connect with the people who went through the same thing and it helps talking about your birth story or what things your baby is doing and what different things are doing to get baby to sleep through the night.
I was the first in my NCT group to have dd sleep through the night and my method I have never seen in any baby books.----

Drop the smugness about remaining child free yourself for five minutes (smugness never ages well anyways) and take the judgement out of the equation too, and you'll see it more clearly

Says the person judging the OP for her supposed smugness 🙄

There are some posters on here saying "it takes a village" and I see that on MN a lot.

What they appear to be missing is

A. The OP has moved out of the village and now has someone trying to force her to move back. Shes making regular visits but she chose not to live in this village full time.

B. MN is the place where childless women have also been told things like:

*Childless aunts and uncles who have toys in their house for their neices and nephews are clearly grooming them

Men with children are less likely to be pedophiles/kidnappers than women without children (because all childless women want to kidnap babies obviously)

Dont let your female childless neighbour babysit when she offers she clearly has dodgy intentions *

Its all very well saying it takes a village to raise a child, but some of us where chucked out of the village ages ago, and if we keep being told we are pedophiles/grooming children/going to kidnap them it doesnt make us very inclined to come back to the village when we are suddenly needed

I do quite a bit of childcare for both my niece (who currently lives with me) and my neighbours children so I don't let this put me off. But I do roll my eyes when "it takes a village" comes up on MN. Mostly because its the same people who also ask "why are childfree people even on MN, they shouldn't be here" because obviously we arent really part of the village.

I bet men wouldnt be expected to do what the OP is being asked to do either, because the weight of childcare is expected to fall predominantly to the women whether that's the mother, grandmothers, aunts or random female friends.

The fact that the OPs friend is actually demanding far more from her female friends who don't want children that the babies actual father says a lot really.

If she wants babysitting rota, shouldn't you all be paid for it?
I wouldn't do it. You deliberately are childless, which means you don't want to be around children. At the end of day, her child=her responsibility.

No of course she shouldn't - as I said already, the friend is getting her requests wrong (by which I mean the detail of what she's asking is unreasonable) but it's absolutely obvious the requests boil down to needing connection (which isn't unreasonable).

The very fact that the help OP has kindly provided previously has been accepted, when her friend could easily have paid for it (cleaning etc) screams to me that her friend has wanted those things to be provided by someone she loves rather than a stranger at a time when she's vulnerable and needs the company.

If you take the judgement out of the origins of the situation (which aren't relevent now anyways - the friend can't take her decision to proceed with the pregnancy back) out of the equation then it does become a lot clearer. As an aside, breastfeeding's hard enough when you have a supportive partner - fewer than 1% of mothers in the UK make it to a year of breastfeeding so the friend's doing an amazing job there at least.

The very fact that the help OP has kindly provided previously has been accepted, when her friend could easily have paid for it (cleaning etc) screams to me that her friend has wanted those things to be provided by someone she loves rather than a stranger at a time when she's vulnerable and needs the company.

Or maybe the friend just didn't fancy paying for it!

If she could easily pay for it, but chose to lean on her closest friends instead, my guess would be that was because she needed the connection and people she loves around her.

Totally standard when you're postpartum, leaking everywhere and not really feeling up to arranging new paid contracts, vetting strangers whilst giving them access to your home etc.

Accepting lifts is one thing but letting your friend clean your house is cheeky.

Luckily my friends know my feelings about children and never expected me to do anything other than visit for a while.

Wow! Wonder if it's a regional thing but in my friendship groups cleaning and cooking for each other in times of need is very standard, albeit always something people are grateful for and don't take for granted.

I think they all know I can't cook to save my life!

I'm grateful it doesn't work like that in my friendship group, I can't think of anything worse than cleaning someone else's home, especially one with a baby

I couldn't bear it, I can hardly keep on top of my own.

I'd happily take a baby out in the pram for a couple of hours though.

Really? So if a friend is single and suffers a stroke, or a major bereavement, acquires a birth injury or is hospitalised through illness - no-one thinks to help them out in practical ways? They just say 'sorry to hear that, see you when you're next well enough to come to a wine tasting'?

Well in the OP's friends case none of those things apply so she's just being entitled.

If any of those things happened to a friend of mine I would ask what they needed but I certainly wouldn't be looking after the kid. Other friends who actually like children could do that. Washing up and running the hoover round? Yes. Cooking? Nope. I'd buy them some decent ready meals to bung in the oven.

Are you seriously comparing having an 11 month old baby (by choice( with having a stroke, a major bereavement or being hospitalised? Seriously?

She didn't have a baby by choice read the op properly.

She chose to continue a pregnancy in a country where abortion is legal. She may not have chosen to become pregnant, but she chose to continue the pregnancy.

Postnatal depression is the no.1 killer of new mothers in the UK - are you seriously suggesting that that isn't serious?

And again with the 'it was her choice!' 😒way to bolster the patriarchy with that attitude.

Where has OP.indicated that the friend has PND?

Well Mind are happy to categorise them together https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/stress/causes-of-stress/

[Quote:]
Many things can cause stress in different areas of our lives. These may include:

• PersonalIllness or injury
• Pregnancy and becoming a parent
• Infertility and problems having children
• Bereavement
• Experiencing abuse
• Experiencing crime and the justice system, such as being arrested, going to court or being a witness
• Organising a complicated event, like a holiday
• Everyday tasks, such as household chores or taking transport

[end Quote]

Maybe they’ve just got a better perspective into stress levels and impacts than you do 🤷‍♀️

Where does op mention her being forced to continue her pregnancy? Dad doesn't care, he would hardly have asked her not to. No indication she found out too late to abort. Why was it not her choice to birth and raise the child?

Why can't she pay for babysitter?
I don't have family help but I've never once expected my friends to babysit even with paying them! She's a CF.