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.

Being a mum isn’t like having a busy work and social life. It’s a 24/7 thing, especially when they’re babies and toddlers. (And when you’re back at work, it’s 100 times more challenging.) I tended to hang out with mums when I was in that stage because I was struggling and exhausted; I needed to be around people who understood me. Most of these weren’t long-lasting or deep friendships, but they were important nevertheless. Your friends’ lives have changed. Try not to take it personally.

This is it. As you get older, everyone is busy doing various things.

Now I see the problem, and the reason your friends don't contact you.

In the beginning I could get this (baby/early toddlerhood).
But after this stage - I don’t want to be sat with my friends just discussing my children (as much as I adore them).
There are other interesting things in life to share/discuss with friends (childless or not).

And this is why as soon as a friend of mine gets pregnant I stop bothering with them. Absolutely anything in my life becomes “trivial and insignificant”. Yet mums often complain that their childless friends “stopped bothering with them”. 🤣🤣

Has been the opposite with me. I had my children later in life and all through my single years was a loyal friend to many friends with partners and children. When I had my children and wasnt as able to travel to them, many of my friends no longer bother making any effort to meet me. Those with older children, childless, single. I now have a few close friends who I know value me.

I thought that before I had children.

As someone who entered motherhood later than many of my good friends
my experience is in complete contrast to yours. I maintained my friendships with my friends when they become mothers and I was child free. It was when I had children that my child free friends slowly but surely ebbed away from my life despite me reaching out to them.

At the end of the day friendships are not static things, they ebb and flow, grow stronger and weaker and really are very fluid. Sometimes you just move apart from some friends as your lives are just so different and what bonded you before is no longer.

I had two childfree friends until my kids were in their teens but over time the gap between us continued to widen and we are no longer friends.

They would see it like you do from their perspective of me not fulfilling their needs while they haven’t changed the parameters.

I see it differently and have experienced it differently.

They needed much, much more from the relationship than the capacity I had in friendships. None of my friends who were parents and had partners had the relationship demands that those who didn’t have those had.

Fundamentally they saw it as my responsibility to meet those needs and demands and I didn’t have the capacity.

I think becoming a parent changes who you are as a person very fundamentally and that change continues over time.

This happened to me in my 20s. There was a group of 4 of us and 3 all fell pregnant and had young babies within a year or two of each other. Im not able to have kids and honestly they just had more in common. It really hurt at the time to hear they'd met up without me but they were all at the same point of their lives and I wasnt there. I started spending more time with other friends. Life sometimes just goes in different directions.

Yeah all those childless people who don’t know what tired is. What busy is. What real love is. What stress is. What it is to put anyone before themselves. How dare they even ever complain about ANYTHING! They know nothing!

Having children is a massive life change and with big life changes it gets easier to drift apart from friendships. Some people aren't as available for friends once they get a partner or a demanding job. A baby is a huge change to navigate, some may pull back from their child free friends because they no longer relate to the stuff that's talked about and some might feel embarrassed that they don't have anything to contribute to a catch up except their baby did something cute or met a milestone that has absolutely no significance to anyone else. If it's a solid friendship things should settle and come back around but sometimes people just don't have anything in common anymore.

They don't.

Have you told your friends how you feel?

Omg why would anyone go to soft play if they weren’t having to go with their own children?

they are hell holes to be avoided if at all possible.

Do you have kids?

Quite. Your friend’s potentially long term relationship status pales into insignificance when you have IMPORTANT things to consider like poo frequency and latch quality

Well to be fair I didn’t say any of that. My point is just that I felt very very busy before I had kids - and then I had kids and became a thousand times busier. It is hard for chilldfree people to fully understand how busy/difficult life can be with kids (or maybe they do understand and that’s why they’ve chosen not to do it!). So it makes sense that people will mostly socialise with other people that can understand what they’re going through.

Do not understand how extreme of the responses on here on either side.

Most of my close old friends don't have children yet (unusual as we are in our late 30s). I've never subjected them to a soft play, they came to see the babies and to my children's christenings but usually we meet up in the evenings. We see each other about once a month or every six weeks which is pretty good going as we live in different areas. We gossip, talk about politics/ work/ books/ holidays etc. I am not just a mother robot and don't feel the need to talk about my kids all the time and I have Mum friends for that anyway.

I have found the opposite. When I was childfree and had some childfree friends, they ditched ME when I had a baby. In fact 3 of them were quite cruel and mean, (well, one was just distant and ghosted me,) and they were very negative about children... I realised afterwards that it was them projecting, as they were jealous, but at the time I didn't realise it.

Not saying all childfree women are jealous before anyone comes at me, just that these particular women were. All 3 women went on to have children within 3-5 years.

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Not sure. The real kicker is when they want you to step up your efforts while they make no effort. Don’t even get me started on the crazy entitled requests “why don’t you leave your house at 5am so you get to mine for nap time as that’s really convenient for me”. Or the self absorbed commentary “no one with no children can ever get tired!” after l had done 5 12 hour nights in a row

I’ve found the opposite, that as soon as I became a mum my childfree friends weren’t interested

She doesn't, she sounds hurt and disappointed. She's put effort into her friendships and found out they are meeting behind her back, it's understandable she feels annoyed.

This 😂 I used to roll my eyes at my sister when she would berate me for saying I was tired after a night out when she had 3 kids aged 4 and under. I was tired, and so was she, but the difference was, I was going to go to bed that night and sleep it off, whereas she would have another sleepless night, like she had endured for the last 4 years. There’s a difference.

Oh yeah. Had this. They were very excited to come over for lunch but nap time ruled everything. we happily moved things around for them. They said they’d be over at 2. They finally arrived at 3.30. Everyone starving, food overcooked.
We sat down to eat for them to say ‘oh we’ve eaten already’. They stayed for 20 minutes faffing with the baby and then left.
Never invited them again.

I think this is a really good example of why parents often socialise with other parents only. If the host in this scenario were a parent of children of similar age, they would be far less likely to be bothered about any of this and would probably appreciate the fact that it's not just them!