Years old situation... AIBU to be pissed off?

[Blurpblorp]

Your answers could be very helpful for me personally. Am prepared to accept I brought it on myself.

Relates to a friend that I met at work, who I've known for around 15 years. Always made it apparent that she disliked kids. When I had mine 12 years ago she initially tried to show interest - even came over to my house with a gift for my first DD which I realised at the time was nice and a real stretch for her. She refused to hold my DD (with a yuck face) to which I thought fair enough. Ever after that she showed no interest in them and I thought well, she doesn't like kids so I would rarely talk about them in front of her. Anything child-related that I did mention she would smile weakly and change the subject.

Flash forward to now when she has a beautiful DD of her own and suddenly her child is the only thing she talks about. Only thing in her social media feeds and although we don't speak that often anymore, everything she mentions now involves her DD and all the superlatives you can think of.

On one hand I think, I feel outraged that she mostly overlooked my DDs for all those years but on the other, it's my own fault that I let myself be silenced like that.

Mumsnet wisdom please!

I would put my money on that she didn't actually dislike children but had fertility issues, endometriosis, pcos etc and knew conceiving would be hard, or was already struggling to conceive and it was easier for her to pretend she didn't like kids rather than face reality and admit she couldn't have them. This would explain why she made the effort to buy you a gift but wouldn't hold your baby and changed the subject when you tried to talk about babies and children but is the most doting parent now and makes her child the centre of her world

This is really common. Very few people are really interested in other people's children, frankly. I find baby talk now the most tedious subject on the planet. But most people are polite and disguise it I do find the out and out moaning about children on social media a bit annoying and defriended a particular culprit, the rants got a bit boring.

You are in the wrong for being outraged at this - it was 12 years ago!

I love my children... I'm not interested in anyone elses kids... it's the same for a lot of people OP..

She IS however.. being unreasonable.. to expect anyone else to care about her child... same rules apply ... nobody cares

I think many people don't realise how their world is to themselves and that it is not the same to other people.

In my very first job, there were 2 ladies in the same room as me, one had not long got married and the other was about to get married. One lady was same age as me the other was supervisor and a couple of years older. All day their not-about-the-work conversation was solely about weddings/their partners. If I spoke it was often ignored unless directly about the work, other than good morning/good night. I tried talking about the weather, about football, about tv last night, but the conversation was always shut down.
One day I'd had enough of listening to their marriage chat, and piped up loudly all day about a fictitious boyfriend I'd apparently just met. SO every time they said something I'd chime in with a comment eg 'Tony's favourite aftershave is Brut' I'd say 'Oh so is Simon's, he doesn't like Old Spice' or similar. Anyhow the supervisor lady drew me to one side and said did I know I was just talking incessantly about Simon all day and perhaps I should talk about something else!

So I apologised and said I had thought the rule was we were ONLY supposed to talk about our boyfriends as I'd tried talking about other things but got ignored. And said I'd try not to mention him.

They then obviously had a chat about it in my absence as they both made more of an effort from then on to talk about other things and include me. But I really think they hadn't a clue how boring mono-subject they were.

I had absolutely no interest in kids until had my own. Didnt want to hold them, didnt want to interact with them. Still not overly keen on any child but my own 🤷‍♀️

I think anyone with empathy and who was kind would recognise having a child is big deal and adopt a fake it till you make type approach. That’s what I did when friends had kids pre-being a mum and having any clue really. If someone doesn’t bother with my kids (as in basic politeness or asking how they are, not that we talk about them all the time or I can’t leave them), then there is a limit on how much I have interest in spending time with them. She doesn’t sound like that good a friend to be honest.

Some people don’t like other people’s children, are not interested, and I think that’s fair enough!

It is tiresome but it is what it is. At least you had the thoughtfulness and self awareness to not become a total bore. Is a shame she hasn't followed your example.

I was the first of my group of friends from my hometown to have a baby. I was very careful not to talk about him too much and be a "baby bore"! 3 years later they both had babies and OMG they never talked about anything else. Soooooo tedious!

Lots of women are anti having kids, like absolutely 100% positive they don't want to, then find in their late 30's they start getting broody and meet someone.

It doesn't mean they can see the future or that they didn't feel uninterested in kids in the past.

If your friend wasn't at all int4erested in kids back then what did you want her to do? Fake liking your kids?

Don't take offence about something that absolutely was not about you or your kids. If you need to, bring it up with her and point out how different the scenario is now (eg with her always talking about her kid when you were always shut down).

At the end of the day EVERYONE gets a bit obsessed with their kids early on, especially their first.

Be the bigger person & suck it up!

I think I can see it from her point of view.

I don’t like animals. Just don’t. Have no problem with others having them but I don’t like animal hair... etc.😱

A few weeks ago I got a puppy. I love her to bits. 🥰🥰 I cannot stop talking about her to my friends! (Most of them are animal lovers but don’t have pets).

It doesn’t made me interested in ANY other dogs! 😳

You may think it’s selfish, us want to be the centre of universe... but for us, it’s normal. And certainly not malicious! ☺️

Right. Thanks everyone, you've helped me get more perspective. Am mentally dropping it...

This is just normal!