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

As other previous posters have said, you need additional new friends who want to do what you want to do. I've done that.

But I still keep up with my mum(/dad) friends. Every couple of months, I'm happy to:

• hang out at their place with their kid(s) and DH in the background. I often drink Prosecco/wine too.


• accompany them + kid to swimming lessons or birthday parties and chat whilst kid is occupied.

etc and I still feel its valuable time maintaining our friendship. These are old friends who would help me out in a pinch (even if they don't want to go out with me as much in this stage of their life)

I've got a couple of new friends who don't have kids or happy to do things sans kids. But I wouldn't ever drop my old friends - they've helped me out so much when I was depressed, during lockdown, listened to my job woes etc. New friends might be fun and you should definitely find some though! Just don't totally discount your Mum friends.

@HarmALlama

yep

why?

If that's the case then call me selfish. Everything does revolve around my children. I cancel plans at the slightest inconvenience to my children. Sorry not sorry

Wow. Those are gonna be some entitled adults.

@mam0918

“Your not young teens anymore, its litrally not about you and a carefree life anymore.“

yes women, now shut up and get back in your box and resign yourself to a life of drudge and putting yourself on the back burner for ever more

you’ve got responsibilities now

friendships are a silly little indulgence and waste of time….you’re a mother now!!

This thread has made me deeply, deeply grateful for my lovely group of friends tbh

I get you OP.
I have learned with a third friend that that's how it shall forever be and I just moved on. As you can see on this thread, many mums (note not dads because my DH hasn't lost a single friend to "can't come, ever" just to "can't come sometimes") just won't go out or anything. I agree with pp, it's often very martyrish.

It's sad losing friends like that, isn't it. But that's life unfortunately

I actually agree with this. I have two young DDs and a great DH so every couple of months I go out with friends one evening for dinner and DH does bedtime. It's my time to be an adult and have a proper catch up with my friends and I need it tbh. Weekends are often for family time as DH and I are both working in the week but I'd happily meet for a coffee and a cake with a friend if we planned it in advance, it sounds great tbh!

Good on you and I mean it. Friends like you are not easy to find.

Yes, cease being friends with them but don't blame them for it. Find more appropriate friends. They have moved on, meet them where they are or change who you meet.

Tbh, I don't have kids or actually go out to work but am menopausal/ND/run a business /have elderly infirm parents/my own health issues & struggle with my time being demanded by friends. Anyone who is hard work will definitely be very low priority & that includes irate family.

Your not young teens anymore, its litrally not about you and a carefree life anymore

Is it not? Why not? Because you're a mummy now so put the frivolities back in the box and enjoy your life meal planning and taking kids to swimming lessons or you are A Bad Woman? Fuck that noise.

Just to add. One of these friend's kid is now at school and suddenly after 5 years she moans that I don't want to meet up anymore (i work flexi so can do brunch on weekday). 5 years of "no, can't".

If you are a single person without dependents then in many ways it is way easier to cut costs - you can quite happily live on beans of toast for a week - (I've done it myself) when I was younger...

If you have dependents it is an entirely different matter. Things come up. You can't put off buying new shoes like you can when you are an adult!

You need a wider range of friends. Try older people who are past the DC stage.

DC are the top priority. That's just life. It is hard to be the only child free person when everyone you know has DC.

Maybe look for new friends who are child free? Friends for some people can be the most important people in our lives, if that's the kind of friendship you'd like then you just need to find similarly minded people.
Different friends can suit different life stages or situations.
No need to end the existing friendships but they can be on the back burner a bit with less contact maybe.
It sounds like you have been deprioritised by your friends with children which can be painful.

Oh goodness OP. I can see why it’s annoying for you but you really don’t have a clue- but to be fair you don’t know any different. To say you find it ‘draining’ I find quite funny- see it from their point of view, they have this draining child (or more) 24/7. Probably why they aren’t full of beans to socialise. Obviously those of us with children have had a life before kids and after so we do see both sides of the coin. In my shoes socializing with 3 children (2 of them young) as a single parent with minimal support is very low on my list of priorities- in fact it just feels like another ‘job’ on my list to tick off to keep other people happy.

In reality I think it’s best to keep your distance until the children become older or find fellow child free friends.

@LuckySantangelo35

Because you sound like a childless person.

My experience of parenthood was that the early years were all-consuming and exhausting. They just were.

Now they're older, I find parenting pretty delightful, but the early days were relentless grind.

What's really interesting to me is the level of anger from some of the childless posters. Some of you keep saying you don't understand, why can't you parents just...

We explain, but the explanations aren't accepted.

To me, that says that you are not really looking to understand, but looking for a hook to argue back with.

That's fine, but in that case, I think we all may be wasting our MN time...

I think YANBU and you should find different friendships. The vast majority of women have children and it’s just part of life. I would be devastated if one of my friends seen it as such a burden. Life changes , adaptions need to happen. A true friend would accommodate friend time around children because your friends children are the most important thing happening in their life whether you like that or not. And if you don’t like it you are no friend.

From my experience its the selfishness and the whole vibe of everything revolves around me and my kid and tough luck anyone else.

My own sister is like this, can never plan a single thing. Everything is 'ask me the day before' but you'll be lucky if she even picks up the phone when you try and find out. Meanwhile your having to keep time free for this last minute crap.

Its been 5 years and the inability to even plan and stick to 1 day to visit me in my house for a few hours and she only lives 30 mins away is beyond disappointing.

Conversely my uni friend has 4 children and whilst she is up north so meeting up isn't often we still chat almost once a week and for hours!

So if you value your friendships you will make it work and happen.

OP I understand your frustrations. However I also think you want too much and I saw that as someone who carved out a lot of time for my child free friends when I had DC.

Meeting on an evening once a month is quite a big ask for someone with young DC. They likely have other friends and indeed family to see over the month and if they are working one night out a week is actually quite a lot. Keep in mind that you are not the only person they need or want to meet.

Daytime meet ups will be difficult for a while - even when the kids get bigger, parties, matches , classes etc all mean that Saturdays are rarely a parents own. Add in grandparents etc are weekends can become very very hectic.

I don’t think it’s advisable to simply cut off friendships but I do think you need to widen your group. You also need to be more open minded about popping over to theirs. Yes it’s boring but that’s their stage of life.

For everyone mentioning me about my post, Ill just answer all of you here. I'd rather be a lonely old woman with ZERO friends then to inconvenience my children to go gallivanting with people who are childless and don't understand how hard and time consuming it is being a mom to young children.

I don't choose to be this "boring" I literally have no choice LOL.

Thank God I have mom friends and they understand exactly what its like and we hang out at each other's house and bring our kids along, we go to park and do lots of fun filled KID centered activities. We have days out etc etc etc

Its not that hard, find friends that compliments YOUR lifestyle, end of!

@Mummy2Babba Perhaps the friends see it as a burden because the OP is looking for so much more than they can give.
An evening night out every 6-8 weeks along with a couple of daytime meet ups should be enough.

I get the OP needs more at this stage of her life and that is entirely reasonable, but she needs to get it from other people , this is just a case of different life stages having different needs

@AppleIsMyName That’s great you have your mum friends but I would always have carved time out for my single friends even when my DC were young. It might only have been 5 or 6 tImes a year but I kept up the connection

@HarmALlama

course it’s exhausting! I never said it wasn’t!

but

for me I would have been miserable if I’d let myself get swallowed up by being a mother. I NEEDED to do stuff like go for a run or go get my hair done or go to the pub with a pal. Yeah my child would rather I was at home with them but I knew they were safe and well cared for with their dad so I went anyway

I have 2 girls, I'm a man, and life just changed immeasurably. We've managed to stay friends, but with a business, DP, children, and family, friendships evolve and change.
I generally meet up with friends 2 or 3 times a yr, but the meet-ups start at 12 noon and then end when we've had enough. During covid, I saw no friends at all.
Recently the group day out was canceled due to one of the guys having to do some gardening in prep for his wife hosting her friend's birthday. Something always crops up.

We just say ok, shrug, and make a casual promise to rearrange. A friend and I were discussing this, and sometimes we feel it would be nice to be free of the responsibilities, and put ourselves first for once, but it's not realistic for family harmony.

Santangelo 35 suggestion of meeting every 6 weeks to go on the lash isn't realistic for most families. Certainly for me wouldn't be on my list of things to enjoy, but I think I've grown out of that. Even when we meet for an all-day sesh, I still get up at 7-8 am and start my daily duites.

My sister in law has carried on socialising with her friends in exactly the same way as she did before she had children, and that's only because the grandparents and her husband enable facilitate it by looking after the children. Most parents aren't lucky enough to have that kind of free on demand child care.

I think in general people's priorities do change once they've had children. Your lives have taken different paths and you've grown apart. It's just what happens to friendships over time. I know it's not what you want to hear but your 'friends' are never going to prioritise you over their own children. And I think you'd be happier if you let these friends go and looked to build new friendships with people who are available to socialise and have similar interests.