to feel that my friend should not ignore me when her daughter talks to her?

[theramengirl]

'S' is a good friend and I like spending time with her. Our husbands are work colleagues, and we met during a work party some years back and since then, we have become friends.

I have severe anxiety issues and don't make friends easily, so I value S as a friend, she is an intelligent woman with a sharp wit. I often drop in at her place and we chat, but whenever her DD(7) pops into the room to ask her something, S stops our conversation mid-way and gives full attention to her DD (usually it is something trivial, like, Mom why is the sky blue). Same happens when I am speaking... I will be saying in the middle of a great anecdote or argument, and if her DD pops in with a question, poof! S disappears, just leaves me, hanging in mid-air, and talks to her DD.

This has happened several times. In and outside our homes. Last xmas, our families vacationed together and S just ignored me during lunch and dinner, chatting to her daughter. Our husbands were discussing work, and I had to be content with looking at my mobile, for the better part of an hour. Meals were the only time we all spent together as a group, so I was confused... I mean, why agree for a holiday with friends if you are only going to hang out with your kid?

AIBU to feel annoyed by this? Or am I just being stupid, that parents would of course have to put their kids first? I love kids but I just don't think they should be given top priority during adult socializing time. I am curious to know what MN thinks.

Not sure if this is relevant, but just adding them;
a) S had her baby late after a long struggle with IVF. She gave up a high profile job to be a full time mother.
b) I and my husband are child free by choice and S knows this. I work full time and have limited contact with children.

If know one is talking to op and her friend and daughter aren’t including her then they are as rude as the husbands at the table.

This isn’t just isolated to the holiday however, therefore it’s highly likely friend is being a cotton wool Mummy

YANBU OP.
I have experienced this too, it was before I had a child but I am a mother now and I still think that it is not on.

I know exactly what you mean about being cut off mid sentence or just at a crucial point in an anecdote- it is so rude and unnecessary and when the parent finally turns back to you either the moment is lost or they have completely forgotten what you were talking about. I have had this from friends who would start off all “How ARE you, do tell me everything, I am so glad to catch up” and often I would be talking about something quite serious if it was a close friend. When they’d stop listening mid sentence it made their interest in me seem so false and made me feel like shit. I just stopped hanging out with the worst offenders. Conversely, I had plenty of friends with kids who were able to be polite and deal with interruptions in a way that keep everyone happy.

However your husband and hers were also extremely rude over the dinner and you should blame them just as much as you blame your friend. Seriously, have you raised this with your husband?

I'm at a total loss why you feel it's ok for your husbands to completely and utterly ignore and exclude you but for some reason the woman shouldn't.

Both said husbands are nerds and I do not say that in a derogatory way since I am the female equivalent of a nerd myself, albeit in a different subject. They would be very glad to include me in their conversation, only I have absolutely no interest in being a part of their mind numbing techno-oriented conversations. So yes, I definitely do not believe that they were excluding me deliberately.

S and I belong to the same profession (before she quit), and she had been asking me for some time to help her with a come back, a plan to slowly enter the field again after her long absence. It was implied by her that we will talk about during the holiday, but nothing really happened. I am not really holding it against her, may be she changed her mind but it did raise my expectation that she and I would be spending a lot of time together during the holiday.

IME its fashionable these days to let children interrupt adult conversations and some mothers, having agreed to meet you for lunch or whatever will then spend half of it peeling their kid's sausage or whatever rather than interacting with another adult. I find this quite rude. When I take my children out we take something for them to play with so I have a fighting chance of completing a sentence.
This is probably why your friend usually suggests you meet when the au pair is there?

I was taught a tactic to use when your dc want your attention and you are talking to someone. Train them to approach you and squeeze your hand to indicate they wish to speak to you. You squeeze their hand back to acknowledge that they are waiting to speak to you. When you then reach a break in the conversation you excuse yourself to speak to dc. That way they are not interrupting but are acknowledged that they need your attention.

Ee yes, of course the husbands were excluding you deliberately by talking about a topic in which they knew you had no interest!

Seriously, it sounds like none of the 5 of you has any social skills whatsoever. My husband would not dream of carrying on a conversation at a social event which excludes me, and if he was deep in chat with a friend he would still have one eye on me at all times to make sure I was not left out in the cold....as would I on him. It’s basic mutual respect.

If your husband ignores you all holiday in favour of the casino, it’s not up to your friend to fill the void.

I am not sure where in my OP I have indicated that my husband has ignored me during the entire holiday. Every day he was with me from waking up till lunch, and after that he went with the boys (they made some new friends in the hotel) to the pool room and casino. We all had dinner together as a group.

I can hardly expect my husband to keep me company every minute when we are in a group holiday. I don't want him to, anyway, I like having some space myself!

To make sure I had someone else to talk to and was not left out in the cold alone, I mean.

A few of my friend's had their kids a few years before me, I often used to find it annoying when I'd go around to see them and their kids would interrupt our conversation. My friend's would completely forget what we were saying and I'd (secretly) get annoyed I couldn't just sit and chat to my friend's.

Fast forward a few years, I now have kids too and I get it. You can't ignore your kids even if they just want to show you something. You see mother's in the play centre sat having a chat completely ignoring their kids who want their attention (that's a whole other thread) but I just think poor kid, mother isn't even acknowledging them!!

I guess how I feel about it has changed since I've had my own kids. You'd probably find it less annoying if you had your own kids too. Whatever you do though don't say anything to the friend about it, I'd be very annoyed and consider you rude for suggesting I ignored my own kids.

It might be time to move on and find another child free couple you can hang out with. You can't expect your friend to ignore her child for you.

My jaw dropped (literally) when I read you were on the phone for an hour during a meal. That is the rudest thing in that whole post. No wonder no one included you in the conversation.

If you want to be involved in conversations with your friend and her DD you need to listen and find opportunities to join in, not sit glued to your phone like a teenager with no manners. If you don't want want to do that, fair enough, but don't then blame them.

Equally, if you only want to interact with your friend, not her DD, that is fair enough too. Lots of perfectly nice people find interacting with other people's children awkward. In which case arrange adults only drinks/dinners rather than calling into the house while the child is awake.

I don't know, there are times in all friendships where one person is tied up with their own personal life and feels unable - for whatever reason - to give as much to that friendship as they once did. And if the friendship is a good one, the person on the receiving end accepts that with generosity of spirit and waits until things move on. Or they can decide not to ... . The child wont be young for long though.

This may not be the case in these circumstances, but maybe your friend did feel that it was important that she spent time catching up with her seven years old on holiday for whatever reason. (I think the statistics are something like the average working parent, with so many demands on their time, spends approx 49 mins exclusive time with their child per day.). Maybe she feels the child is shy and lacking in confidence and wanted to boost her self esteem a little. Obviously it's not nice if the op feels like a spare part but this is a child we are talking about. I'd like to think that if I was a friend I would suck it up until things improved.

OP you said in your initial post you often drop in- now it’s booked time with pre arranged childcare?

Can I ask why you mentioned your severe anxiety in your first post?

Why is your friend, who has been seemingly left to do all the childcare whilst her husband spends the entire holiday with 'the boys', being blamed for you having a rubbish holiday and not your husband?

At 7 children really are a dream to chat to, you will be giggling with your friend over the little things that are said, and can find the child gives you affection in return.

Oh fgs. I have a 7yo and engage plenty with her, I don't want to have a chat with other kids her age. When I'm with a friend I want to chat with my friend! There is no harm in telling a child to not butt into a conversation.

Does your friend drop in on you in the way you do on her ?
It does all sound a bit one-sided.
Perhaps this friendship should go on a back-burner for now.

How much of your attention, in % terms, of your friend's time do you feel you "deserve" over the course of a holiday? I'm interested to know as presumably whatever is left over is what should have been shared between her husband and child.

I just can't imagine feeling excluded because someone was speaking to their own child, who sounds relatively well-behaved based on your account.

Perhaps you could issue her with guidelines stating how her future interactions with you should be managed - frequency of eye contact, width of smiles, regularity of belly laughs at your witty anecdotes etc. It might make things clearer for both parties.

Rude and I had a friend who used to do this all the time. I didnt mind a quick response but i used to get annoyed when they would have a long conversation and both ignore me

Cherrycokewinning that is entirely self-explanatory within the opening post OP said that she has severe anxiety and finds it hard to make friends, and so really value this friend and doesn't want to lose her.

Can I ask what was the source of your confusion?

The butting in is rude, but if you don't want to chat to someone else's 7 year old then why would you go on holiday with one?

So your friend had to entertain the 7 year old, whilst 'the boys' went to the casino every afternoon?? And then you sulked amd resented the attention she gave her cjhild?? I think she was being polite, when she said she had enjoyed the holiday. What a horrible dynamic

It doesn't matter whether she's right or wrong, it is what it is. That's the friendship on offer. You don't sound very endeared to the child, so it's probably best no holidays again, and given that the nanny/au pair is there, I can't believe there's constant interruptions. We all pitch in in our house, so my husband may wander through, say something, kids at least say hello to any guest and so on, then I'd shoo them away if any of them hung around. But some interaction with the wider family when visiting a family is normal.

Your expectation of undivided adult time and being cross if you don't get that isn't something I'd be prepared to go along with- I visit people a lot who have more than one 7 year old and it can be chaotic, but we just carry on talking anyway! I love the vague chaos of it all, and having private adult conversations isn't really something for at home- more out of the home for me (could you go out for a drink every now and again?) Even then I wouldn't care if my husband interrupted a couple of times.

It is what it is, OP, that's what's on offer right now.

My friend's little girl used to do this years ago, and she also used to sit between us and position her head so that my friend and I couldn't see each other - all obviously done on purpose and my friend said nothing. Sometimes I minded and sometimes I didn't. In any case, she soon grew up and stopped doing it and now me and my friend can chat all day if we want. It wont be forever, OP.

I completely agree about the lard - its a cooking class so teacher should know about these sorts of things. But you are being very OTT about the gloves. Is the company meant to hand all servers 'veggie only' gloves? She's not allergic to meat just chooses not to eat it.

OP you said in your initial post you often drop in- now it’s booked time with pre arranged childcare?
When I say drop in, of course I meant drop in after giving advance notice. I don't know of any other way to put it? I won't just drop in unannounced, that's rude.

Can I ask why you mentioned your severe anxiety in your first post? Because that's who I really am and it defines my difficulty in making friends, whether it is an adult or a child.

sorry my computer went weird - wrong thread!