Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that many women lose their identity when they have children.

116 replies

Straycatblue · 30/05/2015 14:13

Obviously your life changes when you have children but why is it that for some women they put their whole life on hold?

For example, one close friend whom I have known since our schooldays will not accept plans to meet up with me unless she can bring her children along, childcare is not an issue, her husband could look after them both in the day or in the evening. I love her children but she is my friend and used to be an individual with her own interests and life. It isnt just with me, she pretty much never socializes apart from with her children. She freely admits that she doesnt do the things she used to love doing.

Yes, put your children first, no-one is arguing that and yes they are an investment of your time and for some people the pinnacle of their lifes desires, but surely its not healthy to actually have no independent life is it so that your complete identity is mum and not a person with their own passions, desires and interests.

OP posts:
WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes · 31/05/2015 12:32

I definitely haven't lost the person I was before DCs and didn't lose it when they were younger either but your posts are annoying me. Life changes, sometimes friendships weather the changes, sometimes they don't. Sounds to me as though she'd be better off without you judging her lifestyle.

bobajob · 31/05/2015 12:39

Maybe she just prefers spending her time with her children now. That doesn't mean she's lost who she is, her interests and preferences have just changed.

DazzleU · 31/05/2015 12:43

It is my belief that you are more than what your children make you and if you focus all your energy on them then what are you and who are you when they leave or god forbid something happens to them.
I also believe it is not a good example to show her children that her life is all about them with no outside interests or independence.

Her DC are 3 and 4 from your posts - they are going to start school and nursery soon and so she is going to start having time and the DC are going to have boarder worlds pretty soon.

There still plenty of time to rediscovered herself as they DC get older and more independent - obviously not everyone manages this but many women do.

TBH even with loss of identity I don't regret time spent with my DC - it was a choice we made - one with long term implications yes - but not one I personally regret.

Does sound like your friendship has run it course though - you seem to have very different views to childrearing.

Jemimapuddleduk · 31/05/2015 12:52

Everyone is different amd I try and respect other mums wishes and needs. However for me I need to and enjoy having some baby free time. This was something my cbt counsellor was very 'big' on and ultimately helped me recover from my pnd. For me I am a better parent when I have had some time to myself/ with my Dh in a week.

Lordylor · 31/05/2015 12:55

Thewod, OP is perfectly entitled to move on from the friendship if she wants. People change their focus and friendships change. It happens. It is the judgemental blaming of her friend for this, by choosing to make her kids her focus for now, which I find grating. If people make their work their all consuming passion they get praised in broadsheets. If they make their kids their all consuming passion they get slagged by people like OP for not being fully rounded individuals and having no identity.

bethatasitmay · 31/05/2015 13:16

I happen to really enjoy spending time with my daughter. I consider that part of my identity. Hmm

Doesn't mean I don't like spending time with adults, but I don't necessarily see it as a sacrifice/loss of identity. I just quite like her too.

Refectandlive · 31/05/2015 13:19

Well OP, saying that those who disagree with you only do so due to their own nappy lives is certainly a way to never have to reconsider your views in response to new perspectives.
I find your post annoying and As a mother i still maintain my previous interests of attending talks and discussions and theatre and book club. I find your post annoying because I am irritated by the attitude of 'if you live your life differently from me you are doing it wrong'.

Duckdeamon · 31/05/2015 13:26

How rude to make that assumption about posters disagreeing with you OP.

And you haven't said what, apart from declining your invitations, your friend has done to give you the impression that she is subsumed in her DC, lost identity or any of the other things you've judged her for. Or much about what her circumstances are, eg WOH.

FlabulousChix · 31/05/2015 13:26

When I had my first all I felt like was a mother and not me. Just pushing a buggy. Took a year off with my first and just 5 weeks with my second. I'm more than a buggy pusher.

stopgap · 31/05/2015 13:56

I am a SAHM, and would say that I am wrapped up in my boys, ages 3 and 1 (one is ASD, so it's hard not to be "wrapped up"). But by the same token I'm equally committed to my friends. I see SAHM friends all the time, go out with a different bunch of friends every Wednesday evening, plus go out with my husband for dinner every Saturday night. I visit the gym or go running (with a running stroller, if necessary) four times a week, and like to read of an evening. I'm very, very fortunate in that we can afford evening babysitters, and both my kids are excellent sleepers and always have been.

JasperDamerel · 31/05/2015 14:01

I think that evening babysitters and good sleepers make a huge difference. I'm not sure when I last went out with DP. Possibly November? We do it maybe twice a year. And when the children were little and slept badly (which lasted around 6 years in total) anything that involved being awake and dressed after around 8pm meant being tired to the point of nausea and being unable to string a coherent sentence together, so that was generally restricted to very special events.

Iggi999 · 31/05/2015 14:29

Good lord her dcs are still tiny. A real friend accepts that things change for a while - you work abroad for a bit, she gets married, you get divorced and start dating again, she has a baby, you swap chocolate cake for the gym - and yet the friendship picks up again when the time is right.

MrsItsNoworNotatAll · 31/05/2015 14:54

I'd rather socialise with my kids while they are happy to be in my company. Pretty soon they'll grow up and want to be with mates their own age and won't want to be hanging round with their old Mum. So I'll enjoy their company while I can.

Each to their own. Besides I haven't the surplus cash to spend going out with friends even if I wanted too.

TheWordFactory · 31/05/2015 15:36

Let the friendship go, OP.

People change. And sometimes we don't much like who they become.

drudgetrudy · 31/05/2015 17:07

I found your last post very irritating OP.
Her children are 3 and 4-they are a long way from independence and she has plenty of time to pursue new interests when they are older.
You are making a lot of assumptions about the people who disagree with you.

If your friend prefers to spend this period of her life focusing on her kids that is up to her and if you aren't flexible enough for your friendship to weather that then it will fade, as friendships sometimes do.

I did spend a period of time focusing mainly on family and it was not difficult to pick up the threads of a career, new interests and friendships later.
Although my family are important to me I have not become a sad old woman with nothing else to interest me.

ReallyTired · 31/05/2015 17:12

I don't think that women's identities are lost when they have children, but their life priorities change. Both men and women become different persons when they have children. It is a change in identity rather than a loss of identity although many women do feel they have loss their old identity.

fancyanotherfez · 31/05/2015 17:15

My friend ditched me when I had a 5 month old, presumably because I had to leave early once when we had made arrangements to go out. To be honest the relationship had run it's course and we had little in common but our shared and long history. Now my kids are older I go out with my friends all the time. Some are even child free and don't bat an eyelid if I suggest a late dinner because I want to wait until the kids are in bed!

yoursfan · 31/05/2015 17:41

I agree with you Straycat. The consensus seems to be "suck it up", which basically is just another way of saying "friends are useful until kids come along", which I think is wrong. It's using people until something better comes along. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

JasperDamerel · 31/05/2015 17:49

No, it's saying that if a friendship doesn't survive a big life change (illness, new job, moving away, becoming a parent, divorce etc) then it's ok to move on.

Plenty of friendships do survive those changes, and those are the ones to cherish, but it doesn't sound sound as though this is one of them.

Sickoffrozen · 31/05/2015 18:39

Wouldn't suit me but everyone is different.

Men seem to be good at carrying on with business as usual in my experience when kids come along!

silverglitterpisser · 31/05/2015 19:46

Ur post is annoying to me OP because u r coming across sneery, goady n superior. The actual subject matter of the post is interesting, I have responded, n although I disagree with u, I respect ur opinion. I don't , however, feel u respect anyone else's n that rankles me.

littlejohnnydory · 31/05/2015 20:07

I'm not at all annoyed by your post, OP - I'm completely comfortable with my choices and not particularly affected by your opinion although I disagree with it. When my children grow up or 'God forbid something happens to them' (wtf??!) I think I'll be very glad to have spent every moment I could with them while they are little.

Your 'if anything happened to them' is just odd. Do you think a parent who chooses to go out with their friends would be less devastated by that?

As for not setting a good example - I think it's good for my children to know that they come first and that I enjoy spending time with them more than anything else. You confuse it with neediness - it isn't, it is a choice to make the most of this time and there will be plenty of time for hobbies when they are older.

You don't sound a great loss as a friend tbh and sound a bit immature, unable to respect choices different from your own.

diddlediddledumpling · 31/05/2015 20:51

having children results in serious hormonal changes that can leave your brain quite altered from what it was before. since the human brain is so complicated and variable, the changes will be different for every mother.

yabu to not even really try to understand this.

Also silverglitterpisser has the best username I've read in a long time Grin

ReallyTired · 31/05/2015 21:01

diddlediddledumpling

I don't think that women's brains are permamently altered by childbirth. It is a sexist myth that women lose brain cells when they have children.

Men change drastically when they have children. Responsiblity forces people to grow up.

JasperDamerel · 31/05/2015 21:08

There do seem to be degrees of (probably hormonally influenced) maternal responsiveness, though. I'm one of the people who didn't go out much, but I also felt actual physical pain when my babies cried. I assumed that this was the same of everyone, and only discovered in a random conversation years later that while my friends found their baby's cries distressing, it didn't hurt. I think the strength of response seemed to tally with how happy they were to socialise without their children. They were all, in my opinion, very good parents, however strong the response to cries were.

Swipe left for the next trending thread