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.

"She simply cannot expect a friendship group that is based on being happily childless to suddenly want to look after her child!!*

I think she did have some fantasy that she'd have a team of devoted wannabe aunties falling over themselves to spend time with her child like in some feelgood movie. But life is not like that.

OP, you are a very generous friend to a complete CF.

I think your other friends have better boundaries than you and are not prepared to be used by this entitled CF.

They are absolutely correct to not entertain being rostered on to some babysitting list.

She really is a CF and I would be muting anyone who attempted such a move.

Being childless is a very valid choice.

Once I was past the toddler stage of my 4 children I had zero interest in being around very small children.

This coincided with menopause, but I had zero further interest.

I think OP if you are not careful you could find yourself being really used by her as the others rightly back away.

She chose this.

She reads as a selfish, entitled person who thinks the world revolves around her, and you skivvying for her and cooking her meals every fortnight is really making little of yourself.

Step away or you will be her only friend, left holding her baby.

You have been warned.

Not unreasonable. I can see why she wants time off as childcare is full on and being a single parent is extremely tough. However, this is not an appropriate request of friends. I think honesty is needed here - you don’t want to do it, and she will need to pay a sitter once a fortnight if she needs time off.

BINGO!

Mumsnet is not just about children!! There are loads of topics not children related so what someone who is childfree uses this! I joined years ago before children after reading a post about Jeremy Kyle!!

Can’t she get babysitters from an agency if this is the case?

I am fiercely independent and notoriously bad at asking for help (and have felt big obligations to narcissistic family members) so may not offer a balanced view, but I’ve always seen my choices as just that - my choices. And I have to take responsibility (financial, emotional, practical) for all of them. I general expect very little of other people. Not saying that’s totally healthy but I do not see it as selfish. How much I help a friend or do things for other people is totally my choice.

This is all about the principle of the matter. The fact that she expects is what would piss me off. How I spend my time is up to me. She made some decisions about having a baby, she now needs to manage this impact on her life. It is no one else’s responsibility than hers. Everyone else can help or not. I would only want genuine offers of help, would hate hate hate for people to feel obligated.

I would struggle to participate in your friend’s demands. In fact I just wouldn’t unless it suited me. Not saying I wouldn’t help, but I would do it on my terms. And that’s how it should be.

OP, I would just ignore the remarks she makes, offer to help if/when it suits you.

I think there’s a 21st century myth that friends are your family-by-choice: that friends are there forever and will do anything for you. It comes from tv sitcoms but it is a myth. You bonded with this friendship group over something you had in common: your childfree lifestyle. She thinks you will still be her forever friends now she’s opted out of the lifestyle that was the thing you all had in common. The truth is you will naturally grow apart and she needs to make some parent friends. I’m not saying you won’t be friends anymore, but the fact that you’re so uninterested in kids means it just won’t be the same as it used to be. She’s deluding herself expecting you to act like her family.

I don’t have kids yet but live topics on Mumsnet. I’ve tried Reddit etc but they’re full of teenage boys.

It’s nice to be on a forum with collective wisdom of women. I’ve honestly learned so much on here!

Because children are hard fucking work. Other people kids even more so because your dealing with whatever rules they set for their precious, trying not to step on toes and no power to correct their behavior when they are being little shits.

I have 3 of my own, love them, I always wanted kids and went through hell to have them (10 years of infertility, hormone induced cancer, MMC, IVF etc...) but I still HATE being around other peoples kids though.

When we meet up as a friend group despite ALL of us being parents our children are never involved (well actually the ones in their late teens have started joining nights out now but no little kids).

Mothers are allowed to have friends, you dont stop being an individual person because you have kids... friendships don't become pseudo-nanny service.

No one would expect dads not have their own lives and friends unless the kids where involved.

Just say. No. I didn't have children because I dint want to do this. Sorry. Find some babysitters for her !

Yeah, that's proper weird of her to schedule it in like that.

I was the only one in my friendship group with a baby in my mid 20s and there's no way on earth I'd have expected them to go to a baby group or soft play. Sure, if we'd meet on a weekend day or midweek evening my baby would have to tag along but that'd be a walk in the park, a picnic, a beer garden, a coffee shop, someone's home.

As it sounds like she's not got the support of the father or family, I get that she's going to probably need more help but no one gave me babysitting unless it was for an organised thing like a wedding or birthday meal out.

You are wondering why a childfree person would join a forum with an entire board dedicated to childfree people?

You are not being unreasonable.
Social groups have stuff in common, a shared interest, where you live, the job you do, the place you work, belief systems, cultural heritage or even a similar life experience sometimes a traumatic one.

I was the first of my group to have a baby, then 2 children. Friends drifted and it was hard but also understandable. The early years of children have so much change and are so full on, take up a lot of space in your head and in all everyday things. A group of people who also have small children are in the same phase so can socialise while wrangling all that small children bring without it being a thing. You can obviously also talk about the child related stuff with them. You can also organise no child things with people who are also under the same constraints which impact no child things.

By the time some of my friends had babies mine were over 8. Having children didn’t make that easier! I still love new baby snuggles but was out of touch, out of practice and tbh totally over the small children demands. I babysat when needed and it was horrific. Sick, poo, crying, relentless needs. Totally exhausting. You’ve done plenty. More than enough. Your friend needs to recognise that the world including her friend group does not reshape to suit her life changes.

Would some gentle incredulous pointing this out help? “Darling, you aren’t seriously saying that none of us should do all the lovely things we enjoy anymore just because they aren’t baby friendly? That would be silly.” On her objecting to your planned Portugal trip - “yes, it must be difficult for you seeing us planning the first big trip that doesn’t work for you anymore, you’ll have to console yourself with lots of cuddles with your lovely baby and doing lots of things that none of us do.”

It's not that a child is involved, its that the OP has the temerity to be child free

If the OP was a mum the thread would have gone very very differently

Thats the real issue. If the OP as a mother was being expected to take part in a babysitting rota to facilitate her friend's dating life, on top of the help she has already provided, she would have been told resoundly that the friend was a CF.

Yet somehow the lack of children makes her a shit friend and a selfish person. Its nothing to do with the senario and everything to do with some people thinking childfree people are automatically shit and selfish and applying that lens to the situation

On the one hand you sound like an absolutely brilliant friend who has done more for your friend than any of my friends did for me.

However, you also seem to be not really asking for advice, but just for validation of your perfectly reasonable stance, and a bit of a bitch about your friend.

Yes, it takes a village, yes, being a single mum is (much) harder than sailing solo across the Atlantic, but your boundaries are in place and you’re under no obligation. Not really sure why you’ve posted tbh!

Things might improve when your friend is back at work, and she has more adult contact / some quality time away from the baby. You’re already going above and beyond - but if some babysitting is what your friend needs maybe the whole CF group can offer once each until
she goes back to work?

I was going to ask the same question.

OP, it sounds like she liked the idea of having a baby without any real thought or planning for practicalities.

It's a child-free friendship group!! They have quite literally bonded over not having, and not wanting, children. Why on earth would you think that all the people in the group are delighted by the arrival of a baby? Absolutely bonkers.

They're not rude about the kid as far as I can see, they just don't wish to look after it. Not surprisingly, as they're a child-free friendship group.

Imagine OPs friendship group was based on a shared love of wine tasting. One friend decided that she didn't want to drink any more as she wanted to focus on being mega healthy. The friends kindly agreed to go to a coffee shop instead once a month but that wasn't good enough for her and she wanted them to always meet in coffee shops, and kicked off that they still planned to go on a wine tasting holiday.
She also expected them to draw up a rota to drive her to the gym every fortnight.
Because she was now busy with the gym, her nice friend even cleaned her house for her although she could afford a cleaner.

Would that be okay? Would the friend be considered reasonable?

You post does however prove the lie of ‘Friends are the new family’. Most friends are in friendships for the benefit it brings to them and any support is limited by the ease of delivering it and is conditional.

Yes because real blood relatives would never leave out their family members with kids....🙄

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4834282-left-out-of-family-holiday?page=2&reply=127126379

Agree.

Why does it upset people so much when a woman makes a legitimate choice about her life.

She and her friends don't want children.

Now that one has broken ranks, suddenly it takes a village?

My arse.

They are friends through a shared interest in being childfree.

They owe her nothing beyond good luck, hope it works out for you.

She has money, she will be fine.

Looking after someone else's baby has NEVER appealed to me, ever.

So I have probably done it only once or twice in an emergency situation.

These friendships are often fun, casual and continue, as long as you remain involved in the sport, activity, life choice etc.

She no longer shares the views of the group and she is spectacularly entitled if she thinks they should suddenly now, for HER convience, involve themselves in an activity that is of absolutely interest to them.

I bet if the tables were turned you wouldn't see her for dust, nor would she be making a skivvy of herself in your home.

By doing far too much for her, she feels absolutely entitled to impose even more.

Classic CF, classic mug dynamic

When my baby was around 3 months old, I babysat my friend's super active 1 year old. Those 4 hours were VERY LONG. I had no experience with handling a child that ran around non stop, climbed everything in sight - even over the sides of the baby cot where I put my own baby to sleep, trying to wake her by prods in the tummy, refused to sleep, refused to eat...
My point is, I was a mum; I still found it hard. In my child free days I would not have had a clue how to look after a baby - oh the magnitude of the responsibility!
You have tried to find some middle ground, but she's not having any of it - she's the unreasonable one.

I think you or someone in your group needs to suck it up and have a frank chat with her to save you all some awkwardness.

"Hey friend, to be honest, you have been friends with us for so many years and have bonded over the fact we have been childfree by choice. None of us are interested in babies and have no desire to babysit. We would still love to include you in our outings, but you need to find a professional to babysit".

Apologies for not reading the whole thread but I get the gist. I’m imagining the friend was in two minds about the unwanted pregnancy but went ahead anyway, thinking she could create some sort of support bubble made up of her existing friends and avoid the heavy lifting of motherhood alone. But she omitted to discuss it with said friends first and is now using guilt as a weapon. Sneaky.

She is now learning about life choices. Stick to your guns OP. I have one very kind but very honest child free friend who I wouldn’t have dreamt of dumping my children on. She was generous and sweet to my children but she was never, ever a babysitter.

Parenting is hard and can be lonely. Your friend needs to meet other parents, grow up and try to understand what other people’s lives are like.

Also, I don’t have kids. My recent posts are on mortgages, a thread where a woman’s DH is showing worrying symptoms, comments on teenagers volunteering overseas and comments on the Auriol Grey manslaughter case (plus of course this thread).

I don’t comment on threads involving child development etc. but there are a multitude of threads that don’t require a poster to have children to make a contribution.

Mumsnet may have started out being just for matters related to motherhood but it’s expanded way beyond that.