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

If you're asking to meet weekday mid day without kids, who do you think should have them? I couldn't get a babysitter to meet you for lunch but i could get DH to have them of an evening. So are you doing afternoons because that's all you're willing to offer or because you think it's easier for them?

Might be worth asking them directly when is the best time we can meet so Dave can have the kids and we can have a proper catch up at the cocktail bar in town etc.

Ultimately if specific friends are being flaky, its reasonable to point this out and let them do some of the running.

@Kennykenkencat What was your life like before you had children? Sorry to say but you sound like an utter bore.
Not so long ago, the main aim of parenting was to raise independant children. Now so much modern 'wisdom' seems to be creating a little unit of mum and children, to the exclusion of everyone else. Dad might get the occasional look-in but only if mum allows it 'your baby, your rules' Grandparents might be permitted into the bubble if they have something to give, but only after mum has 'gently explained' that everything they did to raise her and/or her partner was obviously wrong, and only today's mothers know The Right Way.
I know I am wandering from the point somewhat, but so many responses in this thread point out how different (note, not better, different) parenting is now and make me yearn back to the 90s,when women didn't want to be defined by their children

OH MY GOD SHE DIDN'T.

This is driving me wild. She said that she tried evenings and her friends said no because it interfered with bedtime routine/after dinner routine. She said her friends have refused to meet in the evenings for five years. So she tried a Saturday afternoon instead. Still won't meet.

Sorry for all the bold but this is about the millionth time this has been mentioned, and it's not what's going on here.

Haven't read the updates, but I can picture the friends you're talking about. This isn't all women with kids, you're basically talking about very specific friends/personalities. I agree, ditch them and find new friends, but I don't believe how they're being is down to them having kids. I bet they were doing this kind of thing in other ways before they were parents

Tbf you sound pretty hard work yourself. I tried to keep up with the single child free friends but it's tough. My DH was working very hard most weekends when our kids were young, getting a babysitter would be 50 quid on top of seeing the relevant friend child free.

I would see these friends with the kids, the friends got beady with the kids and offered advice on parenting, how I could lose weight, dress better, drink more wine. I could tell the children were bored, I didn't really have much to discuss as my world was changed so much in the end the effort was just too much, also the criticism was infuriating.

And it isn't just when they are exclusively breast fed and tiny, there a kids parties, chess matches, football fixtures, cleaning, life admin, work, cooking, aging parents in a foreign country. I'm always busy and free time is just snatched moments.

Strangely keeping up with male friends was easier as they just came round, mucked in and didn't criticise.

How would ending these friendships look like? Not instigating contact?

You are coming across as very entitled and needy - maybe it comes across this way to your friends

Baby sitters, other parents, relatives etc looking after your children when you go out seems an easy solution but it doesn’t make you feel at ease. There is a gaping hole where this little person should be
It does get better but not whilst they are still in primary school.
I have only just got used to not being with Dd everyday and she is in her 20s

How did you get through the school day??
I must be the worst mother ever. went out Sat with a friend, he's single and childless, ;eft at 8 am and got in at midnight. No gaping hole, trusted DH totally, had a few photos throughout the day but no weeping and wailing that three parts of my soul were out of my reach.

God i'm even sending the twins to nursery when they're three and i don't even have a job

I have to laugh at the back in my day comments about society now being child centric etc. Amazingly as time goes on we learn more and adapt our behaviour. I was made to spend all day in the garden as a child whilst parents did housework, socialised, lived their lives. I don’t want that for my child.

Relationships with friends have phased out for the exact same reason. I am 100% with you.

I had friends I would see once every few months, not weekly or even monthly but the times that we did meet, we had to meet after swimming, before tea time and around ballet or the child would come even though there was a perfectly capable father at home.

Forget people getting back to you. I had one friend who over two years ago I sent a little note to say my Mum had passed away and have still not heard from her.

I never pushed it, I didn't ask for anything unreasonable, and I didn't expect them to do things at the drop of hat. I accepted the constant cancellations because one of the children had a cold and it couldn't be something a father could possibly deal with but there comes a point when you get pushed so far down the bottom of the list that it is time to find new friends.

I never ended the friendship, I just stop making an effort and the fact that they are no longer in my life shows how little effort they were making.

I do not think you are being unreasonable to question the friendships and I wouldn't blame you for stepping back.

This thread is really awful. So many posters berating OP because she wants to see her friends - they're friends, of course she wants to see them, she cares about them!

I think it comes down to the friendships - if you both care about each other, you'll give and take and make it work. The people who won't give at all don't care about you the way you do about them and you should let those friendships go.

For me (childless not by choice), I've maintained a lot of friendships with people as they've become parents. I visit them at home / have them to mine when baby is small, I give baby cuddles and make tea and ask about feeding and development etc.
As the baby get older, the decent friends started adjusted our meet ups so they're not always with a child in tow, they're sometimes on a weekend etc.
As the children are getting older now, I've become 'auntie IsIt,' I'm interested in them, I like seeing them - some of them are really interesting people to speak to - but I think it's important to meet up without them sometimes, for both friends and me. It's how we can tell each other about our struggles or fully switch off together.
Obviously there are times we see each other a lot and others where there are big gaps but the care is there so it's fine.

I will also say though, I did ditch some friends because they became selfish and awful (Two examples: I confided in one that my last fertility treatment failed and we were out of options. I was upset - she said she'd leave dc with her H and visit. She then turned up with DC so we couldn't talk at all, no apology just a comment of how H couldn't help because he was going to the pub then proceeded to complain that her dc was bored at my house and pushing to go and do something child friendly.
Another declined a meet up and told me that actually, family time is precious and she didn't want to 'waste' any by meeting up with friends for now then was outraged a year later when I went for a weekend away with another friend to somewhere we'd always wanted to go. Apparently she had put our friendship on hold and I was meant to wait until her dc was in nursery and she has more time).

For every "you don't know what it's like to have kids" and "you're not my only childless friend, your impact is cumulative"... there's a flip side.

I think parents often don't realise that what would be bearable in one friend becomes a logistical nightmare when they all do it. I had a month a few years ago where I'd booked train etc. to go to a day event with a friend who lived some distance away. She cancelled last minute as her child had lost its favourite toy the previous day and was still inconsolable. I was on the train when she texted me, 1 liner, no apology. Said I'd get it one day.

In the same month, two other parent friends cancelled trips out last minute because "I feel I need to be here for my child today".

All in all I wasted £160 on it, and no apologies. Apparently it was just what mums do and I should understand that.

I know people without children cancel plans, too, obviously - but not in circumstances like this and not so bleeding often!

It varies doesn’t it. I found it much easier with one DC. Now I have 2 of different ages and different needs it’s trickier. My DH works some weekends and most of our good friends live in London (we live quite far away). We both work and there’s a lot to do at weekends plus swimming lessons etc. To try and meet up with friends every two months would be too much but if it’s a more local circle that you can just ‘pop out’ to it would be more do-able.

it’s up to you OP but I’d just do my own thing and cool things a bit. It will probably be easier in a few years.!

Maybe ‘nowadays’ people have realised that children become independent by being allowed to be dependent, especially, you know, when they are literally dependent on their parents to stay alive.

But carry on making digs at ‘modern’ mothers who are trying to parent as well they can bearing in the mind the damage they had inflicted on them by their parents who insisted on making them independent too early.

And LOL at mum and baby being a unit being a modern thing. What do you think cave women did? Put the baby in another cave to be eaten by a wolf? Ridiculous.

I have kids, a little older now, but I don't think once every couple of months is too much to ask of them, otherwise really what is the point of continuing a friendship.

@Louise0701
YABU to ask for weekend afternoon meet ups.
Why?

Baby sitters, other parents, relatives etc looking after your children when you go out seems an easy solution but it doesn’t make you feel at ease. There is a gaping hole where this little person should be
It does get better but not whilst they are still in primary school.
I have only just got used to not being with Dd everyday and she is in her 20s

This is suchhhh an interesting take for me to read!

I'm as thrilled to be a mother as the next person (maybe even moreso, I wanted this for years and never thought I'd get it, I still pinch myself that I managed to create and birth this perfect beautiful amazing little person, sickening as that sounds) but I've never felt this. I love the opportunity to miss him. Even as a tiny baby, popping to the supermarket solo for half an hour felt amazing after the relentlessness of a newborn! When I'm at work in the day I think about him and love him but I don't crave to be back with him, I know I'll see him at the end of the day and it'll be incredible, I get butterflies walking up to his classroom, inhaling him when he runs towards me is intoxicating. But when I'm working or with friends or at a hobby or he's asleep at night... I just feel like me again. I love being a parent but I want other new parents especially to know that feeling the way this person feels isn't necessarily typial and there's nothing wrong with not feeling that!

I think ppl are deliberately misinterpreting where the OP is coming from so they can lecture her on how difficult life is with a child!! Or how let her know how unimportant she is once kids are born

apparently they will pick her back up when the kids are older as if she should be oh so grateful that they’ve now decided she is worth a text back and maybe a coffee on a SHOCK HORROR Saturday!!

That's awful! I'm so sorry that happened to you. As a parent I can't imagine treating someone that way.

And not forgetting the advice to her to not drop her friends because she might need them in a crisis

but apparently that advice doesn’t go both ways - only for the childless women

@Sapphirejane @Happytap i rest my case 😁

Having read all of your posts OP I can fully understand why your friends with kids aren't keen to meet up.

I have two friends that do...all the time. However I know the background as both friends are vvv ill (different sets of friends so don't know each other) .. one I suspect won't see her DD leave primary school and the other has another major experimental life saving surgery booked. If this helps them cope I'm happy to lend my ears, like their posts on Facebook and answer their worried WhatsApp in the middle of the night.

You still haven't said how old the kids are!

Theres a huge difference between a baby, a toddler and a child in terms of what you can do when.

Also how many kids do some of these friends have? Are they are similar or different stages.

Tbh mornings are usually better for mothers anyway as most kids nap in the afternoon and the kids are happier in the morning. It can also be hard to match up several families schedules as the partners might also have friends who want some kid free time with them.

FWIW I have a 5 and 3 year old. Only recently have DH and I been able to take a half day kid free on Saturdays each. I also def have a lot more possibility for free time away from the kids now too.

By all means end these friendships if you want. No one forces you to be friends with anyone.

Sorry posted on wrong thread...no.idea how that happened