To wonder if mum friends are not always real friends

[Wherethehellismyhusbandsongstuckinmyhead]

Are they all just about convenience?

Had what I thought was a fairly solid set of mum friends, we’d talk about our relationships, kids grew up together, we did events altogether and then it gradually faded out. For me it was because my Dc was ill for a long time so I wasn’t able to meet up easily. People seem to have moved on with different mum friends, which I understand. It feels like the friendships had no real meaning and weren’t what I thought they were.
Various other friendship groups have been maintained throughout the years-school friends, uni friends, work friends

Just feels a bit sad, is it just for convenience and when the kids move on, the mums do too?

I think mum friends are often friends of proximity/convenience ....friends of a season if you like.
You might find the odd connection thats a keeper but not often.
Funny thing is i didn't understand it at the time, i thought i had deep connections with people that disappeared into the ether when proximity.convenience and need was gone.
It doesn't mean those connections weren't positive at the time though .

They're genuine at the time and also a convenience.

Just like many friendships really.

Not everyone stays friends with their best friend at primary school or Uni.

Not everyone stays friends with ex colleagues no matter how well they got on.

It doesn't mean they weren't genuine at the time.

This is lovely. I really wanted that with my NCT group, especially as lots of my other life friends moved away and I have no one close by. But half of them moved away and the couple of people left I like and chat to if I bump into in the supermarket but we rarely see each other now socially four years on. It’s so sad.

Know the difference between friendly acquaintances and friends.

Nothing wrong with the former, but don’t confuse them for the latter.

I regard the school mums as friendly acquaintances. I’m friendly enough but I don’t invest my time or emotional energy in them. I invest that in people I have interests/values etc in common with.

Honestly, it is luck as much as anything else, and it can also depend on whether you have some people in your group who are organised and proactive. I am generally nervous about making suggestions to meet as I worry I’ll be rebuffed so when you’ve got some more strident types who are firm about getting everyone together it helps massively!

I saw an annoying AI generated post on Facebook the other day about the train theory regarding relationships, and while it was annoying because it was clearly AI, the message itself was quite good.

We are all on our own train journeys through life, so we stay on the train the whole time. Some people are there at the start, but then get off, others get on further down the line, some stay on for a couple of stops, and some make it all way. Mum friendships can be very intense because of the nature of tha season you’re in as mums to little one, but in the grand scheme of things not many of those mums are going to/are able to stay on your train the whole way with you! It doesn’t make them fake, pointless or meaningless relationships. It also doesn’t mean you have been ‘used’ for a season then discarded, it’s just life! You’re right it can be quite sad, but it’s the nature of all relationships, most are always evolving.

Most friendships happen because of a particular set of circumstances - a shared hobby, proximity to each other, a shared life stage or whatever. They are transactional in nature and eventually they end because they no longer serve any purpose.

Once the reason for a friendship disappears, then most friendships fizzle out and end. People move away, they stop sharing a hobby, their kids grow up.

That doesn't mean that it wasn't a real friendship at the time, but friendships take work and effort just like anything else, and if there isn't a reason for people to keep being friends then most of the time people just drift apart from each other.

I didn’t find that, but I have found that with a few of my work “friends “.

As someone else said, mum friends when your kids are little, are both friends for a reason and friends for a season. It doesn't matter what your backgrounds are or how different you are, you all have something in common, and it's a thing that you need to be able to talk to others, ask advice, share experiences with.

But eventually you find your feet, some of you go back to work, the kids start school, and everyone starts to drift away. It's not because you no longer like each other, it's because the reason is no longer there, and the season is over. It's not personal, it's just that life makes room for other things, and getting through the baby/toddler phase is no longer everyone's focus.

I think good friends will always be friends even if you see them less. You have to invest in seeing them occasionally but life gets in the way.

The vast majority of my friends are situational. I wish it wasn’t that way but that’s what seems to happen. I do have some really great long term friends. But they are in the minority. I think the painful thing is when you thought someone was a life/long term friend and they didn’t see it that way. Equally I have a SEN child and there were times people probably thought they weren’t important to me when actually they were I just was in crisis caring mode and they didn’t really understand what that meant.

‘Mum friendships’ aren’t in a different category to other friendships. You say yourself that you’d seen them much less as you had a sick child for a long time. While you were preoccupied with other things, social formations shifted. Maybe you were central to keeping that particular group as a unit, and without you it no longer cohered?

Some friendships are just company, and that's ok. Lots of mum friendships will be company and support.

I'm relocating later this year, and although we're hoping to stay in touch with our current best friends, it doesn't change how wonderful they are now if we don't.

I think it’s very normal. My kids are now adults and when I think about all the groups of women and mums I’ve been friends with over the years, well it’s mind boggling really. From primary school mums, to Saturday football mums, to karate Thursday mums to swimming Friday mums…well the list is endless. Then take into account even my own work friends from various jobs.
And yes some of them really did feel long and memorable friendships at the time. We exchanged stories and details about our lives, our kids, our husbands, our experiences and at the time, well you never feel that things will change and move on ….but they do. I’m not upset about it, life moves on and things change. It’s a bit like when you’re at school and you change school or move from primary to secondary…or when you change workplaces….its like not only does life and diaries not align anymore….but really the things you had in common with these women….well they just fade 🤷‍♀️

I don’t think any less of these women for it, I look back at all those friendship groups and work place groups with much affection. Some I still see an update from now and again in FB. Others I do sometimes think oh I wonder what happened to x, y or z. I’m not motivated to find out or resurrect the friendships, but I don’t really regret any of them either. In fact some of them, we were really all in the trenches together at times!! But I’m not bitter about anyone moving on. Personally I would find it exhausting to keep up with every single person I’ve ever met in my life time.

I’ve had mum friends who are still friends now our children are in their late 20s-and some I can’t name in the photos. But that’s not mum friends-it’s just friends. It’s the same for school friends, university friends, work friends….it’s how friends work.

It's the luck of the draw as to whether mum friendships last. Like work friends I think they are genuine at the time but circumstances change and lives take different paths.

I've been very lucky - my best friend is a mum friend and we met 40 years ago.

My oldest friend whom I'm close to but we live 200 miles apart I met 52 years ago when we were nursing students.

Over the years lots of other mum/work friends have come and gone.

I have two friends with children, they refuse to befriend any of the mum’s from their children’s schools. They are polite of course, but keep their distance.

Being a mum means nothing they are still people we do have a life outside our mum label, well some of us do, we can have friends through our children and or other connections or not

We are not all one collective brain

Some are, some aren’t. I’ve kept a couple of NCT friends, and am very close to some primary parent friends that we are no longer at same school as.
Changing circumstances - ie nursery/school - make it less convenient to stay in touch but sometimes you still make the effort. If you both want to.

Same with colleagues - I have usually kept in touch with my favourite from each work place and see them years after we have moved on to new jobs.

Of course they are genuine friendships at the time. People/circumstances change and you might not keep in touch later, but doesn’t mean it wasn’t a proper friendship. I had great friendships at school, but haven’t spoken to any of them since my early 30s - doesn’t mean they weren’t good friends.

I think I’m friendly with plenty of other parents but it’s situational. And if our kids stopped being friends I’d never see them again. A couple transitioned to actual non kid themed friendships but the key is to spend time without the kids there. My daughter was happy enough to hang out with whoever when she was tiny but very much not so as she got older (turns out she’s autistic and an introvert) so I couldn’t really go to the hangouts and things faded. I don’t feel bad about it at all.

I do have a group of pre kid friends and we all happened to have kids around the same time so that’s a double connection - we were friends already and then went through this together (ish) so they’re more solid as we have both sets of memories.

I agree with this. I don't keep in touch with any now. Eldest 18, youngest 8.

Yes, a lot of Mners have this weird fixed idea that ‘mum friends’ are a different category to ‘work friends’ or ‘hobby friends’ or any other friendships that arise situationally, but may last or not. They aren’t. They’re just like any other friendships.

For me, what were originally “mum friends” are some of my best friends 20+ years later. Some from when DS was young (he’s 30 now), he has severe ASD and LD, so those I made friends with were truly supportive, fun, understanding. Some were not, I didn’t stay friends with them. Then the friends I made when DD was at primary school (she’s 22 now) are some of my closest and best friends. I have lots of non-mum friends too from different phases

”Mum friends” aren’t different from any other type of friends. They aren’t a special species or category.

All friendship groups are like this: ultimately they provide convenient cameraderie and solidarity for a particular time and place. Work friendships are very much the same: if you’re lucky you may maintain contact with a small core but most will drift away. This is no different.

I don’t understand why people expect “mum friends” to somehow be different and I find the handwringing and drama around this frustrating. Mums are just people with the same dynamics, likes and dislikes and pressures and challenges that any other people experience.

Its like these ridiculous “bitchy school mums” threads. People get het up and offended because another mum hasn’t smiled at them on the school run or whatever, but why should they automatically be friends just because they all have kids at school?

I wish people would grow up about this and accept that mums are just ordinary people!