To want to cease friends with many of my friends that have children

[daysayso]

NC for this, I am really struggling to maintain friendships with most of my mom friends.

I think as much as having children becomes consuming it's not entirely fair to think you can treat people like crap or not bother with them on the basis you now have children and expect them to still just take it.

I am being a bit harsh when I say I want to stop friendships and perhaps unrealistic but certainly stop bothering as much if at all.

I am just burned out, exhausted by it. And I'm sure may posters will say oh it is what happens when you have kids - but equally I have a life too and when it's becoming unenjoyable I don't want to bother anymore

There's a line and I think I'm being pushed past it far too often - this has been happening now for years and I have just had enough

You just have to adapt and ride it out, the little years can be tedious but they pass.

Speaking as some one who doesn’t have kids (although I have step kids), and has loads of friends with kids - it’s worth keeping the door open, even though when they are little reduce the time spent. (Obviously the odd one might completely fall away, but most shouldn’t) If you make some new friends, still have your old friends and a relationship with your friends kids that makes for a rich life.

so - make some friends who don’t have kids, or older kids, or you will go mad. You need to be able to go to festivals or theatre or whatever.

Afternoons are a terrible time, go round to theirs in the evening. Take M and S food and booze. Eventually as the kids get older and they are less tired they will want to go out (assuming there’s a partner).

Take a bit of an interest in the kids - think of yourself as an honorary aunt. A bit of interest for 20 mins and a bit of asking how parenthood is going goes a long way. Fake it if you have to, but it keeps you connected.

It’s knackering being a parent of young kids, so cut slack, but yes of course if someone forgets to cancel have a word.

My DP puts the weekend time with kids ahead of everything. Way more than I do. He really loves time with them and there's very little of our past lives that he'd say he would like to do more than spending time with the kids.

I think pejorative terms like 'mummy martyrs' mistake choice for obligation. I want to spend time with my kids when I can.

I work full time and only get to see them about 3 -4 hours each day in the week, with most of that tired or rushing about. So I love spending time with them at weekends.

I guess it's a bit of a personality thing though, as an introvert what I miss more than meeting up with friends is chilling with the weekend papers or a good book / podcast.

The vary rare afternoon when they are both on parties and play dates are bliss for the quiet time!

It rather assumes that people don’t have any hobbies to accommodate either.
I spend weekend mornings with my horse, husband has DD. Weekend afternoons are family time. Weekend evenings are sometimes free.

Weeknights I have the horse after work, then home at 7.30 to do bedtime. I like that time with DD, I don’t want to miss it. Then by 8.30 I am exhausted as up again at 6am. I live rurally so no way do I want to go out then.

Friends who are not local and not parents or horsey don’t get much opportunity I’m afraid. I see the ones that ride and the ones that have children as we can combine eg Saturday afternoons at a horse trials or Sunday afternoons at softplay. But driving 2hrs to my old town to see friends is a full day out so DD has to come too.

I totally get it, OP

I can see both sides of this. It's so individual. I did make time to see child free friends, but I didn't work fulltime when DC were young. I could also afford sitters.

I think you are unlucky with your friends - most of my friends are mums and we manage to have the occasional adults only evening and more regularly go to breakfast on a Saturday morning. I dont mind if the kids want to come to breakfast but they don't want to come and would rather stay home with dad.

Obviously our catch-ups are nowhere near as regular as before kids and they also have branched out and have mum friends to meet with but we've been friends a long time so we make it work.

Maybe meeting in the evening would mean no children in tow? I wouldn't give up my Saturday with children to see a friend on my own. Sorry.

“Weekends are family time so I'm not surprised there are toddlers in tow.”

omg not every single weekend has to be for “faaaaamily time”

what some women on here think will happen if they go out one Saturday afternoon to have drinks in the pub with their pals? Do you think that your child will be so bereft they will collapse and expire or something?!

What I really really don’t get is why can’t a woman meet up with her friends on a Saturday afternoon say once every couple of months whilst the kids dad looks after them?

Because I like my children. I miss them every day at work, I have to have someone else care for them 5 days a week so no, I don't want to miss my precious weekend time with them.

They are asleep all evening so it's easy to see my friends then.

100% agree. OP, if your friends are literally unable to maintain friendships now that they're parents, then leave them to it - it'll bite them in the backside once the kids are grown. Put your energy into people who can be bothered.

@DappledThings well, exactly. It’s a 2 way street and both people in a friendship need to make effort. I parted company with a long term friend, a big part of it was her lack of support when my dad died, IVF failed and l got divorced. I had always been there for her but it wasn’t reciprocated. She made it clear her ever speaking to me on the phone was inconvenient so l message her to say 1st round of IVF had failed. 10 days later she bothers to reply with a 1 line answer

I think you need to give your head a wobble.

You haven't said how old the kids are. I'd also like to ask an additional question - how old are you, OP?

I think you're confused about what you want. Your list of issues includes always having the kids in tow and that being draining, but you also don't like being left out of invitations with other mums? This doesn't make sense.

You also say that you are drained by having other people's kids around for a couple of hours - if that's the case, have you considered how drained the parents might be after having them 24/7? You're nonplussed that they can't meet in the evening, but maybe that's why - they're knackered.

How many friends do you have, OP? I've got about 6 good friends, lots more casual ones. If I met only my good friends, child free, once each every two months, that would only leave me one Saturday a month to actually spend with my child. And while you might think that's okay, what's happening with the child while I go off giving my friends their alloted child free time? Oh yeah she's with her father - so that only gives him one Saturday a month to himself. So it's only fair that he gets to spend it with his friends, right? So then when do we all spend time together as a family? Obviously this is a very simplistic example but it isn't as simple as you are assuming.

There is a lot of inability to see things from other perspectives on this thread - from both sides. OP seems to be unable to recognise that her friends might be exhausted, struggling with cost of living, struggling with mental health issues, stressed from work, or any number of things that might mean they can't meet up as much any more. Similarly all the talk of "mummy martyrs" is not helpful - if people want their lives to revolve around their children, then they can! Freedom to choose! Yay feminism!

Friendship is not an obligation. You see your friends as often as you want to. I personally would have zero time for someone giving me a hard time for not seeing them enough. If they decided not to see me at all any more because it's not enough, then fine! Make that choice. But don't guilt trip me for giving you what I'm currently able/willing to give.

@birdglasspen2

why not?

you wouldn’t give up a Saturday with your daughter once say every six week to see your friends?

It’s a few hours!!

I think if so you would deserve to have no friends

I'd get new friends. I know when I carved out precious kid free time to see a friend I left thinking "I paid two hours nursery fees for that? No more!" The children are a red herring. Go find yourself some people who value you and from whom you get value. You don't have to burn bridges, these can just move away from your centre and they may come back in if your lives move in the same direction once more.

Also yes re hobbies. I work in the week, so have to fit in both kids hobbies and ours on the weekend. Adding in time to get there, get ready etc and back to back lessons, most of saturday morning can go on swimming lessons.

We also have family to see - 1 or 2 sundays a month we'll be visiting mine or DH parents or siblings. Between us we have two sets of parents and 5 siblings, so we only even see each about once every 3 months.

@takealettermsjones

“Similarly all the talk of "mummy martyrs" is not helpful - if people want their lives to revolve around their children, then they can! Freedom to choose! Yay feminism!”

I think a lot of women don’t necessarily want to be mummy martyrs, but they feel they should, they feels it’s a woman’s place and what you should do to be a good mother

and mummy martyrs rarely fare well later down the line - their relationship with their partner can suffer or even break down entirely because they don’t make any time for couples time, they have no mates cos they never saw them for years when their kids were young, they have no hobbies because they gave them all up, they may be physically really unfit because they never prioritised their own health and exercise etc etc

I'm going to assume that the kids are not very young but yanbu to hope that your friends can spare you a couple of hours every 2-3 months.

I'd be questioning how good their partners were.L tbh. I could leave ex to do bedtime on his own and vice versa because I didn't breastfeed and he could handle kids waking up.

Only read the first few, but yes you’d be unreasonable to discard friends because they’ve had children and their lives have changed. What would you do, live a friendless
life? Magic up some childfree friends from somewhere? Try to compromise a bit, maybe even get to know their kids. Things will change again when kids are older.

OP, women's lives change when we have small children. Our priorities change and often friendships suffer when there is a disparity in those priorities. It's a fact we can't change.

It's difficult for young moms to find the time to be on their own with small kids. Cancellations happen because children get sick when you last want them to be or there are issues with the father/grandparents/extended family being suddenly being unavailble. Trust me, most young mothers will give anything to have lunch/dinner/a few hours with good friends without their kids but is rarely possible.

I had my first child when I was very young and my best friends today were the one that stuck with me through all the cancellations, tantrums, "can you come to my place", and endless talk about my child being sick or wanting to be single again.

You can end a friendship anytime if you've developed different priorities in life. It happens, nothing wrong with it. But ......best frienships are the ones that are always going to be there through thick and thin and last a lifetime.

Only you know what you need for yourself.

OP, when all my best friends had kids and I didn’t, I felt really uncomfortably aware that they meant more to me than I did to them. Not because they didn’t care, but because they just didn’t have time and emotional energy left over after work and parenting for anything else. I felt like an afterthought, or, worse, just another oppressive social obligation when they were exhausted and preoccupied.

I ended up spending more time with my friends who didn’t have kids. But given that most women do have kids at some point, there became fewer and fewer of those as time went on. It was a tricky time where it felt like everyone else was increasing their relational security and stability and sense of community, while mine was dwindling away.

It is hard, OP, and lonely. I get where you’re coming from. See if you can let go of these friendships in a way that feels OK to you.

I always have to laugh about the phrase "family time". What even is it? When ds was smaller we used the weekends to catch up with chores, shopping (in the days before online supermarket shopping) and maybe reading the paper. I imagine in most households "family time" = catching up with housework while kids watch TV. That's fine, and may be a better use of time than seeing friends, but don't pretend that it's "quality time". Neither is hanging around in a hot car in a traffic jam on the way to the overcrowded beach.

What I will say OP is that I am still good friends with people who don't have kids. Stay in touch and be patient, they will come back to you.

always some reason why meeting is problematic (I NEVER ask to meet in the evening it's only ever afternoons so have no idea why so difficult
**
I have a toddler, and for me evenings are easier everytime, have you tried this route?

It is rubbish, but having kids is rough, things do have to temporarily fall by the wayside, and it is often friendships, mine have all been recently picked back up again now my child is older.
**

My friend has a 6 year old and a 2 year old, I think I've been to a play and to lunch with her once, and that's it on non-child-present activities in the past six years. The kids don't sleep well, both parents work, they don't have local family for childcare at evenings/weekends. The 2 year old naps with her during the day at weekends, and leaving both kids with dad is okay for short bursts but juggling both of them single handed is pretty hard work, often they have conflicting wants and it descends into tantrums. Generally whoever doesn't have the kids is trying to get basics like cooking and cleaning done. I go to their house and help with the kids and with house jobs every week. Taking one kid out for a bit while dad has the other to let her catch up on sorting laundry is about the peak level of treat time for herself she gets!

Weekday evenings are easier for child free meet ups. Weekend is family time only. We don’t even meet with other families.

To those who seem to think you can only retain friendships by “prioritising” friends - I think that is quite wrong. The vast majority of my friends have children too so we meet as families. I get to have a natter with my adult friends and the kids from both families play together. In most cases we were couple friends pre-DC or if we met after having DC we are friends as families so DH and I are both there and both get to catch up with our friends too. We have been perfectly well able to maintain friendships with the childless couples we know too.

We get out and about loads that way and have done weekends away, shows, festivals and events. The thing is - I want to do that stuff with my friends and my family and I can. Then no one is stuck at home (unless we are at home because we want to be) - we are all having fun together. I would not prioritise an afternoon with a friend without the kids over that because quite frankly I don’t think that sounds as good, and I 100% want to be with my kids too.

The friendships that have drifted have been friends that are only friends with me or only with DH, that want to be “prioritised” 1:1 - we’re really sociable and that dynamic doesn’t really work for either of us. It does for others I guess though.