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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU with my friends?

999 replies

PhyllisNights · 19/04/2017 21:24

I'm the first one in my social group to get pregnant. I talk to my friends on a daily basis through WhatsApp and see them all in person at least once a week.

As it's my first pregnancy, I'm very excited. I can't stop talking about it. I'm so lucky, so happy, so fortunate & so privileged. My baby feels so special, like I know my baby will do something incredible in this world - I can feel it!!

And yet, my friends have started to turn on me. They've become very jealous. They make snide remarks, they mimick me & give me side eye. I feel like my pregnancy is the butt of all the jokes.

I can't help that I've been so blessed and so fortunate to get pregnant out of my friends first. I went to college, uni, started a professional career first & got married first. I've just always been up step ahead - I can't help it!!

Would it be unreasonable to sit my friends down and ask them to stop being so negative? I want to ask them to support me better and help me out.

OP posts:
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duchess22 · 21/04/2017 10:12

Fenella I think I'll name my next baby Magnet Ikea Wren in honour of this thread, then op will be first of her friends to have a baby named in her honour Wink

PurpleDaisies · 21/04/2017 10:13

If it's a boy he should be Wickes Homebase.

contrary13 · 21/04/2017 10:19

I was the first out of my group of friends to have a baby. Unlike you, OP (unless this is a reverse, of course... I confess to not having RTFT yet), I managed to restrain myself from constantly wittering on about pregnancy/my baby. It resulted in my friends... still being my friends 21 years later.

The only purpose my having both of my children before any of my friends had theirs was that I can/could tell them that each horrible stage of baby-/toddler-/childhood would end and the teen years are survivable (barely!). Oh, and that giving birth hurts like hell and sleep deprivation is literal torture. That was it. And I didn't tell them anything, unless they asked for my advice. But we all support one another - have supported one another through sleepless nights, relationship breakdowns, affairs, divorce, expulsions from schools, career demises, the deaths of some of our own parents. We cheer one another on when the good times are here, and hold each other up when the world feels like it's ending. Because that's friendship. Give and take. And I suspect that you take rather a lot more than you have ever given... and feel that it is your right to do so. That you are entitled to be worshipped (I blame the parents...!).

When my group of friends meet up, we talk about anything other than our children, to be brutally honest, because we want to forget that we're parents for a few hours. We ache to remember that we're people beyond parenthood. Individuals. Not just "Mum" or "Dad". We have interests other than changing nappies and how many goals were scored on a rainy, cold Sunday morning at an hour that surely should never exist... We have desires other than how to learn to smile encouragingly even as we grind our teeth as piano chords are massacred/violin strings scream in pain. As for children being special?! Of course they are. But they're also annoying, goady little fuckers who like to mess with our heads until we no longer know which way is up, leaving them able to "borrow" the hairdryer, or the car keys, or break their siblings toys whilst we scramble for what little remains of our sanity.

In short, OP... get a life. Not just the one growing inside of you (and oh, how I hope that you're not real, because I genuinely fear for your precious little snowflake's future, if it is!). One of your own. And if you do... then who knows? Your friends might just stick around and still be there for you 21 years down the line.

HerBluebiro · 21/04/2017 10:22

Ecureuil I don't know about you, but mine is "making it up as I go along". I can thoroughly recommend it as a parenting style. Goes with the style of any of my soft furnishings

GinIsIn · 21/04/2017 10:24

Duchess I am honoured! Grin

Ecureuil · 21/04/2017 10:26

I have a parenting aim, which is 'all fed none dead'.

GaelicSiog · 21/04/2017 10:29

Ecru Grin

I've been a single mum since DD was born and I only have the one. I just bring her everywhere. She came to work with me when she was little, if I want to go to yoga and she's not at school/her dad's/wherever, I bring her. She has no choice. She is, however, well practiced at the art of blending into the background, which I consider a more worthwhile life skill than getting her own way.

WildIrishRose1 · 21/04/2017 10:31

It's taken me some time (perhaps because I'm 100% Irish?), but I've now decided to take offense at the OP's assertion that her unreasonable attitude is down to her 3/4 Irish heritage. If I'm being a prick, I'm being a prick; it has nothing to do with my nationality 😜. FWIW, I'm being a prick now....

chipolte · 21/04/2017 10:31

This thread is comedy gold. But if I can be serious for a minute...

OP may seem so tone deaf that this can't be real but my SIL is exactly like this. I minimise contact with her, OPs friends will be able to drop her the first chance they get.

SIL's DC are a few years old now so I have an inkling, OP, of what your family and friends have in store over the next few years.

It is totally exhausting to be around someone so completely self absorbed: everything has to be done her way and there is no consideration of anyone else e.g. my DC. Since having DC, she has lost long standing friendships over mundane differences in parenting. Even worse, she has zero interest or empathy with anything which is not to do with her or her DC. So major life events adversely affecting me and DH are irrelevant to her. DB and her have absolved themselves of any responsibility of helping us in any practical or emotional way with the ongoing nightmare of Dparents aging/illnesses. I have raised this several times with them and their defence is that they are too busy with DC.

Sorry to be such a downer on fajita Friday. OP, your self absorption will have a massive impact on those around you.

Witchend · 21/04/2017 10:34

I was the first out of my friendship group to get pregnant. I think the conversations with friends went along the lines of:

At 13 weeks:
Me: I'm pregnant
Them: Congratulations. When's it due?
Me: October.

At about 24 weeks:
Them: Are you still feeling sick
Me: Yes

Around 39 weeks:
Them: Good luck.

But they were really supportive and lovely once dc1 had been born. I think I got over 100 cards/gifts, which was lovely, but writing 100 thank you cards (or rather 50 as I made dh do half) when sleep deprived probably meant that some of them didn't make much sense. But, what's more, they're still friends!

But if we're going for competition:
At 29yo I had 2 dc and a third on the way. That makes me at least 2.5 times more fortunate and privileged than the OP.
One of my dc was so special that the photo taken of them on the scales at less than an hour old was used at an international conference. Obviously destined for greatness at such an early age.
You my kiss our hand... Halo

GaelicSiog · 21/04/2017 10:34

wild I'm not over OP saying Eithne looks difficult to pronounce. [sulks] I mean, is she even Irish?

plaintomatopasta · 21/04/2017 10:35

I didn't tell my wider group of friends when I found out I was pregnant for ages because they all had dramas. When I did tell them they were all happy and apologised to me because they'd been calling me fat! Now that's a bunch of cheeky bitches! They're still my friends though because they meant it in love and were trying to work out what was happening since I'd only had a boyfriend less than a year and always been a size 6/8 before baby.

I haven't RTFT properly so probably repeating everyone. You need to reel it in a bit. It's obviously fantastic news and a blessing. Everyone thinks their kids are better than the others and we are all right. But your friends don't have children and don't know the feeling you have. Talk about them and their lives and downplay yourself slightly if you want to keep them as friends. Sorry to be mean but you're child isn't as important to them as it is to you so they don't really want to hear it constantly.

WildIrishRose1 · 21/04/2017 10:35

Fenella and Duchess, I'd go for Ikea Magnet Wren. Stick a fada on the Ikea (Ikéa), or a few more vowels (Ikkkeamhdba), and you've Gaelicised it. Result.

WildIrishRose1 · 21/04/2017 10:36

Ecru awesome! I hope to emulate that one day!

WildIrishRose1 · 21/04/2017 10:39

Gaelic I wouldn't worry about her pronunciation of Eithne - I think she has bigger problems 😂, plus you've an excuse never to talk to her, should you ever meet her!

plaintomatopasta · 21/04/2017 10:39

I wanted to call my son Atreyu because in a crazy haze of being 40 weeks pregnant and stuffed with mince pies (he was due Christmas Eve) I watched The Neverending Story for the first time! I'm still working on it for if we have another 😆

winewolfhowls · 21/04/2017 10:44

Atreyu would be an epic baby name

WildIrishRose1 · 21/04/2017 10:44

I wonder how the prep for Fajita Friday is coming along? Almost jealous, as I've excavated the last pack of pork mince from the freezer and wondering what on earth to cook. It normally goes hand-in-hand with beef mince, but I don't even have that. I'd cook vegan if I had any vegetables. The parenting choice I've made here is not to get off my arse and go to the shops. I'm happy with that choice.

RortyCrankle · 21/04/2017 11:05

I'm shocked there's a DH, in view of the following from the OP: My baby feels so special, like I know my baby will do something incredible in this world - I can feel it!! I assumed it was an immaculate conception.

DukeOfBurgundy · 21/04/2017 11:05

I think I can confidently that there is no duller subject in the world than "parenting styles" from someone who doesn't even have children yet.

Maybe you should develop an interest in manhole covers? I'm sure your friends will be relieved.

Willow2017 · 21/04/2017 11:15

Ecureuil
Thats pretty much my parenting style too but I confess my teen comes close to making me break it at times Grin

GinAndTunic · 21/04/2017 11:20

Thank you, duchess. That totally made my day!

I want to ask smeaton to marry me and have my babies but I'm afraid that she'll want a new kitchen in exchange.

GuinessPunch · 21/04/2017 11:20

I think gaelic and phylis are the same poster Hmm

Willow2017 · 21/04/2017 11:20

I loved Atreyu in TNS, gorgeous and a hero Smile But I would never have suggested it to my ex he would have laughed me out the house Sad (He obviously doesnt have our good taste in names!)

GinAndTunic · 21/04/2017 11:21

Stick a fada on the Ikea (Ikéa)

Is there a muda in Gaelic, too? I mean, we need to have a balance of sexes and all.