No kids on our rare girls day

[LemonBellyy]

My friends and I are in our 30s, the 3 of them have children, I don’t.

One of my friends has been on a health and fitness journey and it’s her goal this year to complete a 10 mile walk, she expressed she was disappointed she hadn’t found time to complete it as she’s a busy working mum and now the weather is turning so I said let’s arrange something, and we have. We invited my other 2 friends, one can’t make the date and the other said she wanted to come, she’s eager to get out the house more, but it’s a weekday so she doesn’t have childcare for her 15 month old so asked if she could bring him.

I checked with the original friend who agreed that we wanted this as a no kids thing so I replied and explained why, I sent her the route, there’s no toilets, it’s steep in places, not buggy friendly but she said she’d be fine putting him in her carrier and he loves being out for walks. I didn’t reply while I was at work and she seemed to sense our reluctance as was a bit upset and said she wouldn’t make her child our problem.

Is it unreasonable to stick to our guns? Because ultimately listening to a crying baby, stopping for frequent snack breaks etc will become our problem. We do lots of kid friendly activities as a group and wanted this one thing to be child free. But I know being a mum is tough and she would love to spend the time with us so I’m torn.

AIBU?

Yeah unfortunately when arranging a weekend date for our Halloween thing in October we’ve already concluded we don’t have one when we are all free. My friend and I had work holiday to use up so that’s why we went for a weekday. I wish we could find a date for everyone but if we continue to push it back until everyone is free it will never happen.

A 10 mile walk with a toddler IS a big deal! My pet peeve is people who seem to think their kids can join any activity. I feel the same about dogs. And I have both. Sometimes kids can’t come because I want to swear, talk sh*t about stuff and not have to censor myself! And I think that’s fine!

Just to be clear it’s not like this is the only day she doesn’t have childcare, we would have rearranged to any weekday that week but she’s never available child free on weekdays because her husband works. She’s only free on the occasional weekends when she isn’t doing stuff with her kids and some weekday evenings. It’s not that easy to find a date to suit everyone.

No kids end off it’s adults time and she can take it or leave it

She's nuts to take a toddler on a ten mile walk.

The priority here is your friend achieving a ten mile walk. Taking a baby along is unlikely to be without implications.

This is about your friends fitness journey, so it should be about her primarily, if a toddler goes even on his mother's back her pace and the childs needs will dictate the day, do no, she shouldn't expect to come with her toddler, it's actually quite selfish of her to expect that.

You sound like a lovely friend OP, sensitive to both your one friend's fitness journey and your other friend's loneliness / childcare issues. You are right in this instance though that a ten mile walk is definitely not toddler friendly! Would it be possible for her to meet you afterwards for a celebratory coffee and cake?