To ask if anybody is still good friends with pre baby friends who showed little interest in kids

[Beadoren]

Just deleted what I wrote as I don't want to put myself.

In cases when you are the first/as yet only member of a friendship group to have kids (others don't have kids on their radar at all yet) there's a certain degree of alienation that happens.

I try to make as much effort to come to things as I can but obviously it's tricky to do nights out with hotels, spa days etc with a young family.

Their interest in my DC has also dwindled over the years and I find it a bit hurtful but st the end of the day they are the ones missing out.

I've suggested daytime things so that I can see them with the kids but they don't seem keen on the idea.

Obviously I do see it from their point of view, they have no obligation to be in my DC life and it just seems like we have lost a lot of common ground and there's resentments on both sides.

Is that it then? I know it's a fairly common theme for friends to lose interest but have people managed to maintain these friendships?

I think a lot is being taken from me saying they are missing out. Of course I don't think they are thinking "oh I really wish I could spend more time with beads children". I don't think they are special snowflakes. I've said several times that I don't expect or feel entitled to them taking an interest or being involved.

OP I don't mean to sound rude but when they were interested in your children they were probably just being polite.

I agree with magicstar. I also have no children and lots of friends who do. I like their children but it is tiresome when everything has to revolve around their children and their childcare. Like magicstar I am also considerate and polite because that's where they're at and they need to put their kids first, and I'll always ask after the kids and try to show an interest but that is largely out of being supportive to my friends.

Please understand the alternative point of view from them which is that you having children does affect them and the plans they can make with you and while they should understand why that is, you should understand that it is annoying for them.

In answer to your question though I am still very close to my friends who have children, in fact 4 bridesmaids this year will have young children. We make it work because we both see the other's POV.

So what did you mean about them missing out then?

Ok then. To go back to your OP Is that it then? I know it's a fairly common theme for friends to lose interest but have people managed to maintain these friendships?

Relationships with childless friends CAN be maintained. I have maintained friendships with all my parent-friends. BUT the friendship did have to undergo a change.

But it's you they want the friendship with. But for you, it appears that friends also need to have an interest in your children. Tricky territory.

I'm not that interested in most of my friends children. I am a bit, but really it's them I'm interested in.
I think you have a real complex about this.
Tuck your kids up in bed and invite them round for dinner and a bottle of wine. Works well for me!!

Do you mean they're missing out on seeing you? In that case, yes, that's true. However sometimes that's the choice you need to make.

Just that I think my kids are pretty cool people. I don't see them as a niusence and that if they purely see my kids as an obstacle to our friendship and not actual little people then then it's a missed out on a chance to get to know them. I understand they don't actively "miss out" I just fell like meh, your loss then.

I understand my kids are separate from me aswell, it's just that physically that's q difficult.

I'm not saying I'm annoyed at them, I'm asking whether things will change.

This is classic AIBU pedanticism. You know very well what I mean.

No OP. Your kids may well be cool little people but I'm not in the habit of making friends with children, however cool. I'm an adult.

Maybe it's not seeing your children as a nuisance OP but them wanting to see you alone without children taking up your attention.
Despite having children myself, I much prefer to spend time with my friends on our own. Maybe they feel the same way. Try another posters suggestion of having them over when they are in bed.

I can't see your friends changing if they want a friendship with you and not your children.
But it will probably get better when your children are older and more independent.

I had kids late, some of my mates had them early and some never had them at all - I still see everyone!
People's children are like their partners/jobs/parents/bathroom refits/pets/holidays/whatever - something they chat about ... Polite interest is all that's required. I want to hang out with friends, not friends plus kids unless mine are there too and it's a jolly family thing.

Things won't change - except you'll have fewer mates if you stick to your guns over this. It's you your friends want to see - your kids are a distraction at best and an annoyance at worst.

Sorry!

Things MIGHT change. Or they might not.

Things to make it easier/better - social media/texting is your helper here - stay in touch this way.

You're already trying daytime things with friends and they don't seem keen. Have you asked them what they would like to do/what suits?
what about late morning, for example?

They aren't missing out on anything - however awesome your children are. Child-friendly activities can be excruciating, esp if you don't have children. And tbh you do sound like you expect everyone to feel the same as you do about your children.

And children can be loud, chaotic, irritating too - obviously they are 'cool little people' to you but I can guarantee that other people don't feel that way about them.

These threads always include a bit about how the childfree are 'missing out' - the reason I asked is that I don't understand what they are missing out on?

And no, as an adult, I don't wish to be friends with young children - why would I?

wine after bedtime is a good idea. I just feel bad that it's always them that has to make the effort at the moment which is I think a factor. While I do make a big effort to chat on the phone and speak to them about what's going on with them I do feel like I physically can't give what they can because of our circumstances. A lot of them live further afield because of jobs etc.

A person that wants to stay friends won't mind making the effort tbh.
The thing to remember is, it won't always be that way.

Jesus wept.

I am not asking people to be friends with my kids.

I have a friend who has no children. She has zero interest in my kids and it's actually quite refreshing when we spend time together as we don't talk my dc much and it's nice to be seen as something other than a mother.

It doesn't matter how interesting or 'cool' you think your kids are, I can guarantee that no one else outside your close family will see them in the same way.

YANBU to suggest that they are losing out because they are not interested in your children. Why should they be? Not everybody likes or is interested in other people's children, and this even applies to those who have their own. Suggesting that you do things with your friends and your children might seem appealing to you, but it probably doesn't to them. The world doesn't revolve around your children and there is nothing more boring than a friend whose only topic of conversation is their children.

Yes, YOU think your children are "pretty cool people"; you friends probably don't.

I have a child, but as someone who was happily childfree until the age of 40, I find myself generally siding with the childfree on these kinds of threads, and because I value my friends without children so much.

Having said that, I have lost three formerly very close friendships since I had my son, which I'm very sad about -- and I can't even rationalise it as me having turned into a baby bore, because it happened in one case as soon as I told her I was pregnant. She never returned my calls and it was five years before I saw her again at a work event, where she was pleasant, as if we'd just met.

I think, with hindsight, I'd made the mistake of assuming those friends (all considerably older than me, and post-menopausal by the time I knew them, in the case of the women) were happily childfree because I was, and they weren't, and found it hard to lose me into a different category. I found out since that in the case of one, she and her husband had almost divorced because he didn't want to adopt and she did.

A friend who wants to stay friends with you won't mind making effort as long as you show you are making some effort too.

They will understand that your ability to do much is limited, but you have to show that you are willing.

This includes acknowledging that they want to talk to you, and doing your best to arrange that.

Two of my dearest friends don't have and never wanted children.
They are possibly the most enduring, loving and interested in my kids out of all my friends, probably more so than those who have their own and are busy with theirs.

I know you've explained the "missing out " comment. It is each to their own. Just as I would have felt like I had missed out on something by not having children, they feel the opposite.

I actually love having friends without children as it reminds me I am still a woman and person in my own right as well as being a mother. If someone suggested to me we had less holding our friendships together due to them not having children I'd laugh as it's simply not true.

My 3 closest friends are still very close even though I'm the only one to have had or will ever have children. They're very inclusive of my 18mo ds. Always cater for him if they make plans for us.
It wouldn't worry me if they didn't though. I don't expect anyone to be particularly interested in my child, let alone to want to actively spend time with them. But I do expect them to appreciate that I can't always fit into any plans that are child free, why they always do.

The child-free are missing out on: massive levels of stress, massive levels or irritation and massive levels of untidiness.
They are actually envied by those whose lives will never ever be calm and stress free again.