The only child free friend in the group, always asked to compromise or organise for others.

[RooRooRu]

I sadly don't have kids. I have 2 close friends who have young and young(ish) kids. We have been friends for roughly 10 years. I completely understand that when you have kids your priorities change, and things don't stay the same as when you had less ties. We have always been pretty good at making an effort to see each other, but I feel the effort is now resting firmly with me to organise our catch ups and for me to compromise on where / what / when we do it to fit in with family life.
The time we meet always fits around nap / routine / weekend sport, I'm often asked to rearrange any pre-existing commitments to accommodate them.
It's often left to me to arrange and book what and where we are doing, because after family life and work they 'just need someone to make the decision for them'
The location is always closer to where they live to make it convenient, not close to where I work or live. Never early dinner in the city after work for example, because that's too hard for them but easy for me.
AIBU and I just don't get it because I've not had to manage the juggle?

Those saying it's not possible to meet for dinner after work - I do and did for years with young kids. You just make it a bit earlier if you need to do you can get a reasonable train home.

You can manage what you prioritise.

I didn’t really socialise when my children were little as I was so busy with them and feeling tired all of the time. I did arrange some morning coffee dates with fellow mums, after the school drop offs. But I just listened to them for an hour while drinking my coffee, thinking about all the things I needed to do when I got home! I couldn’t manage anything else. How early is she asking to meet? I would say around 10-11 would be okay for me personally.

How early is she suggesting meeting?

It’s not possible for everyone. My partner works until 7pm so I wouldn’t be able to meet friends for dinner until 7.30 at the earliest. I do it on birthdays and occasions etc but can’t make it a regular thing, I find it exhausting, so prefer to save socialising until the weekend.

Do the same as you would for any friend who expects you to continually centre everything around them. Drop the rope, see them occasionally, and get some new friends who are free to meet in a more mutually convenient way.

I’m in my 50s, childfree, and went through all this already. And now I have a childfree friend who does the same thing, everything is a logistical nightmare because of their rigid schedule and preferences. Just no, I’m not bearing all the labour and doing all the compromising.

YOU managed it, not everyone can.

Maybe people have the arrangement that dad drops off at childcare in the mornings and mum picks up in the evenings for example, this can’t necessarily be changed as a one-off if people’s working hours are set.

Maybe they have a grandparent or other family local who can pick up, not everyone has this.

Yes, exactly! It gets so tedious having to explain the same thing over and over again, doesn’t it?

Not everyone has the flexibility to just leave work a bit earlier. Just because some people are able to make it work doesn’t mean it’s a realistic option for everyone else. 🙄

OP- when my kids were little, brunch on Sat or Sun would have been best. That way DH would have been at home and I would suggest meeting mid way between where you both live, so its fair.

Agreed. Not everyone has support. I had a long commute with my toddler in the car (in house nursery). By the time I got home, made dinner it would be 7ish. My husband worked nights every fortnight so I couldn’t go out, not that I wanted to as I was exhausted. To be honest it’s not about priorities, it’s your support network or lack of one. I ended up giving up work went baby 2 came along as it wasn’t possible logistically to do the school run and commute to work without help. Being a sahp helped massively but burned a hole in my pocket for sure!

How early is she suggesting?!

I'm afraid your response sounds very rude unless she's suggesting 7am.

Ok so work days I was in the office until at least 7.30 (I worked compressed hours), then had a commute of 45 min, days at home my partner didn’t get home until 8. We had no grandparents anywhere nearby and 3 young kids. In order to prioritise an evening out in the week I would have had to take half a days leave which was basically impossible because I took so much leave for school holidays and/ or illness I had to cover.

If it was a matter of life or death of course I would have done it, but every month, no way would I have managed.

You are being completely unreasonable. If you don’t have young kids, you won’t understand how difficult outings can be. If it bothers you that much, maybe you should take a break from the friendship group.

This is really difficult OP. I imagine the ‘group’ nature of this is making it harder as there are multiple juggles (whose DH can wfh that day to manage pick up, their own careers, whose child is ill or has an activity or event that needs mum present etc)

I have two DC aged 7 and 10 and I have maintained good adult friendships with friends without children. I try to operate a 50/50 with them where I will make the effort to do an adult thing (like dinner after work in the city or theatre) and then the next time we will meet up with the kids for a weekend pub lunch/park or similar. A number of child-free friends have told me they value this approach as they want to know my children and be part of their lives but also value our friendship and it being invested in.

What makes this very possible however is:

1. A decent hands-on DH (my god there are some horror shows out there)
2. The fact that these friendships are me and 1-2 childfree friends max. If I was trying to make this work with 4 friends also with kids, impossible with logistics.
3. Disposable income. Fully aware there is a ‘single tax’ which is very real (you may not be single obviously, just because you are child free!) but the nursery years are so hard and it’s sometimes easier to blame football club then say you can’t afford dinner out.

Strongly recommended getting some new friends and interests for this season. I joined a choir after Covid and half the attendees said ‘all my friends have babies now, looking for something new!’ We have a lovely social group and do drinks and pub quizzes as well as choir

My ideal would have been (asuming I have the DC with me)

• join us at our place (or when it's light, the park) after nursery pickup for a cuppa and/or an early supper

- at the weekend, meet 10ish for coffee in the park and/or pub lunch before 1, or park/similar afterwards or early supper c6pm.

childfree would depend on when i could get cover.

I’m so sorry for your struggles, child free not by choice must be so hard and it sounds like you’re trying really hard to keep these friendships going despite it being quite difficult at times.

Honestly I’d be tempted to let it fade out a bit for now - keep in touch if it feels right but trying to meet up once a month is a lot. I don’t see my friends that often.

What works for me is really specific as we don’t have any family or babysitters so it’s really just between me and my husband for everything. If he’s working away it’s just me. My kids are older now so things are smoothing out but it was just a massive juggle for years. Personally I liked an early dinner in town - but only on Tuesdays or Wednesdays and only if my husband was home that week and only if no one was sick or had extra dance or taekwando or whatever. It was hard to figure out and mostly I failed.

instead of little and often maybe it would work better to do every few months and have time to plan around and prioritise if they want to?

Just as a follow-up to what I said a few messages ago, have you tried meeting up with just 1-2 of them? I have a close friendship group of 3 (only I have DC) and whilst we love to meet up together and have an active group chat, realistically it’s almost never possible so we meet in twos more often with whoever can make it

I think you’re putting a lot of your feelings about fertility onto this, which is understandable but not your friends’ fault. You want ‘a gentle start to the day’. Your friend, presumably, is needing to be back for nap time. If nap time doesn’t happen then or happens late then that might be an evening of stress with a wired toddler, who then falls asleep too early and is up for two hours at 3am, or it could be an 11pm bedtime then having to decide the next morning whether to let the child catch up on sleep and not be in an awful mood or whether to have their schedule slip and late bedtimes for days. That may be in the context of not having had more than two hours sleep in a row for two years, and never getting 7 let alone 8. Maybe that’s not her exact situation but it’s not uncommon.

My friend with fertility issues is clearly feeling similarly about me. From my perspective I was the accomodating one for years. Now i make a huge effort to find time to text her, would happily sacrifice work or sleep time to see her or chat, make sure I talk about her work and general topics and only child stuff if she asks and not for too long. But she doesn’t understand that i need to plan to have a phone call, i can’t just answer whenever, that I can’t travel to see her when she’s free between meetings or after work, and she doesn’t like texting. So there goes our friendship. I miss her but she’s letting resentment and inflexibility override maintaining years of closeness and what i had thought was love. Maybe your friends are feeling similarly, prioritising naptime doesn’t mean they don’t care about you it’s just survival.