To think that having a child doesn't absolve you from making an effort with friends?

[Overthinker2016]

Many of my friends are married with children.

I get that their priorities are different from mine now. I get that they are "busier" than childless me (although busy is a bit subjective I think). I am happy to spend time with their children and/or OH for what it's worth (if I was invited to!)

However AIBU to think they should still make a bit of an effort to keep in touch? One friend in particular has been coming back to me with dates since about February .

Do I cut them some slack and just keep on being the one making the effort or just stop and lose some otherwise very nice friends.

Oooops sorry posted twice.

Yeah maybe I just need to invite myself over! I would absolutely be up for coffee at hers or a takeaway. Maybe I just need to be a bit more forthright about it.

PersianCat - I don't wait for her to contact me but it does get slightly annoying to be the one pushing for meet ups all the time.

I'm on the other side of this, currently pregnant - due in about 9 weeks and have been trying to make plans with a friend for literally months now, have been cancelled on I think 5 or 6 times in a row now and had one quick half hour visit. It annoys me but in the same sense when my kids arrive and I'm too busy to make plans with them then tough, I've tried, tried and tried again but still nothing. It is quite sad too though, been friends for about 19 years so didn't think it would end up like this but I suppose things do change, even before kids arrive.

April, that's rubbish.

People are strange.

I've experienced this with close friends where it is near impossible to regularly see them now they have families, its hard letting go but I completely understand their priorities have changed and their families come first. This might be forever or it might be whilst they get through the early years.

That being said I have picked up some lovely new mum friends locally. The benefit of not having children is that its easier to arrange things with me than their other friends who are mums. I can pop round at short notice, we can easily head out to dinner without arranging a babysitter and those friendships are really lovely at the moment as they suit us both! I do think a lot of it is about attitude my mum friends who want to go out and meet up regularly are ironically the ones who you would think would have no free time, they work full time jobs and juggle childcare and young children. I'm in awe!

I have a 2.7 year old and a 12 month old- I love going out in the evening. I sometimes struggle however to find people to go out with since all my friends also have dc! It makes it easier if you have a dp who can put the dc to bed if need be. I have lost one friend since having children because I couldn't really afford/keep up on all day cocktail sessions.

It sounds like you have made every effort with your friend and she is just not that bothered. Sorry. You might find she re emerges in a year or two.

Agreed! Very strange and it's always from people you don't expect. For your friend I'd probably just keep up a text conversation and let her make a date, if you can manage it then cool but if not don't rearrange things :) hopefully things will work out.

I'll be honest. The first 6months is total chaos in the context of people outside the family. I'm all for keeping my social life going but the first 6 months I simply couldn't. The illness, the exhaustion, the breastfeeding. Even going for dinner and coming home at midnight I would spend meals out with leaking boobs, awful anxiety (I am NOT an anxious person) and knowing that when everyone else goes home to bed I'm going home to be woken probably every hour through the night by a screaming baby. So I don't think you can understand it until you are there and we do need a bit of patience from our childless friends. It's not that my priorities have changed (thought they inevitably have) it's that I am not myself for a while. This happens for longer or shorter times for each mum, there's no rule of thumb but I find from 6 months I start to cope with my new life enough to be able to do normal things again.

With the kids being older I love going out and really value time spent with my friends. But I can't do it every week. Getting people to mind little ones for you is a pain in the ass and quite frankly again, my childless friends get to go home and sleep till lunch but even if I get in at 3am I'll likely be up from 5am on full speed all day long no matter how exhausted and hungover I feel. So this does make it less likely for me to want regular nights out. I love my friends visiting me too but spend the whole morning trying to set it up that as many as possible are napping so she doesn't have to listen to 'mummy mummy mummy' and experience me jumping out of my seat a million times instead of listening to her like a proper friend.

So yes, small children are intense and change things making me a less good friend than before them but I do make a huge effort to whatsapp regularly and now that I'm out of the 6months hell of a newborn am putting dates in the diary no matter how much I suffer in order to meet up with friends.

YANBU to miss your friends and wonder where they've gone but hang in there and they will be back again when life becomes more manageable again.

With kids under two, it pretty much absolves you from most things tbh. One day you may well be in that situation having a lightbulb moment.
I am lol a little bit at the older they get it should be easier not harder - well, not really. A baby you can carry and that doesn't move is fairly portable and unlikely to get you into any trouble (lack of sleep and time is the real killer in this stage) - once they actually move, you can really only go somewhere that you know is going to be enclosed, safe, with no possible trouble to be caused (no breakable a, things to rip, puke or shit on, draw on, or other crawlers or toddlers to fight with or love to death, necessitating wall to wall supervision). Far easier to have a glass of wine or coffee with a child trapped in a car seat parked on the chair next to you than a wailing mobile infant or pre schooler that is bored rigid with your preferences.

Add in to that a sahp who is at the end of her tether from being on her own with a kid or kids for extremely long days until the other parent gets home, and then either has to run the gauntlet of continuing to do everything parents plus cook the dinner, because some people with testicles seem to believe that parenting and domestic drudgery are women's work and need a little rest and sit down and read the paper when they get home, or the luckier version where she can actually hand over responsibility for the kid/s and crawl off to bed for an hour, or have a shower, because somehow she hasn't quite managed to have one yet that day as every time she tries, the baby screams, or the toddler tries to clean the baby with the bottom wipes from head to toe, or the baby Einstein dvd finishes...

Then you might get a brief period where it would theoretically be possible for a mother to take a night 'off', but first she has to agree with her partner to 'babysit', for the world mostly sees a father looking after his kids as some sort of national hero, and the vast majority are testicularly incapable of negotiating a bath and bed routine for even one child, let alone multiples, unless the woman has fought through her tiredness and insisted that the other adult present gets a fucking grip from birth. And well, you know, he might have already arranged to go to the gym. Or the pub.

Unreasonable to expect your friends to make an effort with you?
Honestly? They have probably forgotten you exist, under the pile of laundry, sterilizing, mopping of puke and changing of nappies. You'll float to the top of their mind every so often and they'll weep a bit and wish they had the time to relax and hang out, then one of the kids will fall down the stairs and you won't get another brain second for another three months.

Pop back once you've got three under four and let me know how many girly nights out you've managed since the first one was born. Or realize that your lives are somewhat different, and pop round for a coffee (which you will make yourself) and hold the baby so your friend can have her first hot drink in two years.

Please do be forthright about it! She may be delighted if you would pop round for a coffee or a takeaway, she may just think it would be boring for you so doesn't want to suggest it (and if you've suggested it she may think you don't really mean it!).

I have a very dear friend without children, she has been forthright with me and said she's genuinely happy to come round and just hang out. So that's what we do. I still feel a bit guilty that our conversation is interrupted as I look after the DC, or that I'm offering her a take away if it's an evening. And I also feel guilty because my conversation can be a bit DC centric no matter how hard I try to avoid the subject. But still - better than nothing, I hope.

Not sure if you've said already, apologies if you have, but have you offered to go round for tea/wine etc? There are some friends I would feel i comfortable inviting round knowing I might have to feed/be running up and downstairs/baby might be crying etc, but some friends made it very clear they were happy to come over, get take away, hold baby whilst I ate etc
etc!!

It's harder being friends with some - only some - people who don't have kids. Or maybe I mean with some people, and they happen not to have kids.

I have a friend who I really like, we laugh a lot together, but tbh she can't imagine what life is like with kids around. EG she wants me to meet her at 5.30pm when she finishes work. Or she wants to come round to my place and hang around for three or four hours while I make sure everyone is fed and doing homework and getting to bed.

You say 'busy is a bit subjective I think' - I mean this nicely, but you haven't got a clue! Parenting is all about tedious repetition of many, MANY daily tasks and rituals. That looks like not much in content but it's not moveable to the next day just because you fancy it. And you share the load if you have a partner but understand that you can't just slack off when a mate wants to come round for a glass of wine! The endless negotiation with partner and children arghh that's the difference really - a parent is part of a group and is answerable at all times to that group so long as the kids are young. A person who lives alone or has a partner is practically autonomous.

Ask her what day is good for her, and would she like a takeaway and a coffee? I bet she'll be thrilled. Plus you get toddler snuggles mummy side coming out hehe

I bet if you do that it'll actually strengthen your friendship bond, she'll be so grateful for the adult company, even if she is knackered!

I actually prefer people to suggest dates - shall I pop over next Wed or whatever - because it's easier to have a concrete suggestion to think about!

Have you tried that?

Sympathy, though, I know it's flaky of me.

Dogdriffs - I'm not asking her to go on a "girly night out" and think you are making assumptions about how single people spend their free time.

Over Ignore the over the top harsh replies. On AIBU, some posters just go on the attack.

It's ok I'm not offended. But I do think it's interesting that the assumption is that I must be wanting to go on some sort of bender because I'm childless.

Pretty much what Dolly said. Obviously I don't know your individual friend, but having a child on top of a demanding professional life at 40 and then moving to the sticks while on maternity leave, with minimal childcare and no family and friends' support locally left me literally beside myself for a good couple of years. It was the most exhausting, identity-obliterating, insanity-inducing (literally - I had PN psychosis) thing I've ever done, and I completely appreciated the friends who kept phoning and skyping from abroad and let me know it would end, and they would still be there. I had absolutely nothing left for anyone else, and on the rare occasions I trekked off by public transport (am a rural non-driver) with my baby to see a friend, it was often a disaster of explosive nappies, missed feeds, and a friend visibly unhappy that she's not getting my full attention. Which I do get, because I remember being that friend.

I've definitely also been dropped by two very close friends in my inner circle, who were (or so I believed) happily childfree, but in one case drifted away with mutterings about my changed priorities, and in one case simply never contacted me again once I told her I was pregnant at an apparently amiable coffee meet-up.

I get that it's a minefield. If the friendship is important to you, keep it up. If she's anything like me when my son was younger, she's exhausted and overwhelmed and intermittently furious because you can't have a conversation without someone small wanting in.

How about offering to take the child(ren) out to the park, soft play or lunch one day so she can get things done or have a rest? Or meet up for a picnic in the park?

It's just another stereotype for women, isn't it? Childless? Sex and the City. Mother? Has no life, lives only for her kids.

Cause, y'know, women are a homogeneous group, not individuals...

Well said, Special. Can you at least get off your arse to boil the kettle? I'll make it when I arrive though?

Comedy So glad you're better now. You're a strong woman

I have a two year old and a 5 month old and honestly I love it when people just invite themselves round.

And sorry, but IMO no busyness is not subjective when you are comparing someone without kids to someone with young children. My life is such at the moment that me and DH basically have 1-2 hours a day child free and at least an hour of that is dedicated to making our house livable in (it's still a state), so we effectively have one hour of time we can spend together doing 'fun' things before we have to go to bed because I'll be up with the baby in the night and he gets up with my toddler when she wakes at 5.30. Don't underestimate how time consuming toddlers are, or how knackered your friend may be. Me and DH try our hardest to keep sociable and go to friends events etc but it's difficult.

My advice? Offer to pop round for a cup of tea and bring some cake. As I said, I love it when my friends invite themselves over and when they make an effort with my kids. You may find your friend is the same. Perhaps cut her some slack, if she still doesn't respond to you making it very easy for her then that might be the time to re-evaluate the friendship.

I'm in Still We can sit on opposite comfy chairs and mutter pleasantries while we doze

It doesn't absolve you from making an effort with friends, but socialising is often at the bottom of a very long to-do list and something I sometimes end up not being arsed with.

hugs to dogdrifts and felco, I'm guessing you two are having a hard time of it at the moment and I hope you get some respite!
OP, I really think you need to be forthright with your friend and not be afraid to invite yourself over, but make it clear that you won't need "looking after". Quite a few of my friends have relatively little ones and I don't see them as often as I used to, and when I do it often involves going to them because otherwise it's hugely complicated for them, especially if they've got one old enough to have a particular nap time and need a routine. I make it clear I know how to get myself a cup of tea etc and occasionally take round a casserole or something that can be heated up. It's definitely worth it as I consider the time with my friends to be hugely valuable! Sometimes they cancel at short notice because they find they don't have a bough energy to socialise. I'm expecting my first and I hope my childless friends are OK to do something similar with me!