To not attend family gatherings as the only single person

[Sundaycoffee]

AIBU to avoid family gatherings as I find them too difficult as a single person.
I am one of 3 daughters the oldest at 39. My two youngers sisters (37 and 28) both have young children and the entire time they spend their time chatting about parenting. Their other halves get on well and obviously a lot of the day is focused around the children.
I feel like the black sheep of the family as I am single and childless (not by choice) and being the eldest makes it even more difficult to see my two younger sisters bonding over motherhood.
I come away from these gatherings feeling like the black sheep of the family and need to take time throughout the day popping for a break to myself as I feel quite overwhelmed by it all.
It's starting to make me feel like maybe it would be easier to miss them altogether but would IBU?

@Factsandfeelings did you join a childfree group or something? I'm childfree by choice and would love some childfree friends. I do have DSC though, I assume I am still free to join the groups!

I agree with this approach.

I do actually enjoy children (though childfree) but in terms of time investment, other people's children aren't really that interesting

Family child centred events taking up precious weekends and holiday periods and involving a lot of travel and "cognitive load" are something I've detached from.

As a polite middle aged spinster, I'm mindful of being typecast as the "low status" reliable person who is there to help everyone but doesn't deserve respect.

It's down to me to create the life and environment I want.

Of course I'm available in case of emergencies, or would help out if something specific, but am a LOT happier now I'm either chilling out solo at home or building other interests and social networks and community.

I now am fully booked out with cool stuff and have had some great experiences, grown as a person.

This does take time, so practically it's better to start sooner.

There's no reason to burn bridges or have massive discussions, just detach politely and peacefully. Life is short. You're not rejecting anyone.

As pps say find some sort of compromise - maybe you want to just drop in for a coffee, or reduce frequency, or just for certain occasions. There's no medals for making yourself miserable.

Many men do this with no guilt (you could always make up a white lie to get time back for yourself. Say you've met a man or got some weird health issues or something).

Placemarking.

Seems sad to miss time you could spend with your family for this reason. There is still much to enjoy from seeing one’s family.

Since when did seeing family depend on who had children odd?

I understand why youdon't want to go. I am happily single but I'm done with people's questions. So, I'm saying thanks but no thanks to some events, especially in the extended family.

Your parents (or at least your mother) sound like the problem. It's such a fundamental level of disrespect not waiting for you before exchanging easter gifts.

I get it. I was childless until Covid, never thought it'd happen, and my family had written me off and pushed me into a 'low status' role that meant I often had to do / host everything but with very little thanks. Once, when we lived in Sweden, I hosted Christmas at mine and the entire family stayed with me but when we exchanged presents my husband and I didn't receive a single one!

Then I had 2 in fairly quick succession and nothing really changed. I was still expected to make the effort and so I stopped.

This was me yesterday. No parents as they died early, but extended family Easter Saturday and I may as well not have been there. As it was, I arrived late and left early - I find it really hard otherwise. I made the decision to step back at my 50th when nobody helped clear up, it was my birthday for about two minutes and then everyone spent the next four hours talking about a family baby that wasn’t due for another 6 months, and a wedding that was 18 months away.

I also skip Xmas - I “go away to the Lakes with friends” and have a quiet day at home. My friends are good but my family make me feel like a failure at life.

No you’re not unreasonable. I’m in a similar position in that I’ve been divorced a long time now, childfree rather than childless ans now, at the age of 50 terminally unattractive to men. I’m also the only single, childless one in my family and I did the same as you and duck out because the patronising and judgement, not to mention the sarky comments about my easy life got too much. I stay away for my sanity and put my energy into my relationships with friends, especially ones like me. Much more interesting conversation. I hope you find your tribe.

Agree and your mum is also ‘Tone Deaf’ regarding the Facebook post.
Maybe seeing why you feel left out….

Good question.

I'm sorry that you have to put up with that. It does seem a bit tactless of them. I had kids very late in life and before then my siblings were bigging me up as the fun auntie (which I enjoyed). They also enjoyed hearing about all the things I was getting up to as a single childless person and avoided talking too much about their kids when we got together.

I agree with the PP who said maybe have a quiet word with your mum about it. You shouldn't have to isolate yourself. Maybe also keep changing the subject with them when they bang on about the kids. Obviously if it doesn't work, do what you need to do. They should know better.

You are not being unreasonable. I am slightly older than you but recall being happy when I was overseas not having to attend all family functions as I found them very painful as somebody childless by circumstance.

I took the time to grieve and move on and not love spending time with my massive brood of nieces and nephews.

Do as much or as little as you want. Protect your mental health as a priority.

If you avoid family get togethers you will feel - and be - increasingly sidelined. You'll not know about shared conversations, plans made, jokes shares, nor kept up with the news in everyone's lives.

When young children are in play, they will always be a dominant topic among families. Hell, we're only in families because they (our parents) had children. So it's inevitable there will be a focus on grandchildren and conversations about various stages of parenting. It's something they have all been through or are going through.

But that's not all there has to be. With my BIL it's a shared love of a genre of films; with my dad and my MIL it's birdwatching; all the adults are particularly competitive about Gin Rummy that follows all shared meals.

Finding other common ground that allows you to keep those strong bonds with your family is more likely to make you feel connected to your family than to pull apart and be The One Who Never Shows Up.

As for the Mother's Day post - I think you're reading in to it something that wasn't there. Mother's Day is about appreciating mothers. Your mum was congratulating your sisters on being good mums, acknowledging their roles as mothers. It's not for acknowledging all your offspring* Mothers. God knows they only get one day a year.

*I love that word. Blame Finding Nemo if you don't like it yourself. Mine are Offspring, we are Parental Units. Dude.

I suffered with infertility due years, adopted at 44. As the only childless person in a large family it wasn't easy. But that's how life is, there were other compensations from family life. Can't you enjoy the bits you can enjoy, and ignore the rest?

The Facebook post is staggeringly crass and insensitive, however re DM also preceeds to take individual family photos of each of my two sisters and their family "SundayCoffee I know you don't like having your photo taken so I won't take yours" but this just because feels awkward having a photo on my own or with my mum and dad! While my two sisters get their group family photos.
I'm just worried if I start missing out on these things it will make things worse.
By really squinting, could it have been that it.was a nice opportunity for each family group to get a nice Easter group photo and not about making you feel bad? I know for us it's rare we get a chance for a photo of the 4 of us!

I get it OP but you may be surprised to find I get it from the angle of having had a kid versus two siblings without children (who definitely will not have them). My parents love their grandchild but definitely always favoured my siblings and it’s been a long time since they were parents to young children, so they are done with it all.

So everyone sits with lovely meals in front of them, talking adult conversation while I am running all over the place maybe having swallowed quickly one bite, chasing my kid around. Always wishing someone would lend a hand so I could sit and join the adult conversation, and eat and talk for five minutes peacefully.

I am also the black sheep! I am thinking to step away myself.

You’re not being unreasonable at all. That sounds grim, and like your mum is very insensitive. I’d worry though that you isolating yourself wouldn’t help you long term. Could you talk to your sisters? FWIW, my aunt was single and no children, and she was and is the most loved member of our family. I consider her my second mum. You have the opportunity to have the most special relationships with your nieces and nephews.

O think by not attending these days then you are cutting your nose off to spite your face.

I had an aunt who had no children and she always made a huge effort for all the nieces and nephews. I have such treasured memories of her and would have hated her to have withdrawn from family events.

Even my children have wonderful memories, she passed away recently and left my daughter a beautiful piece of jewellery. She is dearly missed.

I'm 54, male, the youngest child of 7 and have been entirely single all my life. I was never interested in fatherhood - I don't really like children that much - but I didn't ever envisage eternal bachelorhood either. It has been an increasingly difficult pill to keep on swallowing in the last 20+ years. All my sisters and brothers have been in stable marriages for between 15 and 38 years and all but one have children and grandchildren in two cases. One cannot help wondering how I turned out so differently and this was never far from my mind when being with my family at stuff like parties and weddings. I got to a stage where I simply couldn't be bothered and began leaving these gatherings after a short time. Admittedly having to drive everywhere meant I couldn't relax with a proper drink and had to make do with soda water while everyone else was on beer and wine. Eventually I stopped caring and stopped showing my face. I've missed a fair few weddings but I don't think it matters now - nobody expects my presence any more and my parents are long gone so I don't have them bending my ear. I don't dislike my sisters and brothers and the in-laws and extensions. I just don't feel anything in common with them any more.

I do see why you feel the way you do but I really wouldn’t recommend avoiding these events unless you are prepared to become very isolated. If you have a full life otherwise with friends, busy social life etc and aren’t bothered if you end up left out of family things then that might not be an issue but once it becomes clear you don’t want to attend you will stop getting invited, you’ll be left out of the plans and as I say, that might be okay with you, but if it’s not then I would think twice about skipping things.

Totally get you @Sundaycoffee and huge sympathies. Been there, got the T-shirt.

But the young children stage will pass ...

If you have good relationships with individual family members can you have a chat with a few of them individually about how you’re feeling and what changes would make family gatherings feel more welcoming and inclusive for you, which at the moment they aren’t? I’d hope they might want to know how you’re feeling and have the opportunity to make some changes rather than letting you just drift away.

ETA: obviously in an ideal world they’d have more sensitivity and empathy in the first place, particularly your mum, and it shouldn’t have to be your responsibility to lay it out for them. But, assuming they’re just being thoughtless rather than intentionally unkind, it does sound like some laying out might be needed.

I can really empathise with you, as I've been through this. I'm the older of two sisters, and family events were always my mum and dad, my sister and husband, their two children - and me. I felt lonely and a failure. We went on holiday together once, which probably should have been lovely, but was awful for me. Luckily we weren't a family who had many family occasions, but I started to avoid those we did have as they were just too painful for me.

It sounds as if you get on OK with your individual family members, so, as others have suggested, I'd try to see them separately where possible, rather than as a family group. How would you feel about talking to any of them about how you feel? I didn't feel able to do that, but if you can, and they're nice people, hopefully they'd think about changing things so they're a bit easier for you.

Your mum's post was very insensitive. I'm not surprised you felt hurt by it - I would too.

Look after yourself. Feeling like the black sheep of the family is very difficult.

Yeah that Facebook post is horrible.

i know my mum loves being a gran, after it looked unlikely with me not wanting them and my sibling being gay. (This was early 90s) but luckily sibling adopted. But she would never publicly post something that is deliberately a slight to me. She 109% does wish my sibling happy parents day when they are posting pics of them and kid to celebrate and says what a great parent they are. But not on a post about her (my mums) relationship to her kids.