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.

@JudgeAnderson That's understandable though, and quite different to being derogatory about them. I get overwhelmed by people generally and have to take time out at times.

If you don't want to babysit then simply say no, don't be guilt tripped into it. It was her decision to have the baby, it's her responsibility to care for it.

@user9630721458 its not heart breaking at all. Not everyone feels the same way as you do. I love dogs but I don’t expect or find it sad that others don’t.

So long as neither result in the mistreatment, abuse, neglect or harm why does it matter if some people don’t like kids?

@CleverLilViper I think it is abusive to call children ugly, to publicly post regretting your child or to call them offensive names. Disliking children is peculiar in my view. Finding them hard work, not knowing how to behave with them, choosing not to have them are all reasonable, but disliking them to the extent @Shetextsme describes, would be a sign of an unbalanced and damaged person to me.

Ok so people aren’t allowed to admit feelings of regret for having a child now. This is why there is a culture of silence around that issue because so many shame people for admitting that they don’t enjoy being a parent.

Do you understand that some people don’t like dogs? Or cats? Or horses? Or other animals? If so- how can you not wrap your head around people disliking children?

Children tend to be noisy, messy and rather chaotic. Some people dislike that and would rather not be around them. Hence child- free.

As for the other comments- is she calling them that to their face? No?

@user9630721458 yes me too - I'm even more freaked out by groups of drunk people, who have less of an excuse than children.

@JudgeAnderson Absolutely. To be honest I get tired just going in a supermarket, something about all the people, colours, strip lighting. I like to regularly walk in the woods where the only sound is birdsong and water and the only company is trees😀

@CleverLilViper Disliking animals? No, I don't get that either. Not wanting a pet, finding them hard work, not knowing how to behave around them - all fine. But actively disliking or even hating them, no that's a bit odd too.

@user9630721458 totally same here! I just do home delivery now and save myself the chore. Any manmade environments feel like such a drain whereas somewhere in nature is the total opposite.
Sorry total derail!

@JudgeAnderson I expect we are just making lateral connections😀but yes, I will stop with the tangents now too!

She's in over her head and is turning to her friends, which is normal. I think a rota is too much to ask.

It is particularly bad but that’s SM too. People ramp up with hideous phrases just for fun.

I like children mostly, and think in terms of smell adults are more likely to pong, or be unattractive.

However I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to babysit. I don’t really want to tbh and I have dc.

Wow your friend is living on another planet!!! I’m not even pro abortion but she made a choice to keep the baby and quite frankly she could’ve got pregnant from slack contraceptive use. I’ve had kids for ten years and have never had a night off regularly every fortnight. Being a parent doesn’t work like that. Nor have I ever had friends clean my house as a one off let alone regularly, or batch cook for me. Sounds like you’re doing an enormous amount to help. She made her choice and she needs to deal with it. Very sad really as that poor kid didn’t choose to be born and already its mum is prioritising dating!! Honestly I couldn’t be friends with someone like that, no matter how nice they seem.

And as money is not an issue she can afford a nanny / babysitter and I’d definitely stop cleaning for her!!

I don’t think there is anything wrong with her asking her friends she trusts as long as it isn’t an expectation.

Look at it from a different perspective.

Being a first time mum with no mum friends is incredibly lonely because there are some things you can not understand unless you are a parent. Maybe encourage her to go to some baby groups and make some mum friends.

Secondly if you are a close group of friends/ best friends she may just see you as family and not realise what she is asking. Does she have a support network other than you guys?

Lastly friendships change when you become a parent and you have to find new ways to spend time with friends. If my friends didn’t do child friendly things with me I would almost never see anyone.

OP has made it clear she has been supportive though. She’s been round with wine, she’s cooked and cleaned and ferried to appointments. She’s happy to go
to child friendly places. She just isn’t happy to commit to regular childcare as she doesn’t feel comfortable caring for a small baby. Her friend can afford professional child care if she wants to go out with her CF friends on grown up nights out.

Being a first time mum with no mum friends is incredibly lonely because there are some things you can not understand unless you are a parent

Oh knock it off with the 'some things you can't understand unless you're a parent' baloney. This woman isn't a teenager stuck on the fifteenth floor of a high rise with no money and no support. This is a very well paid woman who has chosen to keep a baby from a ONS, wants no support from the father and her family is on another continent. The baby is nearly a year old, she has had months to put support in place and the money to pay for it but she wants her friends - her childfree friends, some of whom want nothing to do with children - to be her support. Her FREE support.

It appears that it is an expectation, since she drew up a rota and then got upset when people told her do one.

If they can't possibly understand how lonely she is right now because they're not parents, maybe she needs to find some friends who are parents, do understand, and are actually up for meeting at soft play centres.

I think you are a saint to clean her house for her. I wouldn't do it and I even have kids!!!!! And it sounds as if you are doing even more than that, with the batch cooking, coming to watch movies when the baby is asleep, etc. You are doing about 30x more than anyone ever did for me when I had a baby, other than my mum (who also did NOT deep clean my house). What you are doing for her is actually FAR beyond what people normally do for a new mum. Normally it's a "meal train" for the first month and then you are on your own. If your friends drop by to see you and the baby occasionally, that's gravy! I think this woman is a bit of a CF and is taking advantage of the fact that, as a childfree group, you all aren't familiar with how things work socially when someone has a baby.

I would stop doing all of it. Stop cleaning her house. Stop cooking her meals. Her baby is 11 months old, that is old enough for her to have things under control by now. She is trying to keep her pre-kid standard of living at your expense!

We’re on page 20 of this thread, and you honestly think you’re offering up a ‘different perspective’?!

You’re offering up exactly the same guilt-inducing perpective that many others have trotted out all the way through the thread….!

@CrazyArmadilloLady We’re about 30 posts away from filling this thread. Maybe we should post cute animal memes to fill it up & stop these tedious, repetitive comments 😂

Maybe she didn't realise they you all actually can't stand children? Just because some of my friends are child free I don't assume they actually hate to be around them.

Remember it won't be a baby forever, but your friend will remember forever if her friends were there for her at one of the hardest times in her life.

Not saying you need to feel forced into cleaning/ doing chores / babysitting. But I wonder if her requests for these are being taken out of proportion or the time is being misunderstood? She may also be suffering with PND, I would trwd carefully if you value her friendship!

Maybe she didn't realise they you all actually can't stand children? Just because some of my friends are child free I don't assume they actually hate to be around them

The very first para of the OP's first post.

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

Cheeky friend is part of that group, so I'm pretty sure she knows the stance of the people in it.

It is amazingly sad to me how many mothers will ask more of a child free woman/ friend than than the child’s actual father!

It's a woman's job to look after babies, that's why. 🙄