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?

YAB both U and NU.

YABU:
"The time we meet always fits around nap / routine / weekend sport, I'm often asked to rearrange any pre-existing commitments to accommodate them."

If they have other non-optional responsibilities (looking after children) they will have times they are free and times that are not their own. This changes over the years. It is what it is.

You are under no obligation to rearrange your own activities, though.

YANBU:
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'

This is bloody ridiculous.

Neither:
The location is always closer to where they live to make it convenient, not close to where I work or live.

Well, if you're happy to have the time spent with them shorter, they might come to you. But if they have to get back home, it will cut into that time. I think the idea of coming near them is to maximise the time with you.

YABU (and total LoL, if their kids are under a certain age):
Never early dinner in the city after work for example...

Those days are out the window for these parents until they've got teens.

AIBU and I just don't get it because I've not had to manage the juggle? Yes, I'm afraid so.

We tend to meet up weekend mornings or early afternoon which impacts DH and I.

So you get that a meeting impacts your relationship even when it's just the two of you. So amplify that by it impacting DH and kids, plus having to ask GPs to help as you suggest. And that suggestion is easy to make, but generally favours are maxxed out asking for cover for unavoidable commitments like work, medical appointments etc. and not something you'd use just to cover meeting a friend who you see regularly and who could be flexible and hang at home with you. Even within the marriage, there are already a host of give and take set-ups for school runs, sickness cover, who gets to do what/when, and for this kind of get-together, it's just not going to be a priority. Maybe if it was your big birthday dinner or similar, but not for a monthly meet-up.

I'm sorry about your IVF struggles and it must make it all extra painful if anyone says how you can't understand what it's like. I hear you trying to understand and be accommodating, but they can't change nap times or other DC commitments or what they'd rather be doing on some level. It was a big shock to me not only how I couldn't just hand my DC to someone else to look after but generally didn't want to. I still saw my friends but an evening meal out would not have been that appealing in the early years when I needed and wanted to be home with my DC.

If you don't want to be the one organising or to sacrifice the time with your DH, then don't do it. Keep in touch virtually and see each other less often. If you're all true friends, things will pick up again when the DC are older, and if you're not, then you'll have all moved onto other things and no one is to blame, it's normal.

Ps when meeting around nap time, this can seem silly and rigid but it does really make the whole household miserable for about 3-4 days if the sleep schedule goes off. That’s a lot of upset for one brunch out so this is why parents don’t often bother or seem rigid.

I can understand your feelings on this. The season of life with young children is difficult because the children are your priority. It doesnt last forever and it becomes easier to balance as they get older. If you dont feel able to compromise and organise all the time i think that understandable and you could choose not to some times or not to at all. If my friend without children said im fed up of always organising everything,always compromising to accomodate you and your childrens needs ,id say i take your point and understand your frustrations but my children come first above any friendship and if that doesnt suit you i understand.

Your husband's incompetence is not your friends' responsibility to work round.

Having children doesn't mean someone else's time becomes more valuable than yours, but equally, not having children doesn't mean your time should take precedence over theirs.

Again, missing the point.

She just wants them to make an effort for her, 1-2 times a year and not always be the one who compromises and organises. It's a fair feeling, not feeling valued.

So, let me ask you. If you, with kids, had say a 4.30pm hospital appointment that's a little drive away. Would you arrange childcare? If you say, had a big birthday celebration in the city of a relative who wanted a meal out with everyone in the evening, would you arrange childcare? If you had tickets to see a concert of a band you utterly loved and really really wanted to go, would you arrange childcare? If you had literally anything that was important that you need to go to, you'd arrange childcare so you could go?

Bingo. Crux of the issue. The OP doesn't feel important to them, not even once a year.

While it's ok for children to totally change everything for parents, it's also ok for the OP to feel undervalued. It's not about monopolising time or who's time is more important or whatever, that's totally missing the point. It's about effort made.

^ This, basically.

Firstly I am sorry for your ivf experience. I do wonder if that’s clouding your reaction here.

and once a month is 12 times, not 1-2? However, maybe the OH/ GP thing isn’t as easy as that? Perhaps they are already sharing the load plenty to accommodate essentials like work etc and it’s too much to ask. Speaking from experience, when mine were smaller our logistics were stretched to the max - no GP unless they made a 2 hr journey, and the day to day logistics required 2 adults. In some instances even a night with GP/ OH becomes a huge logistical challenge due to the age/ nature of the baby and just can’t be justified for a monthly dinner with friends.

as I said though, there’s nothing stopping you pulling back or asking for them to make more of an effort. Just because they ask you to organise or accommodate doesn’t mean you have to.

I don't have kids and most of my friends do, and since I stil want them in my life I made a decision to consciously embrace being the one who reaches out first most of the time, who organises get-togethers most of the time, etc.

Parents are busier than me. They have a lot more going on taking their kids to stuff. It's just how it is. If I want those people in my life, I have to be flexible, so I am. FWIW, everyone seems to always appreciate me making the effort because they want me in their lives, and also they have so much going on they enjoy someone else taking responsibility once in a while.

You can choose to do the same or not, it's up to you.

Honestly, just ditch them if they can't make an effort, or at least drop the rope and leave it to them to make time - don't move your plans around. Focus on doing things you enjoy, even if that's on your own, and on building friendships with other single/childfree women. Having been through this stage of life as the childfree friend, the only friendships that survived the arrival of children were those with women who didn't allow themselves to be swallowed by motherhood and become martyrs to their children - it's a very English habit. Unless you're a single parent or your DC has complex needs, once you're past the baby stage you can leave the house and socialise normally if you really want to.

There is also this weird idea that needs to be dispelled that 'grandparents' are always available to pick up the slack. If they are available, which is no guarantee even if they are local, there is negotiating happening, as PP noted.

Even in London, I did not find that the pool of babysitters was amazing (I am Gen X and grew up in the US and was quite prepared to use one!)

So, let me ask you. If you, with kids, had say a 4.30pm hospital appointment that's a little drive away. Would you arrange childcare? If you say, had a big birthday celebration in the city of a relative who wanted a meal out with everyone in the evening, would you arrange childcare? If you had tickets to see a concert of a band you utterly loved and really really wanted to go, would you arrange childcare? If you had literally anything that was important that you need to go to, you'd arrange childcare so you could go?
Bingo. Crux of the issue. The OP doesn't feel important to them, not even once a year.

I mean... I love my friends, but all those things are more important than a monthly catch-up*. Hospital appointments and big events like concerts and big birthdays, yep, you have to arrange childcare - and even then it's a ballache and expense and not many parents are going to concerts often when kids are little.

So if you're making this into some competition and saying - is seeing friend for a curry more important than hospital appointment, nan's 80th, or Taylor Swift concert, then sure, bingo! But not sure it really makes the point you're intending. Friends like this are a long-term lower key thing and not a vital one-off event. That's not how someone should be judging their important in this phase of life.

And childcare is effin expensive. If OP thinks uber and take-out is a lot, then try adding £80 babysitting on top of that. You don't do that for a regular hang-out unless you're made of money.

eta: *and yes, even if it's once a year, it's still someone they see regularly. not comparable to the events you list.

You are making a massive assumption here about how easy it is for everyone to arrange childcare.

My parents are both dead, my mother never even met her grandchildren and my dad died soon after my first baby was born. My husband's parents live on another continent. So, no, we didn't have grandparents on hand to step in when we needed childcare. If we wanted to go somewhere, we had to work around the practicalities ourselves. There was no convenient reserve army of relatives waiting in the wings. DH and I didnt go out on date nights together for over a decade due to this.

And I think your examples are a false equivalence. A hospital appointment isn't the same as a social engagement, and a milestone birthday or a concert someone desperately wants to attend is a specific event that may have been planned months in advance. None of those examples proves that arranging childcare is always straightforward, affordable or even possible. For clarity, any hospital or GP appointments I had, had to be arranged during times when my children were at nursery or school as I stated above, my parents are dead and DH's parents live abroad. DH was working crazy hours at that point to ensure his business got off the ground.

More importantly, you're assuming that because someone might manage to arrange childcare for one event, they can necessarily do so for another. Childcare isn't an inexhaustible resource that parents can summon whenever something important comes along as others in this thread have clearly stated. It depends on availability, cost, work schedules and the circumstances of the people involved.

You keep insisting that people are missing the point, but I think the point is perfectly clear, its just that you seem determined not to acknowledge it. OP wants to feel valued, and she associates that with her friends making a particular kind of effort. The difficulty is that she's treating their ability to arrange childcare as a measure of how much they care about her.

People can value their friends enormously and still have constraints that make certain arrangements difficult. And people can make plenty of effort in ways that aren't necessarily the ones their friends would most like.

Wanting to feel valued is entirely reasonable. Assuming that someone else's inability to accommodate your preferred arrangement means you aren't valued is quite another thing and that is the exact point.

What's telling is that rarely do you hear a man moaning he can't see his mates for a drink, to see a football game or whatever. They just assume their friendships will continue, maybe a few compromises on where and when but there isn't this "oh I couldn't function as an independent person for 6 years and lost all my friends".

It's yet another example of how little men's lives change after parenthood compared to women. hey just haven't been socialised into having all the pointless 'guilt' about having time away from their kids & maintaining their sense of self, or thinking being a father means carrying the load of running the family which will be all consuming, as women are about motherhood.

By comparison, how many women on MN say they have no friends, (or just superficial 'school gate' ones) are isolated, feel they have lost 'who they are'.

And OP, I am also childfree. What I found is many of the friends like yours came back a bit sheepishly after a few years as children were a bit older, saying sorry they had been so inflexible, they just got caught up in the motherhood trap and didn't prioritise themselves (because it's them that misses out too, not just the friends they drop).

If you can be bothered, ride it out and that may happen eventually. If not, drop the organising role and see what happens. It night surprise them enough to make more an effort (it might not of course).

I didn't have any GPs to babysit but I did have a husband who could and did, though not early evening.

He didn't need a million reminders or food left for him because he's not a 12-year- old.🤔

Forget them - they sound so dull. You're free to have fun, enjoy life and make new and more interesting friends.

I don't think you should have to change pre existing plans for them. That's your turn to say no. However I don't think someone without kids can grasp the difficulty of simply going out for a drink, sometimes it's like the stars have to all align. Partner can't have a clashing event. If they do a babysitter has to be arranged. Sitter can't get sick, child can't get sick, partner can't have a change of plan or emergency etc. What about if you got 2 hours sleep the night before a social evening, and knew you might possibly be up 4 times again that night. Would you still be enthusiastic? Because that's often the reality for parents of young kids. You cannot grasp how busy it can be when every moment of every day is taken up.

YANBU And just to add I have a child.

People like this are like this, children or not.
When I fist had my daughter, I was the one to travel to near where they lived. (They were work friends from past work) 1 was pregnant at the time, the other 2 kids in school.
When the pregnant one had her child, I went to her, with my then toddler. I don’t drive, they do. I have no problem using public transport, it’s just that it would have been easier for them yet I’m the one doing the run about.

The last few get togethers were cancelled. Neither turned up to a party I had last year (plenty of notice) they cancelled a few hours before. I’ve stopped reaching out. If they do message me then I will respond but I’m done with putting all the effort in to get nothing back.

No, it's not a competition, it's not. Its making an effort.
We all make efforts for things we want to make an effort for. 1 or 2 times a year (as the OP said), is really not that much when she makes the effort every month.

Having children is a juggling act, it's hard, I get that. But it's also not everything, other people and situations still exist, it doesn't stop when we have kids. We choose which we are willing to do, the OP's friends are not, it seems, willing to make an effort for her 1 or 2 times a year or even help with suggestions and organising a monthly meet up.

I presume they do love the OP, but have got used to her organising everything (taken for granted) and yeah, not making an effort for her to sort out childcare maybe once a year. They have parters, dads, ready made child minders (ha!). Why would that be so hard to do if they really want to go to meet the OP? Answer is that it's not, of course, but it is an effort they simply do not wish to make.

Let me stress - that is OK, it's up to them to choose what they want to do but the OP not feeling valued is also OK. People move on, things change, but again, it's OK to feel sad about it.

I'm not the poster you quoted. But from the list you posted i would potentially have to take my child or not go. I couldn't make a 4.30 hospital appointment without my DH taking annual leave. And unfortunately with his job A/L can be cancelled although I am aware that our circumstances aren't the norm. We don't have any family nearby and I haven't been able to find a reliable babysitter. I'm not alone in this issue, local mums have the same problem.

The PP is not missing the point - they simply disagree with you.

That is allowed.

I think you've been reading too many threads on MN with useless DH's who don't do their share and sod off to football. Those do exist, and make it even harder for mums to keep friendships going, but there's also loads of men who aren't anywhere near as fussed for friendships as women tend to be and dial it back to practically nothing when they have kids. My DH sees his old uni mates once a year and everyone else is just a colleague or acquaintance he keeps in touch with online but has no need or interest in seeing regularly. Lots of men are like this and their friends don't have the same expectations as OP and certainly wouldn't be feeling undervalued in the OP's situation. Male friendship is different and they often care less what other people think, so it's not all that telling really. Their wives and kids become their best friends and everything else can slide.

All the OP's friends have partners, the dads of the children, why do they need to outsource childcare? Why are you making this about your own situation and using it to judge her on hers?

And the examples I gave are about priorities. Yes, people have to/want to do things and are able to manage it and yet they don't want to do them for the OP once a year.

You really think it's NOT ok for the OP to feel how she does? Does everything have to be about people with children? Really? Amazing isn't it, all these parents up and down the country who manage to juggle everything as well as do make an effort for their friends and yet the OP's friends do not. I think it's perfectly valid to feel how she does, and as I have stressed all along, it's also valid for the parents to choose what they do - but the result of this is the OP feels how she does.

Tbh, it sounds like if she stopped doing everything, the friendships would end. People move on, circumstances change, that's ok - but the OP feeling the way she does is ok too - it's not a pissing competition.

It’s hard for everyone, I get it. I’ve been the child free one, feeling disappointed when a friend couldn’t make a Tuesday night dinner catch up cause she needed to stay home for her babies bath and bed, been frustrated when Sunday brunch plans are dictated by a babies nap time.
But now I have my own child who’s 15months and I’m back at work full time as a teacher. I’m the one who now doesn’t want to do Thursday night cinema because I’m too exhausted after a day in a demanding job, then home for playtime, bath and bed…once my baby is asleep by 7pm I flop on the sofa, the thought of heading out to the cinema or dinner is a huge no.
Im a lot more flexible at weekends, my partner and I do lots of nice things together with our baby but I also would love to fit in girls brunches, lunches, cafe trips etc. But my group of girlfriends always seem so busy at the weekends. Either doing family stuff or the child free ones out with other friends, day trips etc. If I want to spend time with friends at the weekend it seems to need planning months and months in advance. But weeknights, that don’t work as well for me, they can do at the drop of a hat. It’s hard, but we all do our best to compromise.

If OP thinks uber and take-out is a lot, then try adding £80 babysitting on top of that. You don't do that for a regular hang-out unless you're made of money

And the friends who don’t do this EVER, or the time/effort equivalent, are the ones who will find that when they have the “I’m me again!” moment referenced by a PP, their old friends will have long since given up and moved on. It’s about feeling that your friendship is valued, even if it has to change significantly and/or become unequal for a number of years. The friends who didn’t make the effort even occasionally when they could (even if it would be difficult) but chose not to, are the ones I gave up on because they’d effectively told me our friendship wasn’t worth it to them.