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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Are mum friends, real friends?

45 replies

Catdeeleyslovelyhair · 08/05/2024 11:42

I have a nice set of 6 friends I met through having my dc, have know them 3-5 years (a couple longer than others) We do things with the kids and a couple of times without
I like them, quite enjoy meet ups, although often don’t want to go before I go, which I know is weird, but they don’t feel the same as previous friendships.
Friendships from school, college, uni and work friends (those who started as colleagues and became proper friends) seemed a lot stronger and more personal, these seem quite throwaway, even though we confide in one another. Is this just what happens when you have kids, or am I being too intense?

OP posts:

ThewaytoAmarula · 08/05/2024 14:08

I agree some people are weirdly dismissive of "mum friends", you usually then get the comment "they just happen to have given birth the same year as you", which makes no sense really.

Unless you also say to your kids "Oh don't bother making friends with those kids, they just happen to be in the same class /tutorial/ hall of residence as you". I prefer to think you'll always find some like minded people wherever you go in life. Even shudder in the school playground!

maybein2022 · 08/05/2024 14:13

It depends. I have what I call ‘friends of circumstance’ and real friends from these mum friend groups- I don’t mean that in a bad way. When my first DC started primary school- a large group of us became friends and for many years we did a lot together- play dates, dinners, even time away together etc. However that first DC is now a teenager, and some of those friends and I have naturally drifted apart, we’d say hello and chat politely if I bumped into them- but they’re no longer my friends. They were what I’d call ‘friends of circumstance’ even though I really enjoyed the friendship back then. Then around 5 of those mum friends have gone on to be very close friends who I still see regularly and do a lot with. Some are even godmothers to my subsequent children.

I have another group of mum friends not made through school but through groups and classes or friend of friends too, again, some have drifted away but some I still see and really enjoy hanging out with.

My absolute closest friends will always be my school friends though. I think there’s no ‘right’ answer here.

LifeExperience · 08/05/2024 14:43

I'm still very close with one of my mum friends. We commiserated through the tough years of work and child-rearing and, now that our children are grown, we're both retired and hang out a lot. We do lunch, shopping, go to the beach, exercise together, etc. I've sat with her during chemo treatments and she held my hand when my daughter had several hospitalizations during her teen years. Mum friends can be lifetime friends.

Hotttchoc · 08/05/2024 14:56

Well they could be close friends or they might not be?

As PP says it's like work friends - some may become close friends but others may not

grannycake · 08/05/2024 15:22

My two closest friends started as Mum friends - our kids now range from 41 to 32. One of my friends died young but I'm still in touch with her DD. The other friend lives abroad but we have remained in touch and see her and her DH regularly

SecondHandFurniture · 08/05/2024 15:28

My mum friends are... I'd say max 2 hours in the park/coffee shop/softplay or a playdate friends. Whereas I could go away for a week with either of my very best friends and not get sick of them, but only one is a childhood friend - the other was my neighbour in halls at uni.

I think it's luck. Had I met uni best friend at an NCT group we'd have got on just as well.

ineedtostopbeingdramaticfirst · 08/05/2024 15:42

I've had three sets. First two sets phased out by time kids were about 11 (a slow decrease from reception)

Ds is 8 from his group I'm still friends with 2 women. 1 I'm very close with and still see her most weeks. If neither of us move I imagine we will stay friends

curlywhirly99 · 08/05/2024 15:47

I think there is a big difference between being friendly with someone and being friends with someone.

Met my best friend at the school gates 8 years ago! Other Mum 'friends' have drifted now don't need to facilitate play dates or when the kids were no longer friends.

HcbSS · 11/05/2024 00:12

As long as they are interesting people a d can actually talk about stuff other than children, and you can do things together without the kids holding you together, of course they can be good friends.

Neveragain35 · 11/05/2024 00:22

I think mum friends can become real friends. My ex walked out when my DC were 6 and 4 and we’d only been living in the town a few months. Some of the school mums I’d only known for play dates and coffee for a couple of months because my lifeline as they watched the kids while I went for job interviews, listened to me spill my guts out after school drop off when I was a wreck. 10 years later some of these women are my closest friends despite the fact the kids barely hang out any more!

Ferngardens · 11/05/2024 00:23

It depends really but for me I get tired when we always have to meet with the kids, if someone won't meet for a drink, coffee or do something without kids then I find it hard to think of it as a real friendship especially when the kids are school age. I've made some really special friends that I've known over 10 years now. My mum still has friends for over 40 years from my school days but sadly still sees them as 'mum friends' and is a bit arms length.

napping345 · 11/05/2024 03:40

They can be but I think most are situational.

Oblomov24 · 11/05/2024 04:26

You don't want to go to the meet up's beforehand?
My mum friends are very important to me. One poster said the friendship doesn't survive if you move away? Most don't! So I can't see how that applies?

Philandbill · 11/05/2024 04:34

napping345 · 11/05/2024 03:40

They can be but I think most are situational.

This. My best friends, like yours, are from university and a time spent working abroad. Mum friends locally were great when the children were little but now the DC are much older I don't long to see mum friends as I do my old friends who are geographically scattered. Perhaps friendships are more intense / invested in before you have children? Or perhaps if you've got a lovely circle of old friends there's not the need for newer friends and subconsciously you hold back? Pondering...

Jennybeans401 · 11/05/2024 06:22

I think you can be lucky with mum friends if you have something more to bond over.

I've had many mum friends but few of them have stuck.Some abandoned us when my eldest showed signs of disability,some drifted.I have a small group of SEND mums who I'm close to but our lives are dedicated to our dcs. I think it's really hard maintaining any type of social life with dcs (speaking from my experience of having no child care).

Beautiful3 · 11/05/2024 07:00

None of my mum friends are real friends.

OolongTeaDrinker · 11/05/2024 09:42

I think by the time most women have children today - into their 30s - they have an established group of friends. The friends you make in your late teens and twenties when you have all the time in the world to just hang out, form close bonds and discover the world together are different to those who you make when you are older, have more pressures, and your free time is not really entirely your own.

I currently have some close friends that I adore who I met through the DC, but I don't know how long these friendships would realistically last if one of us moved away and we didn't have the shared school run/rugby fields/same life stage factors going on. But for now we enjoy each other's company and help each other out when needed, and I see them far more often than I do my oldest friends. But when I do see my oldest friends whom I've known since university, it is clear the depth of those connections is far more durable and deep than those I have with my mum friends whom I've only known for a few years.

Original poster

Catdeeleyslovelyhair · 11/05/2024 16:56

@Beautiful3 What’s the point then? Do you like them, would you miss them
if you didn’t see them anymore etc?

OP posts:

Beautiful3 · 11/05/2024 23:47

Catdeeleyslovelyhair · 11/05/2024 16:56

@Beautiful3 What’s the point then? Do you like them, would you miss them
if you didn’t see them anymore etc?

I've raised 2 children through primary school. I made great friends with my first child's friends mums. When they left primary school, I never saw them again. They'd all moved on, some moved away, some went back to work full time. Their lives changed in different directions. With my youngest I expected the same to happen. People use each other at different stages of life. I am no longer useful to other mums as they no longer need play dates/school run favours etc. Such is life.

Boydd · 12/05/2024 00:19

My closest friend is the first mum I spoke to at the school gates over 30 years ago. We have been through so much together. I’m godmother to both her grandchildren and she has been a rock during my cancer battle. She is closer to me than my sister but our dc have not been close since age 11.

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