Re clueless friend and toddler

[Fleab1te]

Our friend, his girlfriend and their kid(toddler) came to visit recently. I've known him years and he's a lovely bloke but generally clueless about how he/his behaviour affects others. (Others feel this way about him too. We laugh fondly about his ridiculousness ). We've hosted him numerous times and always spoil him with nice meals etc. When we've visited him we're lucky if we get fed and had to go out and buy ourselves sandwiches once. (Just a bit of back story )

I spent ages cleaning, sorting bedding and 10 min after their arrival the place was a shit hole. Our house is the opposite of a toddler haven so I was prepared for some upheaval, but the more I think about it the more pissed off I get about his/their total lack of respect for us and our home. Here is a list of points of rage inducing behaviour:

They left half eaten food (provided by us) about the place(half a satsuma. ..then another one...)

Allowed him to wander around with sick all over his bib then left it on the side for me to wash.

Stomped into the house with muddy boots after a walk through the woods

Changed his nappy on the sofa /on landing (no changing mat) probably dropping traces of shit on to carpet.

Allowed him to bash furniture with his toys.

Allowed him to bang cupboards /drawers at 7 am.

He NEVER brings his own towel as apparently we are a hotel.

And to top it off after they had gone we discovered the most disgusting mess of shit smear in the toilet. He always does this but it's never been this bad and to be honest it tipped me over the edge. I know I might be being precious over the nappy thing, but it drives me nuts how some people seem to think that snot/shit/sick is somehow less disgusting when it's a baby's. We're not parents and don't ever intend to be, so just wondering if our non parentness is causing unreasonable levels of impatience and lack of understanding. Many thanks if you managed to get this far.

Livia, do you regret letting any of the friendships go? I completely understand why someone would not enjoy being around children, and why you would find that side of your friend's life less than interesting, but are there any aspects of the friendship that you do miss? Its very tough when friends start having children - friendships inevitably do change and it can feel very isolating, probably on both sides. An older and wiser and childfree friend tells me that the first few years are the hardest, and then it gets much better, so I'm taking her word for it and haven't ditched any friends so far!

No - don't regret it at all.

Peoples lives go off in different directions. its not that I go for crazy nights out or holidays, just that their priorities change and I can't pretend to be interested in the most important stage of their lives.

If your friend wasn't remotely interested in your children you would probably be pissed off, right? Well this saves a lot of time and hassle. It's as much for their benefit.

If the parents in the OP had an inkling of what the OP was thinking, I imagine it would be awkward for everyone.

A toddler isn't a pet rat Lea they don't just leave a trail of waste. If you get the child laid down then you grab the ankles and use the nappy to wipe off anything solid, then baby wipes for the rest. I've never managed to get faeces or urine on anything - but in a bath tub the challenge would be to manoeuvre them into lying down in the first place. It's probably manageable with a tiny baby who isn't rolling yet.

If I had friends who were so uptight about nappies that I couldn't put out my changing mat and change the baby on the bathroom floor, and banished me to outside or tried to get me to climb into a bathtub, I'd just not go to their home at all.

That's fair enough Livia, I was just curious. There's an expectation, particularly for women, that children are an enormous source of interest and that your friend's children will become part of your life too and that's just not the case for everyone. I don't have children either by the way

For what it's worth, I don't find other people's children fascinating. I don't much like toddlers tbh. I had three children but didn't ever really want to talk about them except really with my mum and my sisters.
The idea that having a child is the end of a friendship is a bit odd to me. I'm not criticising - it's just a choice I can't really get my head around from my experience only.

My last child was 10 years after my first. My husband is 7 years younger than me. I had friends having babies /toddlers while mine were pretty grown up. I managed those friendships without ever having to spend lots of time with their toddlers and my friends don't want everything to be about their children, any more than I did.

Livia . I was repeatedly bored by friends' baby stages for the best part of 20 years, but tbh, no one expected me to be terribly interested in their babies - they were all desperate to maintain a friendship that wasn't about toddler groups and nappies, so we went on much as before. It may have made a difference that my friends are widely-scattered and pretty careerist, so we weren't seeing one another weekly, with small, shrieking people in tow.

Then I had a child at 40, when other friends' children were aged between eight and sixteen, and it wouldn't have occurred to me that they should be much interested in my child. In fact they were life-savers as I struggled with the horrors of maternity leave, but it was all about me and them, as always! In my experience - which sounds different to yours - the early baby stage is a brief blip, and everything returns to normal afterwards.

I never needed my friends to be interested in my babies or even spend time with them, the less the better, but I did object to friends not engaging in basic civil polite social questioning about them e.g. when they would meet you again. I wouldn't have given anything more than a very perfunctory response but to not even ask about them seemed very self-absorbed (and actually, more particularly as I didn't want to talk about the kids stuff at all but it was clear that there was going to be no tolerance any of my feminist rantings about the politics of motherhood when I was asked to entertain their feminist rantings about the politics of the office, as though they were worlds apart and I was just kidding myself that feminism could possibly be a topic worth exploring in the context of motherhood ).

And I think I was definitely friend-culled, especially by gay friends.

fusion I too was definitely friend-culled, mainly by single and/or gay friends. Several (male, coincidentally) gay friends I was very close to hardly spoke to me again. Ditto several single women friends who I suspect also wanted a family; I was pretty hurt as my own situation was far from ideal and I had no support at all.

Those friend were at a different stage in their life and possibly wouldn't have supported you through whatever you were going through, and you wouldn't have been able to support them.

I truly did try with one person (even though he situation was difficult and I didn't understand why she was going through it all) and looking back it became very one sided, having to provide constant help and support and money I dumped her several years later although she has tried to track me down a few times, she no longer knows where I work.

Late to the thread, but I read the op as moaning about her friend, not the toddler. We are houseguests with a toddler ATM, although staying with family with children, so slightly different scenario.

Toddler leaves half eaten food - either me or dh cleans it up straight away or as soon as we see it.

Sick on bib - we have a bag for dirty clothes - would be folded over, prob shoved in a nappy bag first and put in there. My responsibility to clean sick from floor and disinfect.

Shoes always come off at someone else's front door.

Nappies would be changed in the room we're staying in - put in nappy bag and in outside bin if dirty. Tbh I don't use a changing mat but would use a towel or blanket in someone else's house.

I have a furniture basher - we stop, say no and distract. Not on.

My toddler wakes at 6 am, we don't allow him out of our bedroom until our hosts get up. We keep him quiet with books and the dreaded iPad til a reasonable hour. If he's noisy at antisocial hours we apologise.

I have a thing about skid marks so always check loos on a regular basis! Plus my kids aren't always great at flushing so will often check after them. Vile to leave your loo like that, would make me really angry.

But

We haven't brought our own towels.

My sis used to allow her son to run around trashing our house - made me so upset. Then I had a son and he does exactly the same. The only difference is I am monitoring and either stop him trashing or tidy up after him (am a worse parent in many other ways though).

If someone acknowledges and makes an attempt to modify or apologise for their toddler's behaviour, or even better, clear up, I don't mind mess. If they don't try and stop things being damaged or distract I get really hacked off. I get where you're coming from op and I don't think you are bu.

I read a subtext that the OP kinda half expected the 'friend' to have grown up a bit when he became a parent and had become really exasperated with him when it became apparent that he hadn't. She mentioned that he takes offence quite easily and perhaps she bit her tongue more than once as the toddler rampaged around her nice house. Maybe it's sinking in that this person is incorrigible, that the relationship is all give on her part and no reciprocation, and that he's not really much of a friend.

I have a toddler. I change him standing up anywhere in our house. When I go to other people's houses I change him in their bathroom. I respect their home.

The toilet thing is grim.

I found when I was working full time, it was almost impossible to keep up friendships with women who had very young children. They were in the tea, bath and bed routine when I was just getting home from work, and wanted weekends to be family time. So meeting up was almost impossible.

If I'm at someone else's house when my toddler needs to be changed, I ask them where they would like me to do it, and what I should do with the nappy. I have a little changing mat in my baby bag. But I wouldn't dream of emptying the main bin even if I'd put a lot of nappies in, I'd see that as overstepping a mark.

I'd never take a towel to a friend's house if I was staying, even for one night, that's weird.

I found when I was working full time, it was almost impossible to keep up friendships with women who had very young children. They were in the tea, bath and bed routine when I was just getting home from work, and wanted weekends to be family time. So meeting up was almost impossible.

There's a strand emerging implicitly on this thread that seems to assume that women with very young children aren't in the workplace and have in fact gone to inhabit some kind of other parental world which operates according to its own laws! I realise some women, like some men, do become SAHP, but in my wide circle of friends in several countries, I don't know a single woman who has stopped work - we are operating according to exactly the same work timetables as non-parents.

None of which invalidates cleaty's point about the post-work drink being a lost opportunity for socialising for most parents, but I'm as anxious to see friends at the weekend and when I am free as ever. Unfortunately, most of my friends are abroad, but I have actually packed up a Spiderman backpack of toys and trekked to Italy, Switzerland and France at various points to see old friends - as well and going back to London from very rural England - and they pack up or stash their (older) children and come and see me. Friendship remains hugely important, as does work, and have a child hasn't changed that at all.

I'd never take a towel to a friend's house if I was staying, even for one night, that's weird.

Agreed. That was the weirdest bit of the entire thread. The annoyance at a destructive toddler and his/her slobbish parents is understandable, but the assumption that a friend staying over should bring their own towel as otherwise they are assuming you are 'a hotel' is particularly odd.

I'd probably have been tempted to commit some hideously brutal murder after house guests behaving like that, OP. My tolerance threshold for shit, vom and general vileness is very low.

And that is why I'd never allow mates with kids to come and stay with me.

Had my stepdaughter stay recently with her just turned two year old. Week of hell, she would leave dirty nappies all over the house despite walking past the bin specifically for nappies and cat litter. Used my baby supplies so i had to hunt for wipes and sudocrem in my own home.. Used up my shampoo and shower gel, left me with her child on numerous occasions without consulting me if i would mind, and her child is challenging to put it politely. She does use her own towel for reasons i shant disclose.. And also infected me and both my children with flu, which im still dealing with now, hence easter holidays ruined.

You are not being unreasonable. I am a mother of 2 (now grown up) children. I once had a friend who changed his son's nappy without a changing mat and the kid peed all over my carpet, yes I was fed up about that! I think you should make your friend aware that as someone without children you do find it stressful finding half eaten food everywhere, state you can provide them with a towel to change their child's nappy on if they do not have a mat. I would never have left someone's house without clearing up my child's mess after me.
You will have to make compromises to keep this friendship going, if that is what you want. Speak to them, as this will only fester otherwise. And, why did his partner not clear up after the kid either? Your compromise is to provide towels!

I don't think guests need to bring their own towels but I sympathise with you over the rest of it.

Your friend sounds as though his own manners are pretty poor, and he sounds very inconsiderate which is probably why his toddler is allowed to do what he wants. I'm afraid I would have been more vocal. I would have told the toddler to stop bashing the furniture and I would have asked his mother not to change him on the sofa or the floor and not to let him run around with a sicky bib - yuk.

My daughter was not allowed to leave the table with food so I didn't find half-eaten food around the house, but this toddler is obviously allowed to do this.

Next time he calls to suggest meeting up I think you should suggest a local park.

I haven't seen anybody ask the question; If you're not a parent why are you on Mumsnet? Thought that was a little odd but OP, it would piss me off too and I have three kids! I think next time you should just say "oi! Pick up your crap!"

Livia

You compare talking about your work to talking about human beings as if the 2 were the same level of importance (unless perhaps you are in the life saving business) which I find truly offensive.
Also you are assuming parents will only ever talk about their children, which is a completely ignorant.
Your mind is very narrow, you sound very self-centered and I can't help but feeling sorry for you.

You know it's your house and your rules...however reading through that it does show that you aren't parents.
If this person means a lot to you and you want to see them in the future, maybe don't clean to clinical standards prior to their arrival, save it until afterwards.

He sounds mildly slobby, the toddler sounds like a toddler, and you sound incredibly uptight

I sort of think so too, but I get that you're just out of your comfort zone with a toddler

I always provide towels for guests. I've never known people to bring their own.

The sick thing and the muddy boots would have been greatly annoying, mind. The other stuff is within the realms of normal.

Zing I was referring to a previous post which said but it became notable that when it came to the kids, there was a virtual embargo on even mentioning them - as they were so boring, when of course my friends' colleagues/conquests/quests for promotion were ipso facto scintillating and exciting

But feel free to be offended if you want - I couldn't really give a shiny shite