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

God you sound insufferable and 100% like one of these women who judge women for not having children.

‘us mums’ ‘more important that we draw boundaries’ 🤮

In the nicest way OP, it sounds like your friends aren’t right for you at the moment and you aren’t right for them.

You’ve told them you want to meet out, they’ve said that’s too difficult and invited you round but you don’t want to go round so it no longer works for either party.

Mothers have the right to draw their boundaires like anyone else, in fact it is much more important that we do so.

This thread is insane.

Tbh if I had to chose between DC and a friend, I would chose DC all the time. Its time to move and find new friends OP.

I think you seem a bit needy tbh. Having kids is life changing and I'm not sure you understand how full on it is. I am struggling to maintain a relationship with my partner at the moment never mind friends! Sadly you need to accept you are not their priority.

So I'm a mum of a 3 year old and 2 year old and I think its perfectly OK for you to voice this frustration. I personally love to leave the kids home with dad once every few months to go out for drinks and stuff but that's once every few months. Weekends are now for family days out etc and I don't have the time I used to for my friends. Is this OK? Yes and no. Just really comes with the territory with having kids.

But you are your own person and you're more than free to step away from the friendships as sometimes some space is a good thing.

You're absolutely not being unreasonable. It's just rude to never text back. It's ridiculous to never be able to have a night out or a coffee with you every couple of months.

You definitely need better friends!

Not read full thread - you sound really selfish OP

@stayingpositiveifpossible lol.

You're right. The childless don't deserve compassion or empathy, because of course they are not fully realised people. They have no idea what it even is like to be a mother! Subhuman, really.

Ffs.

No she doesn't. Not at all. Can't you read? Exactly what has OP said that is selfish? Find one comment. She's bent over backwards for five years for her friends who treat her like shit and people like you call her selfish?

Is there some kind of a law that requires us mums to empathise with someone who has no idea what it is like being a mother

and this is just embarrassing. "Us mums". What the fuck are you on? 🤣

So you are annoyed when they bring the kids but also annoyed that they meet up with other families/mum friends, who presumably don’t have that expectation?

I was all ready to be sympathetic but think you need new friends because the realities of parenting may make it impossible for you to keep these friends.

You’re at a different stage in your life than your mum friends, and there will be a period where they are navigating being a parent, and it does take up a lot of your life, especially if you’re juggling work, spending quality time with your partner and making time for DCs too. I went from meeting up with my none mum friends every week to possibly once every couple of months. Not because I cared for my friends less, but just wasn’t doable to fit them in as often. Unfortunately you just have to adapt for now and start forming new friendships with others with no DCs who can fit in with what your friendship needs are.

And yes, the rule is general normal humane behaviour

I don't have kids and think you need new friends. Of course parents have utterly changed priorities when they have kids and things change massively, but the OPs friends seem to be happy to be selfish and rude as well. They aren't acting like normal parents of small children, it sounds as if they are just useless.

Genuinely don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this thread! I’m childfree by choice and my best friend has a young child: she doesn’t expect me to always spend time with him every time we see each other, I do lots of paddling pool afternoons/ parks/ pretending to drink tea when he is along for the ride.

It’s called compromise and adult conversations! No one is more important because they do or don’t have children - work out a middle ground and do that.

If this has been going on for five years YANBU. Even my most attachment focused friend was meeting up minus kids by this stage. I suspect you have become a very low priority friend compared to their mum friends/ family and are just deprioritized in terms of meeting up. In your shoes I would look for new, more compatible friends.

You sound like hard work OP I’m not surprised some of the friends have stopped putting in the effort for you as clearly it’s never enough

So unnecessarily mean to a person who is feeling hurt and lonely

If you don't feel that they're bothering with you, then you can just stop bothering with them so much and find some new friends. See them infrequently if that works, or not at all, it's really up to you. But you're right, being a parent doesn't prevent people from meeting up with friends if that's what they want to do, especially if they have partners. It is more difficult though, and dynamics change quite a bit, so maybe they're just spread a bit thin? Do these people have lots of other friends to divide their time between, or are you a close knit, small friendship group? If the former, I can understand why they might only be able to see you infrequently. I guess you either take what you can get, and stop feeling pissed off at them, or you do just find new friends.

It's the entitlement that really just struggle with. It's as if once a child you and your priorities and feelings trump everyone else's

As a parent, my child(ren) do trump everyone, or they should do. My time with them and what they need comes first. It’s not a massive sense of entitlement, it’s what happens when you have children. Unfortunately friends do fall by the side as it becomes easier all round when you go out with family, and new friends you meet through your children. You are all in the same boat, and no one is putting extra pressure on you.

Sorry you feel this way OP. Your friends probably don’t want to go out Sat afternoons sorry. As a parent that is quite a bad time.

Forgot to add that if the child is over 1, they probably have 30 parties to attend on a Sat every year. 😜

I think you’re being unreasonable, yes. But I don’t think your ‘friends’ would be unreasonable to bin you off.
You sound like a churlish 14 year old.

Guess what! You’re not the most important person in their life-but you are certainly one of the most self involved.

A good friend makes allowances when someone has kids, because the kids come first. Always.
Either grow up and realise that, or go find yourself a group of teenagers to befriend.

You also completely contradict yourself, you’re whining about your friends bringing their children to meet you, then in the next breath you whine that you’re not being invited to meet ups with other mums (and presumably their kids)
Why would they invite you on play dates? You have no kids, and you’re more than likely making your absolute contempt to anyone waist height and below completely obvious.

My sympathy for the OP has grown and grown over this thread - at first I felt that she portrayed things as so one-sided that she was surely exaggerating or being a bit unfair. But then the thread filled up with women who really do think the world should revolve around their children and that they couldn't possibly waste a minute of their precious time on a friend without children! So it seems they do exist and it is possible that the OP has the bad luck to be surrounded by them.

For what it's worth, I'm a mum, my local friends are all mums of small children and if anything this thread has encouraged me to start arranging the next childfree get together. We are still people.