Hate meeting up with friends and kids

[Zerowillpower]

Not really an AIBU just wondered if I was alone. Never met anyone who feels this way. I have a two year old, and lots of friends who have kids similar ages and older. I know it’s completely normal to meet up with friends and take the kids to a park/kids group/soft play (the latter pre covid obvs) but I really don’t enjoy practically ignoring my kid so I can talk to my mates while actually, the activity is for my child not for me to chat. DD is always after my attention while I’m there, I don’t want to ignore her, you never get to talk to your friends properly, I just think it’s all a waste of time and would rather meet up with my friends in the evening to talk properly without all the interruptions. Feel like I’m always making excuses to not meet friends with kids in the middle of the day because I hate it so much. Plus hate making a commitment of a particular time when I need to work the day around an ever time changing nap time. Anyone else get me? Or am i the only one who feels like this?

I think it's good for children to be told to shut up and go away every so often. I wish my friends would do it more to their entitled brats. No one cares about your song about a poney - get over it

I think im probably just going to remain unsociable until my kids are older. Can't wait for the day I can have people around for a cuppa and visa versa. Kids are aggregating to take out when they are young.

They they need watching like hawks until they are road safe. They go through that awful mine stage. My friends kid used to be a right mine mine mine toddler. Always snatching. Shouting. Crying. She used to really irritate me. Not because of how she was. But her mum's half arsed effort to at least explain to be kind. She just used to say oh Isabelle across the room.

The trouble is where I live too is everything is up the other end of town. Soft play, bowling, the pretend playtown and swimming is all on the other estate. I can't drive and my kids get travel sick. So I can't jump in a friend's car incase one of mine pukes everywhere. Also my second born is not a sit still kid. He's just wild and a back archer and wants to be out the buggy but has no road sense yet.

I could go on forever. It's important for the kids to mix. But I often think it's forced with friends kids. One of my oldest friends and I have grown massively apart since we became mums. It's quite sad. But she just parents differently and she wasn't helpful. My worst expereince was when my DD was three weeks old. The fair was on. She asked if I wanted to walk down. So I out my DD in her pram. Just about to leave. She decides we should go in her car. I was in the worst sweat trying to learn to fold my pram down and work out how to strap my baby seat into her car. Then her dummy went on the path. She screamed all the way around the fair and I was juggling her in one arm and pushing the pram. My friend stood there and didn't do anything to help or offer anything to help.

I could go on all day.

Sorry for my typos. Awful reading that back

All my friends have DC around the same age and tbh I enjoy meeting up with them and DC. I feel we are at that stage where we grab a chat where we can and DC need full attention anyway.
Evenings are for our family time or my dh. I prefer meeting up with kids so we we get to do both.

I know how you feel but your child mixing with other children is important, he needs to learn to interact with his peers and to be fair i am sure the little ones need a break from us, they need more than the same voice day after day

oh, I like it. It's nice seeing the kids together, it's nice having a change of scenery and a focal point for the day, and another adult around even if we don't get to chat much. But then tbh I'm a bit socially awkward and I find the kids an ice breaker, I feel much more confident that I will know how to behave/have things to say when my daughter is with me.

(I'm not a total dysfunctional weirdo! I know that I am capable of carrying a conversation. But shyness and anxiety can make me doubt myself, especially in new situations.)

I also really enjoy my friends' children and love seeing them grow alongside my own daughter. It just doesn't feel like a chore. Plus they are getting to the point where we can ignore them and drink wine in the garden while they go feral, which is great.