To wonder if friendships between parents and non-parents can ever really work?

[moonwashigh]

I’m not being goady, or trying to knock anybody, either people with children or people without. I don’t have children (that’s not a choice) and because of the age I am (late thirties) pretty much everyone in my friendship circle has had a baby within the last five years, most are now on their second.

Obviously, I understand and expect that the children come first and I’m not saying it should be different. But being honest about how things are, it means that obviously nights out don’t happen and that’s fair enough. That means seeing them during the day and the children are of course there. This wasn’t so bad when they were babies but now the stages mean you can’t have any sort of conversation - again, that’s no ones fault, it’s just how it is.

To be totally honest on here in a way I wouldn’t be in RL, I don’t really want to be spending my free time in soft play, farms and child friendly cafes but then this obviously means if I do elicit this choice I don’t see my friends as I fully understand that this is how it has to be.

It also means the onus is on me to see them rather than anyone travelling to see me. I get this - driving three hours with kids in tow is a nightmare - but obviously then I am constantly doing the travel with the time and money this takes up and that also feels a bit unfair.

So is the disparity just too great or can it ever really work? To me, it feels the only way it can work is if I accept my lot in life is to travel, sit and dote on other people’s children and then travel home again ...

Works fine as long as the childless friends know that the parents are always going to be distracted and schedule-shattered by the kids. And that they can cope with kids darting around, whether they interact with them much or not.

On the other hand... if you have kids who are reliably angry, shouty, squealers, whiners or tantrummers in company, expect to lose your friends until they stop. People really don't cope well with that.

I genuinely did not deliberately extract one line out of context purely to upset you. I took a line which was in its own paragraph and understood it to me that you worried that even if you could find a new friend without kids, they would still prioritise parents, partners and other friends. It's a valid concern, I have a friend who often gets anxious enough to feel exactly that way so I was attempting to gently reassure and/or help adjust the expectation. It usually works for my friend.

Text is a difficult medium to read. I did not go out to deliberately attack or upset you and I'm sorry to have caused any hurt.

Thank you damn

No, of course I am not worried or anxious that new friends would prioritise people other than me. To be honest, I’d be worried if they did prioritise me.

However, as I’ve said, it does leave me in a bit of a strange place where I’m not quite sure where I fit. I don’t expect to be a priority to my friends: the ugly truth is I’m a priority to no one, I suppose, and perhaps spending time with young children really brings this home.

tbh, I have mixed views.

I dont speak to ANY of the people I was friends with before I had my DC's, they all fucked off one by one.

However, now my DC's are 10+ and I have a social life again, i've made a lot of new friends, none of whom have kids, and I am having a great time.

Sadly I lost touch with two of my friends, one of which I've known for over 20 years. Both are childless by choice and only really wanted to socialise at night with drinking involved.

I think about her every day and miss her. We never fell out or had any kind of argument. But our lifestyles were incompatible.

I've been on both side of this because I've always been 10 years behind my close friends when it came to becoming a parent.

While all of my friends had young babies I did all the running to keep the friendships going. I remember feeling very hurt and isolated. I went to soft play centres and farms and kid friendly pubs/restaurants just so I could keep in touch.

By the time my kids came along ( 10 years after I had planned) my friends were wrapped up in their kids social circle and didn't have time for me and my kids.

The friendships drifted a bit but we stayed in touch.

Now my old friends are becoming empty nesters and want to do stuff with me again . I have to keep declining because I'm not yet free to leave my kids to go on a long weekend away or to go out for dinner as often as they can.

In 3 or 4 years time we may all be on the same page again - but then there will be aged parents to take care of and the additional responsibilities and difficulties that brings.

I'm sorry to hear you feel this way OP. I have three kids (under 7 so still very young). I have lots of friends with kids, but have quite a few old friends without children. I cherish these friendships and absolutely love meeting up with them in child unfriendly environments (and wouldn't dream of asking them to meet at soft play)

Do your friends have very young children? I'm sure in the years of being pregnant and having newborns I was distracted and less available to my friends. But not for long - I like to have at least two nights a month seeing friends in an evening, drinking wine and talking about the millions of things we still have in common. I meet friends for lunch when I'm working. Obviously I can't and wouldn't want to leave my kids every weekend but I can get away for a weekend or overnight or in the day. I don't differentiate between my friends with kids or without - it's still important to me to spend time with my friends separately from the children. And I'm very happy for them to tell me if I'd fallen into a rabbit hole of only ever discussing kids and boring them!

Can you talk to them? I'm not sure this is the norm other than in the very early months/years. In my main friendship group it's probably about 75/25 kids and no kids but we still meet up mainly without children.

"I'd have to disagree here - particularly if you're single, friends are enormously important and often your primary source of love and connection. (I adore my cats and my Mum is amazing, but my friends are central and crucial to my happiness). Friends shouldn't be viewed as just a fun or disposable extra to your family life, that does a good friendship a great disservice.

Obvs I don't know how this relates to OP's situation but one of the reasons my friendships are strong is that they don't consider me secondary or a bonus - they value me as they do their partners, children, etc and I do likewise."

This is where the discord between the single/childless and family-oriented people comes from though. To the single person, friends might be their primary source of love and connection but for the parents that won't be the case - their children/partners will be their primary source. That doesn't mean they don't love or make time for their friends but when it comes down to it their nuclear families come first. I too have close friendships but I know I'm not my friends' number 1 priority and they're not mine. We don't see each other as disposable, it's just that in adult life friendships are different to how they were in high school when we had no responsibilities.

it is interesting that a lot of people who are insisting that yes, you can stay friends and the friendships don’t have to change are actually the ones with children.

But several posters, including me, are posting about our experience of being the person without a child while all our friends were having them in my case that was just under 20 years, before I had a child at 39, almost 40 rather than from the other perspective. And I've never claimed the friendships don't change when one party has children, but change is inherent in friendships -- people alter with age, they emigrate, drop you while they're in an obsessive relationship, develop a time-consuming sport that involves six days a week training, early nights and a strict diet, have mid-life crises and get God etc etc.

I think that if I'd regarded my own self-worth in terms of how much of a priority I was to other people, I might easily have been very unhappy in parts of my life.

I came on to say that 2 of my 4 closest friends are not mothers. But I had forgotten about the toddler bit.

It passes quickly. That’s the best thing I can say about it. ( unless they have 4 kids, when there is toddler stage for years. )

There is a website for women without children. It's called Gateway Women.

It's tough to be in a different phase of the lifecycle to friends, for sure. For some people having a DC gives them a readymade social circle and they like that. Those without have to be more imaginative.

I've kind of seen these from both sides as someone who has their DC at 40. But I have never made a non parent go to soft play or a farm park - yikes!!

I’m 35 with no kids (through choice). Honestly, my husband and I have drifted apart from all of our old friends with kids who live a distance away from us. They don’t want to travel (totally understandable), and be away from their kids’ things and routine. We don’t want small children in our house because everything we own is fragile/dangerous! And we can’t go to them because no one has a spare room anymore, we have a dog who isn’t welcome, and we just don’t fancy being trapped in a house where parenting of young kids is taking place! BUT, I’ve made some fantastic friends with kids in the last few years who live within a 20min walk of our house. TOTAL piece of cake to be friends. I’m happy to pop over after bedtime for a glass of wine, or meet a friend when they can slip out for a few hours. Also, because it’s no effort for me to get to them, I don’t care if I get cancelled on at short notice if a child is ill etc. So I’m feeling positive that it can work, but distance is EVERYTHING!

Over, yes that’s all so very true.

Maybe that’s true sorrowful but still, I have to live with that every day as a fact and it does hurt, even though I don’t expect or want it from friends, obviously I suppose most people have it from a partner.

Do you have a partner? Do you want a partner? If so, widening your social circle may be no bad thing?

It doesn’t lead to love: BELIEVE ME!

as a woman who won’t have children of her own for whatever reason, my lot in life is to make my friends children my world and this means the unselfishness of parenting: travelling miles at personal cost and being the ‘crazy aunt’ (which makes me shudder) without the rewards.

This. I had years of dealing with infertility when being around children was unbelievably painful and many of my friends with children didn't seem to actually give a shit. So I dumped them.
I've had parent friends who complained that they never saw me - they only wanted to meet during the day as evenings and weekends were "family time". Well, my evenings and weekends were the only time I ever got to spend with my husband too so no, I wasn't going to drive 3 hours to spend half an hour between nap times trying to have a conversation with someone who only wants to talk about potty training.
Now I have no interest in the company of children. I am an aunt to adult/late teen nieces and nephews and never did the crazy aunt shite with them anyway. I'm a serious person and I'm certainly not a big kid. I don't want to do things with children, I don't like their company and I'm still not interested in potty training.

My friends now are mostly new ones, formed in the last decade and comprise of other childless people or parents of older children.

Sorry, but I agree with the OP, it is impossible to be friends with parents of young children without a lot of compromises on our part and some of us just don't want to do that.

I think distance exacerbates the problem, when lifestyles change.

I now only have minimal contact with two lots of what were very good friends, who live three hours away. In my case it was after my husband died. Initially they were very supportive and I continued to visit them over the first year, but then it started drying up. Annual parties that I'd normally have been invited to came and went with no mention to me, etc etc. And when I did visit them, it wasn't the same. I had always been equally close to the husbands and as couples, when we visited obviously we went out together. But after being widowed, when I visited, the male friend would be busy with stuff and only the woman would hang out with me.

I don't think it's conscious. And I have no reason to think it's that they like me less than they liked my husband, and they certainly don't think I'm a danger to their marriages! I'm just not a 'fit' for their lives in the same way.

That hasn't happened with my local friends. The fact that we can just meet up for lunch or a coffee easily, keeps us 'glued' more.

I managed it for a decade as I had DC late. Lots was phone calls rather than face to face, in the evening once kids asleep. I stayed over with one friend. Used to help with bedtime routine and then we’d collapse on sofa and have supper together. If they are working quick lunch meet up if nearby. Also went for drive once as kids slept in back so we could talk! It’s hard though and requires flex. I’m sorry it’s painful. I’ve been there x

Nope sorry I've managed to keep good friendships with friends that are parents. I'm not a parent at 40. Yeah the baby stage is harder but I didn't mind maybe the extra efforts I made to see them when they were skint or at home with a baby/toddler. I was happy for my friends that they have achieved their wishes.

I have great relationships with my friends kids ( some very close). But then I like children, I get the best of both worlds I spend time at fun places with them then get to go back to piece and quiet afterwards.

Now they are mostly older it's easier for parents to be out and about without them too. Yes it's different to before but if you value each other it's easy to adapt to that's all. Life doesn't stay the same in our years on the planet, change is inevitable.

as a woman who won’t have children of her own for whatever reason, my lot in life is to make my friends children my world and this means the unselfishness of parenting: travelling miles at personal cost and being the ‘crazy aunt’ (which makes me shudder) without the rewards.

I really don't recognise this from my 20 years of being the childfree one while friends were having children all over the place if anything, my friends assumed the fact that I had chosen not to have children meant I was completely uninterested in theirs. I'd never in my life gone to a soft play place before I had my own child and to be honest, I seldom went then, they're the ninth circle of hell -- and certainly no one expected me to 'make their children my world' in order to maintain my friendship with them.

I had no interest in discussing child development or potty training before or after having my own child. I've always worked FT apart from my one maternity leave, so I wasn't up for meeting during the day at all. Last week I took two train journeys of more than an hour (needing a bus to get to the train from my village and a cab back afterwards in both cases) to see friends on their turf. I also regularly meet them on neutral territory, like the theatre. Other friendships I maintain around work, so we block out time to have lunch together, or meet for coffee or a drink immediately after work if DH can do childminder pick-up.

OP, can you be more explicit about who is expecting these child-centred 'crazy aunt' behaviours of you, and how precisely this expectation manifests itself? I mean, are your friends actually saying 'Well, I can only see you either on Wednesday morning at my house forty miles from you, only you'll be inconveniently at work, or at a soft play fifty miles from you on Saturday afternoon at little Hugo's birthday party'?

@moonwashigh That's why I suggested trying to find a way to be happy in your own company and not attach your self esteem to how high a priority you are in other people's lives. I know it's easier said than done but you have 2 options really - to carry on as you are, feeling left out and unhappy, or to make changes.
It's very liberating to do things alone...going to the cinema, theatre, travelling, joining groups etc. That's what I did when I was single and I actually met lots of interesting people along the way. Some have become close friends, others haven't but we still had a good time. If I were single now I certainly wouldn't be spending all my time with young families. I'm not saying ditch those friends but don't have them as the focus of your social life.

Well, I do over, otherwise I’d literally never do anything! but in all honesty it’s a bit rubbish.

But after being widowed, when I visited, the male friend would be busy with stuff and only the woman would hang out with me.

Oh god, I found that too. I never got invited to parties and dinners anymore - not even for some lame attempt at matchmaking because I was a widow and that would be seen as crass! I was the friend who got invited to the house (to ensure I wasn't crying in public) for a chat with the wife over a cup of tea, so they could pat themselves on the back and say they've done their duty to the grieving widow.

It sucked. There were times when I just wanted a laugh over a bottle of wine and to feel normal.

My best friend has no kids out of choice. I have two and she is great with them. She's been my constant support through single parenthood and serious illness. I appreciate her coming to see me, I appreciate the fact her house is her tidy haven so we just don't go there. It works brilliantly for us

I leave my kids with my DH when I see my mum friends or my child free friends. I do meet up with my mum friends and the kids of course but most of my socialising is done in the evening without kids. Maybe it’s the distance more than the kids? If you were closer you could meet for dinner when the kids were asleep? However I do agree to some extent my friendships have changed since I’ve had kids and some of my friends haven’t.