Friends without kids

[Musicforthemasses18]

Best friend of 20 years doesn’t have kids. We have been trying to meet up for ages- I have offered 2 possible dates where I was going to travel to her & take a day off work.

But she’s pissed off that I can’t stay & that I have to get back to pick the kids up from school. I’d have 5 hours & am travelling to get to get to her. She’s now said she can’t do the dates I have offered & is being difficult.

Aibu to think it’s so fucking hard sometimes trying to explain to people without kids what it’s like to work full time plus raise 2 kids- sort out childcare, manage their clubs & weekend stuff etc.

I feel like taking a days annual leave & offering to travel is making an effort but she’s making it SO hard for me- like I should feel guilty.

I haven't always had children, so I know what it is like to be on the other side

Ffs. You know what YOUR life was like before you had children. YOUR LIFE. Not anyone else’s.

I think that yabu for mentioning that you have kids and she doesn't and therefore implying that her life is less busy than yours. If you had left out that and just said that you had offered to take a day off work and do all the travelling but couldn't stay as long as your friend wanted and she was kicking off, then I'd have been sympathetic.

However, making it all about yours and hers different reproductive statuses is very knobby. I'm actually the hardest person to arrange things around in my friendship group and I don't have children. It's just the nature of my job and other responsibilities in my life. As a PP said childless people have busy lives too, but we do get understandably pissed off when it is assumed that our lives and responsibilities are less important than parents.

Mummyoflittledragon

I am genuinely sorry you had to read that from Bum. Really not acceptable. I am sorry you are unwell, and hope you will continue to post and not be put off.

There are so many things in life which put immense pressure on one's availability.

I work in a very high pressured, senior role. It can take me all over the world, and I have to absorb the travel and difference in time zones.

I do not have children but I do have caring responsibilities. I also have guardianship of a child in another country. I am at this moment in time engaged in study which is incredibly demanding, fulfilling additional duties at work whilst recruitment is ongoing, dealing with a serious illness and I do not have a free weekend until mid November. I do not have time to socialise during the week even when I am home.

If I had children then something would have to give to accommodate the time they demand.

The reality is that none of us truly understand the pressures that the next person is under. But parents do not have the monopoly on time and flexibility constraints.

Also just wanted to add that I'm not resentful of my friends with children. However, that does not mean that I am happy to just absorb every single change. I'm not prepared to do all of the travelling every single time, and nor would I be happy to forego everything to have a take away around their house. I'm happy to do the majority of it, but expecting it to always be the case is a piss take, extremely disrespectful and will lead me to just stop bothering.

*This whole thread has become awful for one reason. Friends without kids tend to resent the time children tend to take up, the lack of weekends now available and have a tendency to be quietly pissed off that their social life has been compromised and that their friend prioritises something far and above them, and always will.

They have been sidelined, never deliberately but by default.

This is why there is anger and resentment on both sides. One side is frantically juggling trying to keep the friendship going along with family commitments and the other is looking on*

This is such a nasty generalisation. I don't in any way 'resent' the time my friends spend with their children, despite desperately wanting my own and not being able to have them. The anger on this thread is a result of:
Step 1) OP posts about her friend who has acted like a selfish dick (also happens to not have children but she would prob be a dick even if she DID have children)
Step 2) Posters without children pop up to either say "maybe this is why she 's behaving like this' or "not all of us are like that"
Step 3) Certain posters completely ignore the discussion and use various bits of anecdotal evidence to make sweeping generalisations about all childless/childfree people.

Repeat ad nauseum. It happens time and time again on here, which is why some of the posters with no children are perhaps being a bit more combative in their posting style.

ilovesooty pulling faces at someone who talking about their disability is picking on someone in my eyes. It's unnecessary.

Mummy has already said she didn't mean her comment the way it came out, why not accept that? I took her comment to mean she thinks OP's friend is childish. And I think she's right. Demanding attention from a friend when they ae trying to do their best by taking a day off work and travelling to you is childish.

Urgh bold fail, that top but was supposed to be a quote of a previous post

Gosh, reading this thread, people with kids really look down their noses at those without

Fuck yes.

She didn't seem to me to be pulling faces at the disability but at it being used as an explanation for having made a dickish comment in the first place. And I think it was a dickish comment.

And Leigh some posters, absolutely.

Havaina
That’s exactly what I meant. I had no idea it would be take any other way.

Powerwalk
Thanks. No I won’t be put off.

Most people without kids, myself included, are perfectly capable of understanding what it’s like to have to prioritise your children. Don’t tar the rest of us with the same stick. You have one inconsiderate friend who happens to not have children.

It’s not just about busyness. IfOP visits her friend on any day or evening when her partner isn’t available to parent the DC, because of paid work commitments, she would have to pay for childcare, which is expensive. In addition to the travel costs and the costs of whatever she and her friends do together.

Childfree people, on balance, are not as busy as parents. Of course they aren't.

Actually being self employed frequently means that you have less scope to arrange time off

I'm self employed and single - I have to work at every available opportunity and cannot turn work down, especially as mine is highly competitive and if I let down a client there are hundreds more of me ready to jump in and take my place. It is highly stressful at times and incredibly inflexible and I work often in the evenings and weekends. Being self employed doesn't always mean your are your own boss, but that you are at the mercy of many bosses.

Friends without kids tend to resent the time children tend to take up, the lack of weekends now available and have a tendency to be quietly pissed off that their social life has been compromised and that their friend prioritises something far and above them, and always will.

Well, I don't resent it. They made their choices and I made mine. I accept that once you have kids, they will be your absolute first priority, and so they should be. I would also expect parents to understand that at the same time, their kids are not everyone else's first priority, and it's not reasonable to expect childfree friends to always be the ones doing the running.

Which is why, as I said earlier on, I feel that the childfree and parents just simply aren't socially compatible. So while I still care for my friends who are parents and would be there if they needed me, most of the friends I spend most time with are either childfree or their children are grown. It's all about practicalities and priorities. Nobody is at fault.

Childfree people, on balance, are not as busy as parents. Of course they aren't.

Some childfree people are not as busy as some parents. Stop generalising.

One of the sad things about growing up is that friends priorities change and you drift apart. Part of that is that some choose jobs far away, and some who choose to devote every moment possible to children. There is only so much time available and most people understandably put their children ahead of their mates.

Just as many people complain that having kids is isolating losing ones friends to their children can be just as troublesome.

Well said Iced

Of course everyone is busy but people with dependants, in whatever form (elderly parents to look after, an ill or disabled partner or children) will have more rigid demands on their time that mean yes they are more busy and find it harder to make social plans: added to this any social time away usually comes with a whole heap of guilt, especially when working full time too.

Right so as i’m currently childfree, i gave no idea what it’s like to be busy, and i only have my job and hobbies?
Righto

She's being a pain in the arse op.
But people without kids will just never understand. What it's like to juggle 🤷🏻‍♀️