To resent having to pretend I don't have a child when around a certain old friend?

[jeckadeck]

Old, very dear, childless friend hates listening to people talk about babies. To the point of neurosis -- she tunes out any reference to kids at all and makes ostentatious claims to anyone who will listen about how bored she is by it all. Don't really know whether she hates children, is envious or is just bored by the conversation, suspect a combination of all three. Up to a point I sympathize, there's nothing duller than being sat in a room full of young mothers banging on about the contents of their offspring's nappies if you don't have kids yourself and if you can't have kids it can be quite painful. I have a 12-week old baby and I try my hardest to be sympathetic and not to talk endlessly about my kid when I'm out with her or other childless friends. But she recently said she'd love to get me and another mum friend out for a night out "on condition that you don't talk about your children." I just think that while its one thing to expect that we don't go on about them all night, she can't expect us not to discuss our children at all. But am I being unreasonable? and if not, how do I get this across to her without hurting her? We've had this out in the past when I was pregnant and she temporarily seemed to get better but apparently is now back to insisting that any reference to children be erased from our friendship.

She is extremely rude and selfish.

I do totally understand how dull the topic can be: more than most as I was childless for a long time myself. But I also think that trying to police topics of conversation with a friend like this is kind of controlling and weird.

Being arbitrarily told not to do something that clearly isn't life-threatening tends to have the opposite effect on moi and I'd probably spend the evening chanting 'babies, babies, babies, kid, kids, kids', commenting on how the surrounding company look like babes, asking her if she's thought of doing a Brangelina, what she thinks of Cleggy going home at 4pm, etc, etc. ad nauseum, or I might opt for fancy dress and go as a .... guess what?

If you don't know the other mum then your friend's off the wall if she expects to introduce you to each other without a word being said about your shared status - on the plus side it could be the opportunity you need to practise your miming skills.

Whatever the motivation for your friend's ludicrous demand, I suggest you work out whether you are prepared to compartmentalise and put your 'family life' in a box when you meet up with her, or simply tell her that you don't do censorship and you don't expect her to either.

fleshwound we do still have a lot in common: lots of shared humour etc. And in a weird way I appreciate that she's someone I can kick back with without talking about kids. I like having that part of my life still. But its almost a kind of Peter Pan fantasy on her part, like she can pretend we're still teenagers again by expunging reference to kids. And aside from the fact that its impractical for me not to allude to my infant daughter and that it pisses me off, I just think its really odd to not acknowledge that big a life change.

Agree that the policing is weird. Probably if she didn't say anything, and actually listened it wouldn't be a big deal. She has made it a big deal, and now if/when you go out with her, you will feel self conscious about mentioning your baby. So, she is calling the shots on what is discussed

But how self obsessed that her interests are fascinating, whereas yours aren't.

I'm picturing someone in my head with their hands in their ears going "La La La" not listening. It is probably not that easy for her. Maybe this is her expressing her insecurities about her own life choices. Hard for her, but it's not your responsibility to stop her being neurotic.

I don't know... I spent most of my 30s without kids and found other people talking about babies really, really boring.

Can you not refrain from talking about your baby for 2 hours?

She may be putting it a bit rudely, but she's probably really fed up with baby talk. If you value the friendship, I'd cut her some slack. If not, well, why bother at all?

In four months you may be completely sick of talking about babies and long to hang out with someone who won't ask about them

I do sympathise, I have this same issue with a very good friend, but we are slowly getting to a good place about it.

dreamingbohemian I don't think you can have read my post at all, if you had you'd see that I said I literally don't talk about my kid with her. To the point that there's just no reference to her at all and its kind of weird. I understand how boring it is and I'm fully committed not to banging on about it. The point is I resent being arbitrarily ordered not to mention it by her. When I don't even fricking mention it.

weird and rude, IMO a true friendship evolves as your situation changes and accepts that

I suggest your friend has a look on wikipedia at the definition of friendship this part is probably most appropriate;

Friends demonstrate the following;

Trust in one another (able to express feelings - including in relation to the other's actions - without the fear of being judged); able to go to each other for emotional support

Positive reciprocity - a relationship is based on equal give and take between the two parties.

Tell her that's fine as long as she stays away from certain BROAD subjects too e.g. work, celebrities, fashion? If and when conversation dries up make sure it's HER who has to think of something to say first?

It seems like a stupid thing for her to say - dictating the conversation of others is ridiculous. I'd feel terrible if I thought other people were stilting their own conversation on my account but obviously she's not bothered. Sounds like the friendship needs to take a breather for a bit to be honest, go out instead with mates you can talk openly with... YANBU.

It's just rude when you come down to it. Is she a bit dominant. She sounds funny-but-spiky

You are not being unreasonable!! Having a baby is a major life changing event and it's a big deal to you. Asking you not to mention your child all night is frankly weird and selfish. Friends want to know what's going on in their other friend's lives - and while I can appreciate she doesn't want you to be a baby bore, taking an interest in one of the hugest events in yours is surely something she should do? It sounds like you are very careful not to talk about your child all the time, but banning it as a topic of conversation is akin to wanting to spend time with you, but not with one aspect of your personality - and surely friends should love us for everything that we are? My best friend is childless and rolls her eyes if she's ever in a group of mums at endless talk of Iggle Piggle and weaning, but she makes a real effort to be interested in what my son is doing and how he's developing, and in turn I don't talk about kids TV or the contents of his nappies. It's a two way thing. It's called friendship!!! Tell your mate to get her head out of her ass and show you the same respect you clearly show her!!!

YANBU! I've got a friend like this. We lost contact for ages, since I was pregnant with my first child and moved town. We got back in touch last year, swapped a few emails, updated each other on what's been happening in our lives. We sent each other some recent pictures - his mostly featured his new cats with comedy cheezburger style captions, I said some politely appreciative things even though I don't particularly dig cats and sent what I consider to be a particularly adorable picture of my daughters. Nothing. Any passing mention of them (and I can't not mention them at all - I do spend every day with them so naturally they crop up in my anecdotes from time to time) bounces off a blank wall of supreme indifference.

You know - fine, not everyone likes kids, but I'm really not the sort of parent that can only talk about their children. They are a massive part of my life though and I think it's respectful to show a polite if cursory interest in the same way that I do when my friends talk about things I don't much care about but I can see are important to them.

EmmaBemma this is it exactly: I'm not silly enough to think everyone else is as fascinated by my little darling as I am. And i know that part of the contract of friendship involves taking care not to bore people or to rub their nose in their hangups. But I also think that one person unilaterally demanding that a part of the others' life be off limits because it tunes into a particular neurosis of theres is unreasonable and not compatible with friendship.

You had it out in the past and she hasn't changed. Can you bear to do so again, since you aren't the one being unreasonable?

YANBU - That's just odd. I can understand not particularly wanting to spend the entire evening chatting about kids but being told that it is a condition of you meeting up? Grr.

I'd also then be inclined to talk about nothing else except my baby. Plus whip out my phone and go through every single photo I have. And wear a novelty T-shirt with their picture on it.

Although I have to admit, I did literally hang my head in shame when I caught myself telling my friend about the benefits of my buggy. She's childless and currently doing a very interesting PhD. What do I bring to the conversation? How easy it is to get my buggy up and down tube steps

I have a friend abit like this though not so extreme. I do laugh inside when we spend entire evenings discussing her office politics (people I have not, nor ever will meet) yet my children not mentioned even in passing.

JamieAgain I think I may have to have it out again, somewhat irritatingly as it tends to lead to a row.

I don't understand how, with a 12 week old, you could possibly avoid the subject. You have so many maternal hormones, coupled with little sleep, that idle chit chat about the state of the economy or anything else is hard to think about. Baby is your number one priority, and was my only priority for quite a few weeks.
You say you have been out with her two or three times since DD was born. Were these times without DD? Or is she literally ignoring her when she's there? Has she met her yet? I would find it very odd that she won't allow you to refer to her at all. I certainly wouldn't have been able to deal with that with such a tiny baby.

I have a number of friends with fertility issues. I try to be sensitive with all of them, though I know it is a struggle. Only one have I had to cease being friends with over this issue. Two weeks after DTD1 dying and DTD2 being born, she texted me about some money I owed work (a few pounds, had left early as everything went tits up with the babies). When I responded saying that I didn't have everything together and could it wait, she got arsey, and never mentioned either baby. I know she has massive problems, and I feel very sorry for the fact that literally nothing has worked for her, but I could not forgive that attitude.

So, with that in mind, I think you need to figure out where your boundaries lie. You need to know why she feels like this before you decide, but personally there is no way I would be going out without my tiny baby, having sworn not to talk about her.

Loopy she's met the baby twice: once the standard home visit after birth when the baby was less than a week old (baby slept through the entire visit which I think suited her perfectly) the second time was in a cafe and she talked about everything but the baby and got visibly irritated when I was discussing feeding logistics for a bit (as I was feeding the baby). The other two occasions I was without the baby and again the subject was barely mentioned and when I made the odd passing reference she made it clear she wasn't responding. It is very passive aggressive. I've had it out with her before but I think I'm going to have to do so again.

I'm very sorry to hear about the death of your daughter and I agree your friend is beyond insensitive to be asking about a debt so soon after this.

I also have friends with fertility issues. The irony is this person isn't to my knowledge one of these. She's just selfish and resents the fact that her friends aren't on hand to go out whenever suits her, I think.

I'd tell her you won't talk about your baby, if she won't talk about her art career as you find it frightfully boring and it puts you to sleep. She sounds like a self centred, toddler. Maybe the reason she doesn't like people talking about their kids is because their behaviour is so much like hers.

"...if you can't have kids it can be quite painful."

Understatement of the century. Not many women would say "I'm sorry but I can't be around children because it breaks my heart" so they feign indifference and boredom.

It may not be that, but it's a possibility.

There is, I think, an enormous crevasse between the lives of those with children and those without. Most of us have friends like yours, and yes, it does seem completely unbelievable that they are so unable to extend their frame of reference to be interested in something which has, after all, completely blown your world away and consumes every minute.
Your DD is three months old though. Either the friendship will gradually fall away- normal , or, in a few months time, you'll be strangely grateful to talk about anything other than children. The really weird thing is if she goes on to have her own baby later- then suddenly she'll be all over you desperate to talk baby!

YANBU. I'd go along with the suggestion of saying "that's fine, just so long as YOU don't mention/talk about your career/xyz.

OP, sorry, I did read your post. My point is that you are probably only meeting up for a couple hours at a time, so it should be possible to talk about things other than kids for 2 hours. I'm not saying you should be happy to do it -- or that you should do it at all, if you don't want to. I'm just saying it's not the most impossible thing in the world to do, if you want to make that effort.

I don't think talking about kids is the same as talking about work or hobbies or whatever. Motherhood is an incredibly emotive subject, it raises all sorts of issues for many women. Yes, your friend is not being very pleasant about it, but instead of flaming her, why not try to find out exactly what her problem is? You say you 'suspect' it is a combination of boredom, envy, hatred, which says to me that you haven't really addressed it directly.

As I said, I am going through this myself. I have gotten my dear friend to go from a stance similar to your friend's, to the point where she will babysit. I didn't tell her she was rude, I didn't shun her, I just tried to listen to her reasoning, told her that it made me sad she felt that way, and that I hoped she would come around. I had to go through a period of barely talking about the baby, but gradually she realised on her own this was a ridiculous set up and now things are much better.

You can look at this as her 'dictating the conversation' or you can see an old friend who must be really hurting to say something so extreme.

I'm not saying you're being unreasonable to resent it. Just arguing for a bit of sympathy, I guess.