AIBU? baby vs Hen do

[MMoon23]

I have 4 best friends who I lived with at uni
I am the only one who has had a baby. They all sent a gift when she was born 1 year ago but since then have barely asked about her, only 1 of them has ever come to see her.
None of them sent a card for her 1st birthday. 2 of them sent a text happy birthday after I posted an Instagram post which reminded them.

1 of the gang is getting married this year and all talk in the group chat is of the wedding /hen do. All 4 girls are coming to the hen do (actually being held where I live, which is also where we all went to uni) without a second thought. And are all coming to the wedding nearby a month later. None have suggested wanting to or meeting baby at this time. I feel a bit put out that they can travel so readily for this, but haven’t for me.
1 of them is recently pregnant herself and talks a bit more about it. Another one makes very minimal remarks. I know that the others are not currently trying to conceive or have fertility issues (which would make more sense)

AIBU to feel disappointed/ annoyed that no one seems to care much ? Or that my baby is worth so little effort from my best friends? My partners best friends all sent birthday cards and texts / have met baby /check in about her.

I don’t know if I’m just being unreasonable and self absorbed in my expectations. Is it the case that of course a hen do would trump a baby visit? I have never been to a hen do before. I am now preparing to go on said hen do and see them all for the first time since baby, so need to try to not let my resentment show… how can I do this??

I was the childless friend when all of mine from Uni were starting to have babies. Thirty-odd years later - I'm still the childless one (by choice).
I'm not interested in babies or children or anything to do with them, then and now. I'm also sick of the hurtful sly comments that women who have children make towards women like me and so, for many years now, I make the decision to remove myself from a friendship when that friend becomes pregnant.
That's my problem.

Yours is that you have friends who aren't interested in your baby. That's ok. They may go on to have their own and become interested (though some people are only interested in their own), they may decide to stay childfree or they may experience fertility problems.

If you want to stay friends with this group then, bluntly, you need to accept that they are not interested in your child. They are your friends, not your childs. that is completely ok, but it is up to you whether you can accept that if you want to see them, meet with them, keep these friendships ticking over, you need to stop inviting them to meet your baby and arrange to meet them without your child. If you don't want to do that, then that is your prerogative, but the friendship won't survive.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

Quite surprised by the replies tbh. I wouldn't necessarily expect friends to always ask after your baby but surely a visit and a gift is the norm? Or at least it is in my life. Very weird friends who don't care that you have had a child. I also always buy birthday gifts for my friends' children. That isn't too strange or unusual (although I appreciate some might not do this). I think you just need to accept that your friends are very selfish. They won't get anything out of giving you a gift for your baby but they will get something out of the hen do - ie a good time fuelled by lots of alcohol. It doesn't trump your baby but they are just selfish people. When your friend has her baby, I'm sure you will see her attitude change. Although I wouldn't bother with a gift if she didn't give you one so at least you will save money!

OP - your friends are at different life stages to you OR want different things.
They may be interested in you but probably have no interest in children (either this will come to them later or it just won’t, and that is fine). It’s totally fine they feel like that.

A lot of my friends who had minimal interest (never even met my child as a baby, have no idea when their birthday is etc) are a lot more involved and receptive now they’ve met a primary school aged kid a few times that can talk/play football/watch movies.

Don’t take it personally.

Exactly. Bloody hell, I've shown more interest in a friend's wisdom tooth removal than some people on here seemingly would about their friend literally giving birth to a human being. I can assure you I do not care one iota about wisdom teeth, but I do care about my friends.

I was only speaking to my sister about this yesterday. I was in no way at all supportive enough of her when she had her 1st. I texted, visited, tried to think of helpful gifts but I just did not get it.

Same with friends, a friend of mine had a baby at 20. I bought things, visited, minded him a few times, but not much. I thought I was being a good friend but now that I am a mum I can see I wasn't all that helpful.

I've heard people say you find out who your true friends are when you have a baby. I don't think that is true. I think you realise that you really didn't have a clue what it was like until you had one yourself.

Ask them though if they would like to call around to see your baby. A friend at a hen after I had DS gushed and said she would love to meet him. I texted her a few weeks later to try arrange something but nothing has come of it. That was last October! She is just on a different path to me right now.

I've got no interest in anybody else's children

rude - heck i'd show more interest if my friend wanted me to meet her new dog! and i don't like dogs or kids.

if they are in your area, i'd expect some extra meet up, pre hen, to meet baby for a coffee etc.

Hi!

Your post resonates a lot with me. I was first in our group of 5 friends to have a baby and like you, was upset at how little interest they took in it all - visits for cuddles with newborn soon dried up, photos weren't even acknowledged and I just stopped even talking about him (except for one who has always taken an interest and loves meeting up with me and my toddler). They just had no idea how lonely it is and thought I'd skipped off into the horizon, life complete with a baby.

Unfortunately one friend just decided we have nothing in common and actively discontinued the friendship without any significant event preceding it - she is now in the process of organising her hen do/wedding and all friends except me are invited. She is a shit. The rest, I understand, they can't empathise with a situation they haven't been in before but will find out when and if they have their own.

Like others have said, until you have children, other peoples' are very very low priority.

@MMoon23 I'm glad its helped to get some different perspectives. You do sound like a lovely person though, and as someone said upthread, your friends are currently on different paths, but those paths may re-align in the future.

Just as an aside - one of my friends just adopted a puppy, a cream Labrador, just like the Andrex adverts. And she's been over-run with visitors (me included), maybe that's the way forward :) Although a baby AND a puppy could be hard work!

The thing is, it isn’t something HUGE from the outside, it’s a boring, tedious, expected thing people do and bore others with

Ignoring the baby situation, did they show any interest in visiting you? Asking your news? Call/face time you? Text you? Anything? You might be clinging to the memories of your friendship rather than actually having 4 best friends (they are not that if they don't ever want to see you or actually car about you).

I can see them not really caring about your baby, especially if seeing her require travelling time. Or if you only talk about your baby/ expect to be fussed about because you had a baby (sorry to be blunt. I only cared about my babies so I ended up living in a happy bubble with them and accept it was boring to other people)

Yanbu. This was end of my friendship group. It seems like a lot of people in this thread are bad friends tbh.

My advice to my DD was to have different categories of friends and now her youngest is nearly six, she's glad that she did that. My eldest and youngest DD's have no interest in babies and wouldn't be interested in seeing one. They'd ask about their friends health, are they managing etc but wouldn't want to get bogged down in baby stuff. In a way it's better than pretending and then having to cut contact.

But it's an objectively huge event in an individual's life. I don't mean "huge" as in, that I believe it's a major milestone that everyone should want and celebrate. I mean as in it's something major that's happened to your friend, in their life. That would cause me to be interested, in a specific nature, in my friend and the new human in their life. Nothing to do with celebrating having babies in general. I don't get it at all. Could be anything. I express interest and enthusiasm in my friends' career developments, even though I don't find it objectively interesting that they've got a promotion within their department. I care about how they feel about the promotion, not promotions in general.

I am currently pregnant, and I high fived my friend who has just returned to the country when she said "I'm not getting involved in remembering birthdays and honorary aunt stuff".

To a non-parent, it's like you've made an annoying new friend that they expect you to like as much as you do.

Not the same as a hen do at all, which is something adult female friends do together.

Uni life is a completely shared experience-you bonded over all you had in common at that life stage. It is all encompassing.

So is having a baby. I don't think lack of interest means they aren't your friends-they just don't get it. That's why different friendship groups are so important to give you options.

You are all in such a different life stage now-it doesn't mean they aren't your friends or won't be closer in the future but you are currently having an experience that none of them have and it probably seems very foreign to them and have no idea what you are feeling. A baby is one of the hugest changes you can have.

Go to the hen. Have a ball. don't only talk about your baby and be interested in their lives as well.
Reminisce on days gone by and enjoy yourself and the friends that were a big part of your life!

Personally I meet up with my mates from school twice a year and really enjoy it- occasionally we have done big meet ups with our kids as well. We've never been about one another's kids though, obviously we ask after them and talk about them. But I think it's nice to have friends where you can just be yourself as an individual without needing to bring kids or partners into it.

Did you invited them to see you ?

I've recently had a baby at 35 and have realised how completely neglectful I was when my best friends had babies,I think jts really common if you are the first in your friendship group to have a baby. Once your friend has a baby suggest meeting up.

Try to find some mum friends maybe.

Well on here people will say YABU. In real life, obviously it’s weird that your BEST friends take NO interest in your baby and have never even been to see her. You don’t have to give 2 shits about babies to go and visit your best mate, the first of the group to have a child. It’s not even the baby you have to care about, it’s the fact that your life has changed, massively, and you would have thought your best mate would be interested! Obviously you can’t talk weaning, episiotomies, best John Lewis toys, teething, sleep with them. And you would be unreasonable to expect them to be engaged with that. But no, it’s odd and pretty thoughtless for them to show so little interest in your baby.

I disagree with a lot of the posters on here. Sure, they’re not that interested in your baby but they’re your friends so they should be interested in you! And they should have made the effort to come and visit in the year since DC was born if, as you say, they are happy to travel to the same place for a hen do or a wedding. A lot of people are very self involved and not inclined to make an effort.

You’re at a different life stage and you’ve drifted apart. Concentrate on making new, more local friends. You may reconnect with them at some point in the future.

You’re being a bit naive. I will say what my dad always told me: there are only two types of adults in the world, those with children and those without. Get it?
I’m going to admit I pretty much had little interest in my friend’s kids until I had one myself. It didn’t mean I didn’t care. It’s just tedious to listen to because when you don’t have one of your own it’s hard to understand all the STUFF. As for visiting baby, newsflash: babies are boring. It’s awww isn’t he/she cute? And done. So sorry to be harsh but stop being so put out by your friends’ lack of interest. The upside is you don’t have to take an interest when they finally have one, if you don’t feel like it.

THIS!!!!

It always gets turned into commentary on societal expectations surrounding babies and family life when this gets discussed online, and I do get it - society expects us to grow up and have babies, and many people feel they want to distance themselves from that.

But in reality, your BEST FRIEND has had a life-changing event and you aren't arsed because... you don't personally like babies? A real shame.

I checked YANBU and honestly I'm surprised at how many people are saying YABU. I'm the first of my friends to have a baby and none want to have kids themselves but all have taken at least a small interest and wanted to meet her. My best friend regularly asks about her, she doesn't personally care about kids but she cares about me, and my baby is important to me so she asks. Same the other way round, she has a really boring office job that I don't care about at all but I ask her about it because it's a big part of her life. Being best friends means we talk about what is important to us and for me that's my baby. These women don't sound like best friends if they aren't interested in what is such a big part of your life. Obviously I'm in the minority here but if a friend didn't care about something so important to me I wouldn't consider them a good friend.

I’m with @tattygrl @SophieinParis and others who have said that they’re being shit friends.

I was the first of my Uni friends to have a baby by a good few years. I had my kids quite young and everyone else was still very much in single/party life. But all 5 of them had come to visit - which involved an aeroplane journey - within the first six months of her life. All 5 of them remembered her first birthday, and one of them came and helped me put on her first birthday party. I would say of those 5, two were baby people and the other 3 were not. But they were all ‘me’ people. That’s why they came, and celebrated with me.

I don’t think YABU at all OP and I hope they feel a bit ashamed if they go on to have their own kids.