to ask if it's difficult to be friends with childless people?

[CoolToned]

I don't have children.

Although if someone decided to discuss the contents of a nappy, I would no longer be their friend

childless is quite a horrible term, personally. But when lives change it will affect friendships. Nothing more boring than seeing people repost Facebook memes about only parents knowing what tiredness is!

I never said there wasn't give and take, Drusilla. I give them my boring shit, they give me theirs. We both give each other interesting stuff too (I hope), alongside the stuff that's boring to the other but riveting to us. Isn't this what friendship is? (hey - what would I know, I don't have many! You are probably right)

Also, I can ASSURE you - I can give you a 'contents of a nappy' speech that would NOT have you wanting to ditch me, but leave you BEGGING for the next update. It's how you tell the story that counts! My friends find me difficult, exasperating, dull at times. but NEVER about the contents of a nappy! It's a 'thing' for all of us!

Don't ask. It's too outing. It was riveting!

Of course it's not difficult to be friends with childless people.
That's all I can think of to say. I have two children, and two of my best friends have none. I'm obviously not free to go out with them as often as I would like to, but they are always welcome in my home.
So no, it's not difficult at all.

Nothing more boring than seeing people repost Facebook memes about only parents knowing what tiredness is!
I do GET this, Duck. But also, I have never been more tired than when I had a child because it was so relentless and it went on for years and it was every single day. And the two or 3 days she slept in over 6 years, we woke up and thought "she's not come in... she must be dead".

Having a child tired is so much more relentless than "finishing a piece of work" tired or "having a party time" tired because it just goes on and on and on, without the reward of having handed in that work or having loads of sex or having had a great night. You can't take the time back later to sleep in because it doesn't exist. And NO ONE thanks you or appreciates it. And your kid is REALLY perky/hungry. So you're singing songs and reading books and it's 5am and NO ONE says "oh wow!" and it's every fucking day. My teeth hurt because I was so tired. I ate and ate and ate in an attempt to give myself enough energy to just function because I was so tired. I felt stoned because I was so tired. And this went on for YEARS.
I'm not diss-ing doing a dissertation or anything, but these are short-term compared to having a child who says "I'm awaaaaaake"

I find it a bit difficult these days, to be honest, if only because I think other parents empathize more about last minute cancellations due to sick kids, brain blips due to lack of sleep etc. So yes, about ninety percent of my friends are mothers, but in common we love to go out, share various hobbies, and once the niceties about kids are out of the way, the conversations are swiftly redirected.

Imissgranny , I appreciate that and what you wrote is excellent and to the point. I think I'm trying to say everyone is exhausted, giving care to the elderly, finishing work spending time looking after parents. If you are working full time, it's not a jolly. Deadlines need to be met, responsibility to others is not to be sniffed at. I also respect people do all this with children too. But those without children need to sleep too.

Really depends on the people involved. Some friends simply don't understand how time consuming having kids is. Repeatedly having to say no to outings isn't going to work with some people.

On the other hand, I find few things more irritating than people who don't have children giving you advice on how to raise them. I've heard some pretty ridiculous information since having kids.

Luckily for me my really good childless friends have happily adjusted to meeting up at the cinema/theatre as opposed to discos/parties, lunches rather than dinners, tea rather than booze and so on. I should add I realise a lot of people still enjoy these activities with kids, but we don't have anyone to watch the kids for us to our lifestyles have changed to suit them better.

So yes, I'd say it really depends on the people involved.

Oh and that is a good point made above. Sometimes it takes another parent of a young child to tolerate you drifting off in the middle of a sentence then entirely forgetting what you were saying, over and over, due to exhaustion. These are good times to quietly build a sandcastle together and just enjoy knowing you're not alone.

I'm in the same boat as Granny.

Also before kids I was a scientist and computer geek and all my friends were blokes that I saw in the pub. Once ds was born I was breastfeeding from 5.30pm onwards every night for a long time and then ds was going to bed at 6.30pm but couldn't be left with a babysitter.

The bloke friends didn't like the breastfeeding at all, so I lost my entire friendship group overnight, literally. It was very difficult, but a fact of life I think.

I see them still on facebook but that's it. I now have friends who I've met at school or toddler groups, and our relationships are just as Granny says. They're basically my work colleagues now, and I enjoy knowing them very much.

If I bump into my old friends from pre-motherhood I feel almost reborn, and I love to have little catch up in the street, but I don't kid myself that I could re-enter that group. It's just not feasible.

I don't think it has to be difficult. It depends on the quality of those friendships I think. I ttc for a very long time so for a long while I found most of my friendships difficult as I was struggling so much. Luckily my friends understood and didn't take offence so those friendships survived. I now have my PFB and I don't think it's affected my relationships with my child free friends. I've tried to go out with them whenever possible. I'm still as interested in their lives as I have ever been and because they care about me I feel they are genuinely interested in my DS. Obviously I do make sure I try not to talk about him too much!
We do meet up more in the day now and sometimes DS comes along. My child free friends want him there though. Isn't that normal??
I have made friends with other mums since having my DS and I really value having friends who are going through the same experiences.

Childless friends are the best IMO! The easiest friends to keep!!
I escape to them go out with them regularly whereas my friends with children always have a list of family commitments.
I tried to join in with 'girls nights' with other Mums. The Mums I met through DC's school could be cliquey, insecure and competitive & I hated it.

My DC are now teenagers so have a bit more freedom. When they were little, my childless friends kept me going! They were always up for meeting up & were really flexible. We didn't meet up with my DC in tow though... We would (and stiil do) go out for meals, to a bar or to the cinema -around once every 2/3 weeks & DH would stay with the DC.
It was great to talk about normal everyday stuff going on in their lives, conversation didn't centre around the DC's school, friends, teacher, PTA fundraising, their 'hubby' or f'king beauty treatments and Prosecco.

I have lots of childless friends. My brother and girlfriend who I am very close to have decided not to have kids. Until I read Mumsnet I didn't even think about the fact they are childless. Should I socialise separately?!

It probably depends on the people involved and their circumstances.

My very best friend is childless by choice. She has been amazing and over the last decade plus has done pretty much all of the travelling to see me. It probably helped that her sister had kids before me. Earlier this year we were able to go away together for a few days and it was fab.

Another local close friend is childless and single. She comes for dinner a couple of times a month and I see her a couple of times a week. I don't know whether this friendship would have been so easy to kindle had I met her when the kids were small - not because of her, but because I was slightly overwhelmed when they were younger and probably not very interesting. Now we can sit in my kitchen and set the world to rights and although the kids love her, they are old enough to entertain themselves when she's round.

Not difficult. Most of dh's friends are childless. My best friend is childless and we are all going for tea with her and her bf tonight, she does love children though.

Sometimes we meet childless friends on our own, sometimes with children. If they didn't like children or want to then I suppose they would suggest alternative arrangements? But we haven't found it to be a problem yet.

DH and I are really close friends with two other couples (separately iyswim - not as a group of six). We have other friends too of course, but these were / are our closest friends.

We all have DC now, but in both cases, there's a gap of at least four years between our eldest and their eldest. So for over four years they were child free and we weren't.

We've stayed close friends, but it has been a bit of an effort! Compromises made on both sides. They had to understand that we were restricted by our DC, and we had to try very hard to limit the impact of our DC on them.

It can work though. We even went on holiday for a week with one of these couples when we had two DC and they had none!

missgranny you're spot on about the tiredness. The meme thing is gracesless and annoying, sure, but I get fed up when people who don't have children post "we are tired too" or (on a thread yesterday) "our time is precious as well".

You have correctly identified the main difference - that when you don't have childen essentially your tiredness is a choice. You're a neurosurgeon working 14 hour shifts - amazing. But you could in fact choose not to be a neurosurgeon any more. You could take some annual leave. You could go off sick if really necessary. If you have children who don't sleep, for those years you have absolutely no choice or agency over your own self-care.

For me that was the hardest thing about having children. I remember before I had them. I didn't understand this. Now I do. I don't think it's ridiculous to assume that people without children likely don't understand it either.

I think it's the other way round.

I think it can be hard to be friends with someone with children - if that is what they base their entire world on.

I say that as a mother that was probably guilty of that in the early years.

duck90 when your work is done and you've met that deadline, even if you have only 3 hours to sleep before you start again, you can be assured you'll get that 3 hours sleep. You can plan. And one day there will be a saturday morning and you can catch a few more hours. That's the difference, in my experience, between meeting life's responsibilities without children and meeting life's responsibilities with children.

That makes it sound like I think it's a bad thing, it isn't necessarily.

Oh what the heck, I'm probably very flamed anyway. Hopefully some people will understand what I mean.

No. But it depends on your definition of friends and your mutual needs and expectations
I am nearer 50 than 40 and have 3 kids the youngest is 8. Of my core friends and I mean oldest friends that I have known since childhood, all but 1 have kids. However we all had kids at different points in our lives, they range in ages from 20s down to 8. We have all remained friends and now that the kids are growing up we have more time for each other. Less important friends come and go tbh

I think it can be hard, yes.

I'm only 7 weeks into being a mum, but so far have had no issues at all. Spending most of my week talking about breastfeeding and reflux with NCT friends, it is lovely to see friends from 'the real world' and they seem to love having time with DS.

We have just reunited with an old school friend of DH's. They are childless... Just invited us and 3DC 9,7&5 to go out in their dinghy with an outboard motors DS7 is severely disabled ..... We were like thank you for the invite but you have no fucking idea!!!!
Then you have to listen about their lay-ins and their social life .... Baghhhhh smug childless beasts !