Why do so many mums ditch their childfree friends?

[Sishirunak70]

Especially when those friends are accommodating, take an interest in your child/children and willing to work around you?
Why do you now only associate with other Mums and think that they 'just won't get it?'

Why do you let them disappear from your life since you became a mother? Whilst I understand it's hard, it's not impossible.
There are far too many martyrs around who believe they're the only person to have ever given birth, everything must now revolve around them and that nobody else can ever be tired or busy, except for them.

Maybe you just weren't that good friends in the first place? Why not send them a message and say how you feel?

They were happy for me to pay in hundreds for their hen dos, weddings and baby showers. I understand that 'people drift" but it's them doing that, not me. Then I found out they still meet, just with other mums only.

I've travelled a way to see them, gone to many soft plays, always accommodated them, but I've stopped contacting them now as they will never contact me first.

What a lovely and not goady at all opening post 😆

Running a family is hard work. Most parents work full-time. Some have health issues. Some children are SEN and gave extra needs.

It also does happens that childless people neglect their friends because they are busy with work, travel, and hobbies.

Why pay hundreds? Less had been fine.
If you don't like soft plays? Don't go.

Don't make yourself a victim or martyr.

The tone of your post might give you the answer to your question

I'm sure there are some childless/child free friends who do neglect parents, but as I said these parents still do see other friends, just the ones who are also mums. They do still have a social life.

Of absolutely zero help whatsoever but ok.

Is the only problem that they’re not contacting you first? Are they pleased to see you / hear from you when you do? How old are the kids?

Why do you say “so many mums”…how many of them do you know? Some people are just shit friends. Some people are finding navigating motherhood and juggling a social life difficult. Some find it easy to connect with people who are going through the same things as they are. And some are as you describe a bit self absorbed and believe the world must revolve around them….but that’s because they are shit friends not because they became parents. No need to blame being a parent for it when the reality is that they have prioritised other relationships. My advice would be to find other friends when you see that your efforts are not reciprocated.

Friendships do drift as people’s lives change: there are plenty of people I’ve been close to in the past but then once we no longer worked together, or shared a flat, or did the same hobby group or whatever we didn’t have so much in common, didn’t naturally bump into each other so much or have other prompts or reasons to meet up, just didn’t have as much to chat about.

It doesn’t even mean I liked them any less than I used to, just that spending time with them was a little bit harder or less natural.

The friendships could easily come back, just as strongly as before, if we were in each other’s day to day circles and had more in common again.

I just think it’s the same when you have kids - suddenly your entire life changes, huge parts of your life revolve around your kids, and of course it’s easier to socialise with other people when you have that in common.

Friendships will last best if you accept that they can ebb and flow - I’ve moved around a lot so have a lot of friends that I’m no longer close to, but am still in touch with and sometimes as life has changed again we’ve become closer again. The friendships that have definitely ended are the ones where the former friend became demanding/almost possessive about wanting to spend more time with me or creating dramas about what seemed to me like a normal drifting.

So if you’d like to be closer to these friends again in future, stay in touch, accept that you’re in different seasons of life right now, and focus elsewhere for a while.

I think you probably just don’t appreciate how busy they can be. If they meet another friend who has children then the children will have a play date and be occupied.

I think you need better friends! I have a child and have plenty of friends who don’t. I have some friends who are parents, of course, but they are people that I know from uni/work/life rather than because they’re parents. I don’t really have ‘mum friends’.

Childless people can be just as busy. Parents do not trump Childless people in every aspect.

Having a baby is a stressful, bewildering time, especially if it's your first. You suddenly have this tiny, helpless human that you need to keep alive. It can't tell you what it needs and it (frequently) cries. You don't know what to do with it. It prevents you sleeping for weeks/months on end. You are desperate for support and advice. It's also incredibly lonely and isolating as it can seem impossible to even care for yourself, let alone get out of the house, other than to places where everyone understands what you are going through.
So you turn to others in the same boat. You compare woes and worries and give each other advice and ideas to try.
It isn't that we don't want to see old friends any more, it's just that our lives have become overwhelmed by something completely alien to many of us and we are desperately seeking sense of it.

I prefer child free friends! It means MY child gets more fuss!

Could be any number of reasons.

Perhaps they resent having children and don’t want to see someone having a childfree life.

Could be priorities change, friendships drift, life becomes busy.

Hard to tell really. I last saw them in December 2025, in a soft play and I arranged it all, it was 'fine', there were 5 of us, had some coffee then left.

I don’t think you understand and this is why they are avoiding you.

Quite often it's simply easier to go out with other mums and their children fir the plstground. Shouldn't be hard to understand.

It doesn't really has a lot to do with you.

I was one of the last ones to have kids in my friendship group and never noticed being ‘iced out’ however I generally observed that once they had kids they were less available which is surely understandable.

For the last few years I’ve only had one friend left who doesn’t have children and although I haven’t seen her as much as I did pre-kids (I haven’t seen any friends as much 😂) I’ve still made the effort with her (and likewise) because she’s a forever friend. I’ve never subjected her to soft play! She’s pregnant now and I’m delighted to share a new dimension of our lives.

Not your call is it?

People having children or not can spend their time as they want or see fit.

You’ll get loads of people telling you how busy parents are and how it’s soooo difficult to send the odd WhatsApp or arrange the odd coffee. It’s mostly bollocks, of course 🤷‍♀️

I’m fully prepared to get totally shot down in flames but I think a lot of mums (and it’s only ever mums) turn their kids into their entire identity - everything is focused on them, they never want to leave them or do anything without them. Then, when their kids get older and have friendships independent of their “mum friends”, they wonder why everyone has dropped them and is no longer interested.

Why do you keep comparing everyone’s busy? It’s not a matter of the level of busyness, it’s who wants to make the effort but also is the effort worth it. Because if they are met with this sort of attitude they will quickly stop prioritising you.

I kept in touch with my childless friends but it was harder work to maintain. Things aren’t the same. You only want short visits because you don’t want to be away from your child for too long - plus you’re bone tired, and if you’re not with your child, you want to be asleep or slobbing on the sofa. So a quick coffee for an hour a month is often enough.

Secondly the chat isn’t quite on the same wavelength. They’re going on about some dumb bloke messing them about for the umpteenth time, or some trivial office gossip that one time would've been ultimately interesting but now that all sinks into insignificance. You fall in love with your child and you are obsessed with every aspect of their being - it’s hard to suppress that for any length of time to give a shiny shit about Emma-from-HR’s hen do drama.

As your child grows and maybe more babies come along, the sheer pressure of maintaining friendships outside of the incidental ones at toddler groups etc become so hard, something has to give.

Don’t take it personally, she’s going through a different season of life is all. Keep in touch and remember it all when you are in that position with a screaming child who has kept you up all night for a month and someone says ‘Any chance of a girls night out?’