The unfriendly thirties

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Is it me or does life just get really stark and unfriendly when you are in your thirties?
Harder to make friends, loads of responsibilities, work place unfriendliness, school playground with your kids is weird, everyone of your age is busy and stressed which makes them quite self-absorbed. Even family visits just feel like we’re doing the thing you’re meant to tick off. Where’s the joy!?

I’m just feeling like life is a slog which would be okay if I felt a sense of ‘we’re in this together’ from others but I don’t feel this at all, I just feel like life’s become less of an adventure and more of a suck it up buttercup experience.

I have a lovely garden and a fire pit etc. In my twenties I’d have invited people round for a little gathering now by the time I get my toddler in bed and wash up the dishes/ tidy up I’m good for nothing and so it continues.

I'm 40, with twin toddlers. Life has never looked so good.
OP, get a grip and embrace life.

I agree with the 30s thing. I don’t have any DC (purely through choice) but am finding we’re seeing a lot less of friends who have small children as they are naturally busy. We’ve recently been putting effort into seeing friends and family more, and have a few new friends too - without losing track of the old ones of course. On the plus side I have just managed to gain a promotion at work so we don’t have money worries and have the freedom to travel and do other things we like. I do worry about parents’ health (not so much in decline just yet but that may change in the next decade...)

I didn’t have a child till 36. Between 30 and 36 I did some adventuring, got married, did a HUGE work project and then set up self employed!!!

Obviously the child tearing years are different. And yes, more isolating (although dc is 6 and I’m getting out more). It’s not a daily or weekly thing but we reconnect with friends on long weekends away camping or self catering not too far away with all the kids. Even a day out or just in the garden with friends. Get your friends with kids round to enjoy your garden earlier in the day - use the fire pit for marshmallows with the kids. It’s different I know and I am sad we see some of our best friends only 3/4 times a year but it’s really lovely when we do.

sayanythingelse this is exactly my life.

I actually find the opposite. My twenties - well, I literally partied every weekend from 18-30! Did uni, friendships came and went, ‘holidayed’ all over the world but basically more partying without a night of sleep, thoroughly enjoyed myself but feel like it’s very been there done that now. It was a life dragging through the boring week to get to the weekend!! I’ve found it much easier in my 30’s to make proper friends who understand children and responsibilites, I have a toddler - which yes is hard work but also the most amazing thing ever! We still have friends over and bbq’s and drinks and fun round the firepit! We have a house and a family and everything feels more permanent and I love it. We don’t live payday to payday. We have the best holidays and even just sitting in the garden of an evening with a glass of bubbly feels like being content. To a pp, having a child doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy life 🙄 my child enhances my life and I would never want a life without him in it! He lights up my days. We do city breaks and days out and holidays. We enjoy everything we do.
OP I don’t think it’s your 30’s that are the problem, it’s the way your lifestyle is re money/exhaustion etc. It’s all anout happiness and you are understandably having a tough time. It will get better.

OP that’s “having young children” not being in your 30s! DP and I are both 30s and we have the best life! (Child free) We both earn more than in our 20s so spend a lot of time out and about doing lovely things! Our friends are the same. I’m sure it will all go south once we all have kids though

I agree it's more to do with the age of your kids. I had mine at 18 and 20, now I'm 33 we've got teenage stage with one starting his final year at school. I've friends mid-late 40s at the same place as me in terms of kids and socialising the main difference being most have paid off their mortgage so work part time to my full time. No point waiting for 30s to end thinking it'll get better, it's a mindshift no an age one

My 30's were my lost decade

• having children
• working long hours
• self neglect (diet, excercise)
• minimal social life

The whole thing was self perpetuating

• so tired so I would crave stodgy foods
• no social life would mean treats were a box set with take away, wine, ice cream
• weight gain would mean loss of confidence to go out and so on

However, I do not regret any of that nor could I have change much of it at the time. It's just how life is for most people with young children and work.

My forties has been absolutely brilliant, so far

• lost the weight, social life is booming, kids are older and days out/evenings in/holidays with them are great fun.

Yes I do hear you. I still have friends but I find it more difficult to see them, as we were always a bit spread out but now the distance is a barrier.

I have local mummy friends who I see, and I haven't had much school gate weirdness, but the relationships are a bit superficial.

We do socialise but less frequently and yes it's tiring and sometimes doesn't feel like it's worth the effort.

I just feel I'm bring pulled in too many different directions atm.

I had my first DC around the time I turned 30, so my 30s have been defined by raising young children. It's not just the impact of my DCs, it's that other friends have done similar, roughly around the same time so everyone is floating around in their own busy bubbles. My DCs are reasonably flexible, but you find that friends can't do this because their DCs need to do that. Time is easily filled up on commitments like swimming or football and the rest of life just crams in around the edges and there's not much mutually compatible spare time left for friendships.

I'm feeling quite optomistic about my 40s. I know the needs of my DCs will change in ways that I can't quite forsee, but I'm so looking forwards to having a bit more flexibility when the DCs can handle themselves for a little while. I've found years of going to the postbox to be an hour's mission of nagging, socks, shoes and walking at a snails pace to be rather tedious!

It's not the 30s themselves more that it's the most popular age for starting families. I've got a couple of younger friends who've started their families in their early 20s and the contrast in the lifestyle they're accustomed to is less stark, the order of challenges is different but all add up in the end.

"Lovely young ladies in your thirties, please live life to the full and enjoy your youthful looks while you can.

Don’t start worrying until your 40-50."

Or how about don't start "worrying" even then! What a depressing bunch on here.

It's not the age OP, it's young children. It can come as even more of a shock to your system in your twenties I think, depending on what your friendship group are doing, but will get better and better as they get older OP. I'd say cultivate the friendships that are most important to you when time/tiredness is such a strong factor - quality of friendships rather than quantity. The posts that talk about nothing but looks as you age - God, work on yourself if your self-worth is so tied up in that.

My 30s have been great. I am 37.

I started my 30s, married with a toddler and older child. Big house, worked for ourselves.

At 37. I am divorces from the knobhead, went back to employed work about a year before that. My youngest is 8 oldest 16. My career is flying. The kids are not totally dependent on my. Can keep themseleves amused while I cook. Money was tight at first isnt now.

I think you are describing the period where you have kids.

Though to be fair, both working part time is a luxury and I think it's great that noth of you are doing that. But there always going to downsides

Not at all, I have made lots of friends in my thirties - but I’m very friendly and chatty. Saying that, most of my friends are people I met at work, though we’re friends outside work now. It’s more difficult to make friends otherwise but partly that’s because now I’m married and have a child, I’m too tired to go out in the evenings, and I’m less motivated too.

I'm probably the most stressed I've ever been but also the most contented. My family is complete and I have a wonderful husband after spending most of my twenties as a single mum. I don't have much of a social life anymore but it doesn't seem important anymore.

I loved my 30s and made tons of friends through my kids.

It was the hardest, most rollercoaster decade yet but it was very rewarding (I have two great, mostly easy teenagers now).

I turned 30 weeks after moving to a new city. I moved into a new office that was a lot smaller than my old one and there was only one other woman vaguely my age and she was pregnant. The others were a bit cliquey. I ended up meeting people in my small town through wEight watchers although they were all a fair bit older than me and I was made redundant from work within a year. I volunteered for a fair while although no one from there really lived near me. And even doing things like college courses didn’t yield many friends. I was actually really lonely when we moved here!

I had my DD at 32 and while I found the first 12-18m excruciating (clingy baby and no family at all), I’ve been very lucky and made some wonderful friends through having my DD (now nearly 3) and that was with being a SAHM til very recently.

I feel you OP. It will get better 💐

I had dd1 at 28 and dd2 at 29 so my early thirties were caught up in the pre school years while most of my friends were partying and travelling. Now at 43 I am basking in renewed independence and planning my next career move while said friends are still doing the school run 👹

And the fifties are really, really, really totally shit

No they aren't. I've got a great social life, enjoy my grandchild, lots of friends. Aches and pains yes but that's natural. I had very few menopause symptoms and got through it with ease. If I could just win the lottery to enable me to pay the mortgage off and give me enough money to stop work I'd be sorted

40s should have been great as DC get older but now we have sick and dying parents to contend with. Just try and make some more friends and enjoy the little things as much as you can.

I'm not a parent. Your post reminded me of when my parents were raising 3 children in their 30s. Of course mum didn't work outside of the home, and this makes a huge difference, but they were friends with their neighbours, the neighbourhood was one giant social arena, we didn't have to spend all our time under adult supervision and this I'm sure made a big difference to how tired our parents were compared to parents today. Neighbourhood meals, bbq, evening drinks, etc., were common. We did occasionally go as a family for dinner with another family, and my parents would occasionally get sitters for us. I think you are all doing amazingly with all the added responsibilities of being a parent today. No wonder you get tired.

I have found the opposite. My 20s were shite - the instability in life renting brought when I didn't have the funds to buy a house, the insecurities in myself still stemming from a bad upbringing, the work lasting 16 hours with barely 3 hours sleep during the week, trying to do everything, not having a car and just keeping above water, trying to get to grips with tax, pensions, finances, childcare etc. and the angst of would I ever be able to have a proper family.

My 30s are a doddle in comparison. I live in a large (mortgaged) house which costs me £400 less than renting the equivalent, have a stable and involved family, have a stable job I can largely call the shots on due to severe shortages in my field, can drive wherever I need to, have developed a sense of myself, style and discovered so many talents I hardly know what to do with them all.

And as for friendships? Now that I am secure in myself (and far less likely to try and please everyone) people practically flock around me - something that seemed impossible in my 20s.

Keep putting the work in; it all pays off in the end