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.

Thanks. I didn't realise. I've been on MN for about 20 yrs so I'm clearly behind the times!

I've reread my post a few times and cannot see why/how it is rude. It was not the intention at all

I didn't ask they they would not join MN. I asked the opposite!

If I was searching for a social group and was not interested in having children or being around them, I'd assume MN would not be a group for me. Just by the name.

And I was not aware of MN being so popular on Google.

Fair enough.

Men use MN for advice which is perfectly fine too, whilst I have a personal preference for not reading twatty incel misogynistic posts which we occasionally are subjected to.

It is an interesting site for many that comes up easily when you google certain things.

Your friend seems very unreasonable and entitled.
I wonder why with 18 months maternity leave she didn’t go over to New Zealand for a chunk of it to get family support? Or why non of her family have over here to support her?
I’m glad you posted on here and not on a child free forum, I think the CF forum would just slag off mothers and kids, at least on here you’ve had a more balanced view!
I have a child (by choice) love the very bones of her, I have never left her with anyone other than my parents! My child has always come first and I would not be dumping her on friends or babysitters so I could go out on ‘dates’ … FGS!! Your friend has a young son and I find it incredibly selfish that she’s putting dating and socialising so high on her list of priorities!
You sound wonderful helping her so much. I would just say NO to babysitting, you’re not being selfish, she is! As mothers we make sacrifices for our children, I wouldn’t dream of asking anyone to commit to a regular child minding service unless I was paying them!!
It is a bit tight of some of the friends to refuse to meet elsewhere occasionally so as to include her, but I also don’t want to eat in a place where kids are screaming and running around (even as a mother myself) so I also get it… but an occasional night at her house surely isn’t too much of an ask for them… it’s great you do this.
I do however think she is VERY unreasonable to expect everyone else not to meet up without her… I think someone needs to respond in the group chat (someone who is distancing anyway) that her having a baby shouldn’t stop all the child free people from holidaying together/continuing their childfree existence. I think she needs to except that until she goes back to work and employs a nanny fulltime, she is choosing this and can’t push her restrictions onto others. She needs to host and invite the group over for a BBQ or a cheese and wine night or whatever… that way she can deal with her child and you can all socialise, hold the baby (if you want to) and give it back when you’ve had enough/it cries etc…
It annoys me that people guilt trip people to babysit ‘so they can have a night off’…. I would love a night in with a few girlfriends, knowing my child is safe upstairs but I still have great company.
You need to back off now, cleaning and cooking for her is a lot! Very kind of you but A LOT!! My friend struggles and I walk her dog when I get time, but I’ve refused to commit to set days because I don’t want to be tied…. A favour or kindness isn’t a favour anymore when a rota becomes involved !
Also as a mother myself, I still don’t babysit other peoples kids regularly… on rare occasions for my best friend I’ve gone round with my DD & sat for a few hours so she can go out, but our DD’s are the same ages so it all works out like a big play date and suits me too….. if it didn’t suit me I’d say no!….. i wouldn’t look after a child that’s under school age or any that play up. No thanks…
How you and your group of friends spend your spare time is entirely your choice…. Friendships constantly change and evolve, I wouldn’t blame anyone for drifting apart after a baby is added to the mix. Even friendship groups where everyone have children fall out, because your Billy and my Bobby fight, or when some of the group want to do more girly things with the DD’s and the ones with boys do something different… My sister was upset because her friendship group all had a second child and started meeting up with their babies without her… when she had her second her friends had all moved on and she was quite isolated.
I think one of you needs to just tell her straight that you won’t be agreeing to a rota, are happy to meet up occasionally for family friendly days but as you are all obviously not parents will be mainly meeting at non child places and going on adult only holidays… and that if she can get a babysitter or nanny she is welcome to join you all.
She will loose lots of friends now, I lost friends when I became a parent even though all my friends were parents already (because our kids were at different stages!) it’s just life.. you shouldn’t allow her to make
you feel guilty tho

Could someone put in the group chat something like

Now that our group financial are changing, we are all aware that not every meet up is going to be accessible to all of the group, we will try to adjust some of meet ups to make them more inclusive of the whole group, but we all know that keeping 10 people happy all of the time is impossible… maybe we could all take a turn in suggesting a location/time and date and those that can make it, brilliant, those that can’t at least get the opportunity to arrange their own meet up… this way hopefully the majority are happy the majority of the time but all us get to chose the occasions that we can make/don’t suit us.

if she pushes back just someone suggest she is more than welcome to join you all and offer to ogle a baby sitting service for her

Dynamics not finances 😂

Also do not line yourself up as a babysitter when he’s older…. He might be a horrible toddler and she will say ‘you promised when he was older you’d babysit’….
you can hardly then say ‘yeah but he’s horrible so I don’t want to!’

Agree to an occasional night at hers with her there, occasional coffee at a place with a play park etc…. But just state that you don’t want to be responsible for a little person end of!! If she can’t appreciate everything you already do for her and just wants more then maybe it’s time to suggest she gets a cleaner and back off!

Also don't you think it's weird that MN actually has a child free section if this isn't for women without children? Something to ponder maybe

And what a fight getting that was against all the Mumsnetters who were determined that a board for childfree women would attract all the incels and pervs onto their lovely site and that we should bugger off to Reddit.

It's a bizarre request whether you're child free or not. You can love children, but I can't imagine many people wanting to be tied into a rota of this short child free or not. There arebaby sitting circles around, which is where parents share baby sitting responsibilities, so she should look into local groups and not rely on you. Nothing to do with child free or not child free. She made the choice to have the baby, so help her to find other avenues of support is the limit of your responsibility.

And what a fight getting that was against all the Mumsnetters who were determined that a board for childfree women would attract all the incels and pervs onto their lovely site and that we should bugger off to Reddit.

Really?! I didn't know there had been pushback. Surely if you were a pervy incel you'd be more likely to go on Relationships or the Sex topic or seomthing?

I think they think the childfree people are pervy incels.

I have never seen so many posts stating how much people dislike babies and children. Stating vociferously how much they want to avoid the 'puking' 'shitting' 'horrible' things. OK. Is it just me or does anyone think there is something odd about people who so loudly dislike a section of the population? Is it a particularly British thing?

Have fun JudgeA! 😁

The thread that requested the board on Site stuff got to 1000 posts. Never known a board request to get to much attention before. Some very nasty comments

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/4813212-childfree-mumsnetters-board

'it just me or does anyone think there is something odd about people who so loudly dislike a section of the population?'

I really like children (on the whole) but can completely understand why other people don't and want to avoid them if possible. They're noisy, messy, demanding, unpredictable. They can be a lot of lovely things too, but I'm not at all surprised that some people feel immune to their charms!

Some childfree people really like children and enjoy being around them, other childfree people just don't want any children in their lives at all. I think both are totally fine

There’s quite a few active at the moment. One in AIBU where the OP is asking if they’re unreasonable to be rude or horrible (sorry I can’t remember exactly) to children who talk to her. A few dotted around about people who are sick of their kids/sick of parenting. One memorable one quite a while ago about a woman who was in a group of friends made through a baby group and they made a sore rate chat to talk about how ugly one woman’s children were. I like children but a lot of people hate them eg ‘I live my own kids but I hate everyone elses’. There was a post on a Facebook group I’m in recently by a woman who is dreading her children making friends at school because she didn’t want other peoples ‘crotch fruits’ in her house and didn’t want her children to go to their house because all the children except hers are badly behaved and she’s worried they will pick it up, lots of people agreeing. I’m not sure if it’s a British thing because Reddit is mostly American and has the same kind of posts.

I don't see anything odd about it.

I like my baby but overall, I can see why some people dislike babies. I certainly wouldn't be looking after a friend's baby unless it was an emergency.

@Shetextsme 'crotch fruit', god that's horrendous, and terrible to call a child ugly. I get children are hard work but some comments are just hateful. I was thinking of other countries, like Italy for example, where people enjoy children. I wonder if Britain and America are just different that way.

@Lottapianos I sort of understand but the protests about 'shitting' babies and the general repetition of 'can't stand them' is rather psychologically disturbing to me. Maybe it's just MN, as I don't know anyone in real life who actually has this level of disgust and dislike. I have a couple of Childfree friends who, while clearly completely phased by the logistics of nappy changing, despite one having a pHd, are still kindly towards children and certainly don't hate them!

If you categorise crotch fruit as horrendous, never go on Reddit! I saw a post the other week and the ‘nickname’ someone used for their children made me 🤢 and since then, probably because it’s in my consciousness now, I’ve seen it used a few more times. I think maybe parents are expected to be so child-focussed nowadays (yes I’m old!) regret is higher and more easy to talk about because of social media. Also it’s easier to vent even about small frustrations so it seems like a lot of people hate children. There are places eg Facebook pages and Reddit subs dedicated to parents who regret their children and while it’s nice people can get that support I’ve seen a few screenshots on instagram of posts that are really awful about the children in a very personal way. There was a thread on here only a week or two ago where a woman regretted having her baby and one of the reasons was because she wasn’t pretty, in ‘the olden days’ that’s not something that would be shared with eg neighbours, sisters, friends, so now it’s just something we hear about more often I think and like I said it can make it seem like a lot of people hate children.

I like kids within limits if they’re clean & not yelling.

I could probably handle changing a nappy if I had to but I have a massive lifelong phobia about messy eaters - I’ve been known to have to run off and vomit at the sight - so try hard not to be around if small children are eating.

It’s not. It’s just that it’s a blatantly dumb question that’s been asked multiple times and answered on this thread alone.

Many find themselves here because they search for a topic on you know Google and MN comes up as a top page. AIBU features some of the most popular threads and many have nothing to do with being a parent or wanting kids.

I didnt realise that you had to have kids to answer if someone is being unreasonable with their neighbours.

How remiss of me.

This is why I just answer this question with Bingo. It comes up every five minutes and repeatedly answering in detail gets boring.

@user9630721458 it's not dislike so much as I just don't want to particularly be around babies and young children. It's nothing personal, it's a preference. I'm autistic and I find the noise, unpredictable movements and mess/stickiness very stressful.

@Shetextsme Those stories are heart breaking. It seems the internet releases so much toxicity in people, and it's frightening to see. Our culture does seem less child friendly than others to me. There's a sort of impatience with children, and a desire for them to be more like adults. Other cultures seem to enjoy having children amongst the adults and to see them as a blessing. Those cultures are perhaps more family orientated I suppose.