aibu to expect more from my child free friends....

[formerbabe]

Morning all

So I have a few 'mummy friends' but my main group of girlfriends are mainly still young, free and single (we are in our 30s). There are about 7 of us who have been friends for years...I am the only one with children. When I was pregnant, everyone was so excited...saying they would babysit, discussing who would be the coolest 'auntie' etc.

Fast forward to 6 years later...and despite me still firmly being friends with them, they barely know my kids. When they do see my kids at social events, they practically ignore them. They never have offered to babysit, even when I gave birth to my second baby and had no one to look after my eldest. My kids are very shy around them as they are near enough strangers to them.

I don't know if iabu in expecting more? Do your child free friends offer to babysit/take them out etc?

Former babe. What a stupid statement. There is a huge difference between helping a person with a pram up some steps to being asked or expected to babysit. Get a grip dear.

Oh and in terms of calling and texting - I've been trying to call a very good friend of mine for 3 weeks - still haven't managed it! Even talking on the phone can be nigh on impossible.

With texting and calling, how much time does it take before someone who has had a child can be expected to get in touch? Someone I considered a very good friend had a child almost 18 months ago - I have travelled to hers, brought gifts, emailed, texted numerous times. The last time she got in touch with me was the time she called to tell me she was pregnant.

Winkly, I'd send one more text asking if everything's ok then leave it. Not replying at all is just rude and can't really be justified.

MeepMeepVroom,yes I am realising how lucky I am reading this thread! I struggled after my second and I think it freaked my friends out.I've always being strong minded and just cracked on but I couldn't! They really stepped up and supported me like I have them with different issues they've had.I suppose it is unusual considering they don't have children but me having mine brought us closer and they are amazing with both my dc.

I am childless and most of my friends have children. I have offered to babysit and take them out or to the park but it turns in to a massive hassle as I don't have a carseat so can't pick them up and if the parent has to drop them off they may as well take them out themselves.
Most people say they don't want to presume by taking up offers to babysit. I guess they don't trust me with their kids? Or don't really want to go out?!
I'm quite happy to spend time with my friends with their children and chat to them - their parents usually prefer to get a break and spend time having adult chats.
I would actually love to take friends' kids and my niblings out, get to know them as individuals and build a friendship with them that way but the parents seem quite resistant. Maybe we should be friends, OP?!

Juniper jones, I'm sure it's not that they don't trust you with their children, and you sound lovely, I'm sure they just don't wAnt to impose. Even though I did baby sit a few times for friends before I had children, I've not asked anyone to do it for me, I think I'm the sort of person who doesn't want to impose. I don't like asking for things though so maybe that's my issue

Yes, that's the other thing. No children doesn't mean no responsibilities.

They are probably waiting for you to ask. Maybe bitching among themselves that they made you all these offers to babysit and you have yet to take them up on it. People who drop hints rather than asking directly can be very annoying. I prefer to ignore hint-droppers myself.

When I was free and single ny bf who had been a wild type had a baby and pretty much stopped all contact with her previous friend group apart from a couple of us - she totally changed her lifestyle and dedicated herself to her dc.

She never went out anymore but I went round for a brew after work quite a lot - it was a lovely time - cood over her dc and then dcs and we're still bf and she coos over my ds and we have lovely times taking the dcs out together - it's harder to find time with dcs, my ft job and her college work but have recently enjoyed going out without the dc.

I think enioy your friends for their non dc world - it's nice to have a grown up world too - and you can dip in and out - sometimes it revolves around your dc and your family world and sometimes it's you and your friends like in the good old days - people who you know and trust and can have a good laugh with.

And I wouldn't worry about the lack of enthusiasm re baby sitting - pregnancy is an exciting time - especially being the first in your group - it is you who has changed - your priorities and interests - they aren't on the same page yet - but if when you get together and it's just lile it was before then I think that shows a good friendship. Life is busy!

I have read the entire thread and what I want to know is: would a new dad ever post this about his male friends?

Me and Jack used to go to the pub every weekend together, but since the baby came he's never offered to babysit once.

Would that ever happen?

If not why are women friends supposed to be different?

YABU, why don't you understand since you were single once with no kids but they've never had kids so you should know better. Don't even mention it to them, not their problem IMO.

formerbabe Mon 03-Feb-14 17:02:29
I really dislike the 'you decided to have kids, so don't expect help' attitude. If you see a mum struggling up steps with a buggy, do you offer to help or tell her its her own fault for having them?

Er what?!!!! Are you for real? I can not believe you actually wrote that.
Are you seriously are comparing helping someone with a buggy (it could easily be helping an old lady with her shopping) with interacting or even babysitting your children??!!!

Let me spell out the difference for you. One involves physical labour equivalent of shifting a sack of potatoes. One involves a HUGE amount of emotional investment and just about as much responsibility as it is possible to have.

Do you see the difference?

Some of the other people on this thread who said that you are not interested in whether AIBU and that you just wanted validation for your POV were bang on. I thought they were being harsh, but they were right. You just want sympathy. But aren't prepared to think about anyone else in the process either.

Perhaps you would like to also think about your friends and why they might not want to (or indeed feel able to) help you, instead of whinging its not fair and saying they are selfish. Its really not that simple.

And yes, frankly your childcare arrangements ARE your problem, no one else's whether you like it or not.

I can't help but wonder formerbabe given that your friends don't invest anytime in your DC why exactly would you want them to babysit for you anyway, just because 6 years ago they made a few noises about doing it?

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I certainly wouldn't trust someone who won't even make the slightest bit of conversation with child (albeit I also wouldn't take my DD to a lunch to a pub with a bunch of child free single girlfriends either) to look after my child and be responsible for feed, changing, bathing, bedtime routine or basically anything.

I don't think that it would be wrong to accept help if it was offered but I don't get why you expect it. A million people have said to me "I'll babysit anytime you like" I obviously say "oh thanks what a lovely offer" but know that actually they probably don't mean it and I wouldn't leave my daughter with them anyway.

I am a single Mum and have a babysitter approx once every 6 months. I only ask my parents or close friends (close to both me and DD) and I know I could ask more and they would do it but I won't because a. I chose to have a child b. it isn't anyone else's responsibility to take my daughter to the park, for a walk or out for the day that's what I signed up for and c. It's an intrusion into their downtime with their own families, girlfriends/boyfriends, friends. The last time I had any time away from DD at all apart from going to work was in October. The rest of the time and I really do mean 24/7 she is with me. We may be in company but she is always with me.

I had my DC late 30's early 40's so, for a long time, I was the childfree friend. I never babysat for friends and I don't remember ever wanting to have a conversation with any small child other than my own. Even now, apart from mine, I find small children dull.

You spend a lot of time moaning about your friends, OP, but how good a friend have you been to them? If they were moving house, would you help? or would you use your children as an excuse?

If you want their help you need to ask. My BF has babysat my ds (5) once, I needed to ask, however when my mother died she took a week off work and put her children to stay at her mother's to be with me. In reality an offer of babysitting would be more useful but people help out in what they think would be helpful, so for her, with a husband to help out and very helpful parents on tap she just does not think to offer to babysit and as I do not ask I can hardly complain.

YABVVVVVVU, a hinty fucker, and an entitled whingebag. You have a husband, for a start - I thought you were a single parent at first with your "I gave birth to my second baby and had noone to look after my eldest" - sorry, but your problem is not selfish friends, it's that your useless husband isn't pulling his weight. Completely unfair for you to expect your friends to pick up his slack. Nor is it not down to your friends to amuse your kids when you bring them into adult social situations e.g. a pub lunch. They are spending time and money to enjoy their Sunday in the pub, not to act like some sort of holiday camp entertainer because you think your precious children are so fascinating that it's appropriate to bring them to an adults' gathering. Your children are not interesting to other people in the way that they are to you.

Also: "ooh yay I'll babysit" and "I can't wait to be an auntie" is the sort of thing people say when their friend gets pregnant. These things are not legally binding. They are not even always carefully thought through. In particular, if you have little experience with children, a friend's pregnancy is new and exciting! yay, a cute baby to play with! Then the baby arrives and it is terrifyingly small and fragile (0-6 months) and then terrifyingly screechy, incomprehensible and mum-clingy (6-18 months) and then terrifyingly messy, fast-moving and seemingly suicidal with a 10-second attention span (18 months - 4 years)... well, suddenly babysitting doesn't seem so appealing. I personally do babysit for friends at least the ones whose children I like, but I have tons of solid childcare experience going all the way back to working in a nursery school as a teenager. Most of my friends had barely held a baby before they had their own and if I'd had DCs before they did I would never have expected them to babysit!

TBH I give most of my sprogged up friends far more support than they do me. I don't have DCs but I have elderly parents, and when my mum was in intensive care a few years ago no fucker offered me any moral or practical support at all. You sound like you're cut from the same cloth.

Sorry but YABU. It works both ways I find and if you are not particularly into babies/young kids and don't have much experience with them then it can be hard and boring looking after them. I know when I was single the last thing I'd have wanted would be to be stuck in on a night alone with a crying baby. Of course if a friend was really stuck and asked me as a last resort I would help out with kids but I wouldn't offer for the joy of doing it or take hints. My friends have all had kids in the last year and are blissfully unaware that my business situation is fairly chronic and that my DP and I have nearly split up twice and tbh I have given up leaving voicemails that never get returned due to the kiddy blinkers being firmly on! Maybe your friends will take more interest when your kids are at a less 'scary' age when they can converse and be a bit less needy on day trips out etc?

Winkiy - don't base your friendship and finishing one on a sending a last text. You don't know If she will receive it. There may be a problem with her phone etc. I would ring and try and speak to her, texting and Facebook ruins so many friendships when if you would have just spoken it might have changed things.

Former babe - I think you are putting so much emphasis on your friends seeing your kids and being involved because they don't have grandparents and I think this is where the issues lie. There's a world of difference between grandparents and friends. Expectations are completely different. They can't replace grandparents I'm afraid and I feel your wanting this and Expect the same as grandparents.

If you carry on like this you will always be disappointed. Deal with the issues surrounding the grandparents. Your taking it out on your friends and it's not there fault even though I understand why your upset. Can you talk to someone about this?

I don't get this 'totting up' of scores on the friendship board. X doesn't babysit, -0 them. I helped move house for them +1 me. Friends are friends because they DON'T expect anything from you & vice versa and don't get pissed at you when you do or don't do something. If a friend WANTS to do something or vice versa, then that's great, but friendship doesn't confer any particular 'right to service'!

In my group, I was the first to have a child. It was 5 years before another one of our group had a child. I never expected any of my friends to babysit my child. The only one who did was also the only one (at that time) in the group who also wanted a child so she was only too happy to play 'pseudo-mum' with my DS. The others had no interest & I didn't expect them to take any. When she had hers 5 years later (yay! she was told she'd never have one!) I was only too happy to return the favour. The same thing with the others who had children. Again, none of us expected anything from our childless/free friends. What was offered was greatly appreciated, but not expected.

As far as lunches and such, if we (other friends with kids and I) were organizing it was assumed that our kids were going to be there unless we said otherwise. If childless/free friends were organizing we always asked 'kids or no kids?'. And we didn't get offended if the answer was 'no kids'. Rather we knew it was going to be a boozy, gossipy, 'adults only conversation' affair.

I will admit that as time went on those of us who had kids were closer than we were to the ones who didn't, and vice versa. We still all saw each other but our lives weren't as 'entwined' as before. Once our kids were teens we again became closer to the childless/free friends, I suppose because we were again free to come and go more as we pleased since our kids were old enough to tend themselves.

So, YABU to 'expect' anything from friends. And YABU to be keeping score on friends.

Hollaatmebaby... My dh is not useless at all. I needed someone to babysit my eldest child when I was giving birth because I wanted my dh to be with me during labour!

And you thought a childless woman with no experience in looking after children, and who didn't have a strong existing relationship with your DC1, would be the right person to look after him/her, for an indeterminate length of time, when DC1 would be anxious and need lots of care and reassurance?

I just don't think you're being realistic here.

Posting again here. The lack of grandparents is neither here nor there. Our DD's GMs were hundreds of miles away and in their 80s, so not "available", but we'd never think of friends as being sub for this, or imagined they see the lack.

Oh. I see you've posted your DH isn't useless as he wanted to be at the birth. Surely this was ages ago, so why boiling about it now?
Anyway, babysitting for a labour is a humungous commitment, so YWBU to expect a friend, particularly a child free, therefore inexperienced friend to offer.

How many of your DH's fiends have offered to babysit?