Losing friendships

[LoraPiano]

I am finding that I am slowly losing friendships. Friends with children are very busy, never available, cancel last moment and frankly keep talking about their child a bit too much (I hope nobody comes on this thread to say I have children and am not like this) or want to wistfully ask me about my exciting travels and men that I date. And obviously they can no longer travel with me, or go for a hike, or do anything spontaneous. Their social times seem to be revolving around other people with kids, and gradually I have stopped making the effort to be flexible around their commitments. It feels liek I am the one who has to always compromise. They can’t do evenings. They can’t do weekends. “Can we go to the park with the kids??.”

It’s not that I don’t understand them or am not happy for them, or even jealous, but it’s a feeling of losing them to a cult that I am not going to join.

this has diminished of my social over the pat years. Just want to understand the experiences of others in this. Have you been successful in forging new friendships with other childfree people?

Hopefully not too many typos as I wrote this on my phone.

I think it is somewhat inevitable while your friends' children are young - they really can't go out in the evening or even on the weekend without lots of palaver. And it is totally understandable that you don't want to go to the park yet again and chat to them while being interrupted every ten seconds.

Build on relationships with childfree friends, but don't let go of your existing friends, because they will be freer in a few years (ok maybe 5 or 10). It doesn't sound like they are bad friends - they are asking about your life, even if they can't share what you are doing.

Yeah this happens for people with kids too, it's probably harder for them to meet up with friends because trying to organise and sync two families is harder. I expect they'll come back in time.

I hear you. It's always you that has to compromise and fit in. You feel like you lose them. Your lives are just so different. Quite honestly, they're just not available to be much of a friend to you, even despite good intentions. It's been an unbridgeable gap in my experience. Other childfree friends have managed to keep the friendship going long term by just accepting that their friend will be unavailable for a few years

All my friends now are either childfree or have grown up children, and its so much easier

Did any of you make an effort to find childfree people to befriend?

It's what happens I'm afraid. They may come back eventually. Two of my oldest friends finally resurfaced as their children hit mid teens. In the interim, I made (childfree) new friends through work and hobbies. Sadly one of those childfree friends announced this morning that he's going to be a father. I'm happy that he's happy but I'm sad for me as that's another friendship that is about to disappear (although it started to disappear as he got involved in a serious relationship anyway).

I ended up losing touch with my parent friends, yeah. I had been prepared for it as it’s a young kids phenomenon but in each case they continued to be completely wrapped up in their kids for year after year after year, to the point where they weren’t listening to a word I was saying and clearly had no memory or knowledge of my life. It was like I was a cardboard cut out.

The worst ones were the ones who, having always accepted that I’m CF, started to see themselves as superior to me. They’d make little snide comments and be super passive aggressive about everything. Others just stopped responding to my texts (or managed to send 2 sentences every 4 months with a frantic “sorry, kids kept me busy!!!”. Actually come to think of it I have one text thread that’s like 4 years of me sending normal replies and the friend sending “sorry, kids!!!!!” 26 times in succession.

Point being, invest in other childless and childfree friends. Many of my friends are older women and that works for me (and then I hope). I know you’ll get replies saying that your parent friends will return but that wasn’t my experience and also assumes that you’ll be delighted to welcome back someone that’s ignored you for years on end, which I wasn’t!

'also assumes that you’ll be delighted to welcome back someone that’s ignored you for years on end, which I wasn’t!'

And I think that's fair enough

I remember reading a comment from someone ages ago who said that if a friend announces that they're going to be a parent, they treat it as if that friend has announced that they're moving to another country. That friendship just cannot continue as it was, you are losing them to a large extent, and it can be a huge adjustment

All mine went for a burton when they started having babies - that was nearly 20 years ago.

I think it depends. Some people talk about their children all the time and presume they are more important than childfree people.Let them go!

Some people are sleep deprived, can’t string a sentence together and are knee deep in shit/ washing and wish they could do more.

Make your choices as to whom you keep (if you want to). I’ve been to soft play for a coffee. I’ve been round to theirs and washed up whilst they’ve been run ragged and probably only spoken to them for 20 mins. By the time the kids are 6/7 + I’ve been on holiday for a weekend with the same people (alone) and had nice days out with children that I have a connection with.

It depends what you want.

I think there's a natural drifting away, if you like, when friends have kids and you don't.

Not every time, but I see a lot of posts on MN from mums who claim that they've lost their friends after having kids and blaming their friends/kids for it-and not looking at their own behaviour. What I mean is-some of these posters will freely admit that they regularly cancelled on their friends, didn't speak for months at a time, and basically put forth no effort in their friendships but fully expected their friends to remain there for them when they wanted them.

In some ways, it can be understandable why this happens-being a parent, especially a mum, is tough, and if you have no support network and the kid is young, even tougher. So it makes sense why, in those instances, a mum may struggle to maintain friendships or be able to attend anything that she can't freely bring her child to.

So, for those friendships, if they're not totally a lost cause and are a good friend, I'd probably accept meeting on their terms for a bit. Have them as the friend that you go for coffee with or to the park for a walk with-etc.

Of course, it could be as I described and no effort is forthcoming from said friend/s, then I'd just distance myself and focus on making friends with fellow child-free people.

A lot of the advice given to the posters I described on MN is that they can return to those friendships once a few years have passed and the drudgery of parenthood has gone. The reality is, that's just not the case. Many people won't be willing to return to friendships after being left in the dust, even if they understand the reasons.

Things change. I accepted long ago that choosing to be CF would always be an anomaly and thus, I would have to adapt to the changing friendships and accept that there would be friends I'd lose. It's just how it is.

I can see that it would be easy to get hurt and angry at friends who suddenly become too busy to be good friends once they have children. But holding onto those feelings seems like it would hurt me more than anything else. People aren't intentionally selfish but having children is a massive all consuming challenge for a long time. If I want friends, then I'll forgive that and enjoy them when I do get them back.

For me the bigger issue seems to be my parent friends end up developing new social circles. They are always busy, not necessarily with the kids themselves but with a whole new set of people who they have more in common with. Trying to agree dates is exhausting and you end up giving up, especially as you are the one doing the organising. I don’t mind that as long as there is some kind of pull on the other end of the rope.

I have also found that even when my friends’ children are teenagers, they still take up an awful lot of their time - quite a few of them have or have had mental health issues, eg someone might have a fourteen year old but not be keen on leaving them alone.

Obviously also ultimately their children are their favourite people to spend time with so they mostly do that; I think being social is hard for a lot of people and they lose their nerve and skills and would prefer just to stay home with the family (lockdown habits haven’t died). I think some people actually like the fact that children mean you don’t have to engage as much, eg at a BBQ instead of making small talk you can make out your kids need your attention (when they’re 10).

I lost a lot of friends when I was in my late 20's/early 30's as they went off and had kids and I was getting divorced and concentrating on my career.

It felt like on the rare occasion I'd see them as a group I had the kids dumped on me whilst they all went off together for some childfree time. The insinuation that I needed to look after kids/had to have practice with kids/wasn't totally knackered or exhausted myself wore off very quickly and we lost touch. Some of them have attempted to re establish contact, and I did try and make an effort, but our lives had moved too far apart and it felt like they were only interested in talking about their kids.

My friendship group now is diverse and made up of people with either older kids or no kids. What binds us all together js an interest in lots of different things, a love of animals and investment in our careers. I think it probably took me until I was in my 40's to really understand what I wanted from a friendship - just as we need to understand what we need from a romantic relationship- and sitting in soft play, or a cafe that resembles a crèche, or anything involving contact with babies ans young children is absolutely not what any of my new friends want. And I love them for it 😁

Totally agree with the comments about people moving into different social circles once you become a parent. I've lost touch with some of my friends due to this but the one that stung the most was it happening to my closest friend.

The inevitable me making all the effort to arrange things, me always going to her, her not replying or just reacting to messages in WhatsApp instead of actually acknowledging a message properly. Suggestions of doing things or going places always turned down, only once did she agree to meet me halfway between us, but canceled on me last minute. Obviously, some of these things are understandable. However, as others have pointed out you still need the other person to be making minimal effort to keep a friendship up. I gradually stepped back as I just felt even with a lot of friendship behind us there was too much give on my side.

I don't think it made much impact on her at the time as she had other mum friends to chat with and a local neighbour had a child the same age so it made sense for her to become more involved with them.

As others have pointed out a few years down the line the friendship may pick up again but I also agree that just because someone decides they now have time for you, you don't necessarily have to welcome or be greatful for it.

So, for now I seem to have a lot more in common with the people I work with who are in their mid 50s, which is fine by me but I do sometimes feel the loss of the friendships no longer there and will have to work on making new ones somehow.

For me the bigger issue seems to be my parent friends end up developing new social circles. They are always busy, not necessarily with the kids themselves but with a whole new set of people who they have more in common with. Trying to agree dates is exhausting and you end up giving up, especially as you are the one doing the organising. I don’t mind that as long as there is some kind of pull on the other end of the rope.

God, absolutely this.

I watched my old friendship group drift away and coalesce together into a new group. I'd see pictures of them on FB having a picnic in the park or at the local food fair or whatever - things that we had done before they had kids - but they wouldn't have invited me.

I mentioned it once, on one of the rare occasions I did see them, and there was a foot-shuffling "Oh, we, erm, just went with the kids". What, you all sat entirely apart from one another did you, while your children played and socialised? No, thought not.

The bottom line is that for some parents, a childfree person just doesn't fit into their lives any more, no matter how willing you are to do child-friendly things. I suspect they know that there really is an expectation that at some point they will need to return the favour and do non-child-friendly things, and they don't want to, and perhaps they don't want to hear about your childfree life when theirs feels like an unending slog.

Those often pop back up again when their children are much older but the ship has sailed by then. The be-childed friends that I have kept are the ones that put in the effort - even just a tiny bit - throughout.

A lot of the advice given to the posters I described on MN is that they can return to those friendships once a few years have passed and the drudgery of parenthood has gone. The reality is, that's just not the case. Many people won't be willing to return to friendships after being left in the dust, even if they understand the reasons.

It's not just the willingness but people don't just spend years sitting and waiting. People go and find new circles, new friends, new hobbies and fill up their life. Then there ia often simply no space, same as it wasn't from the parent's side before.

'The bottom line is that for some parents, a childfree person just doesn't fit into their lives any more, no matter how willing you are to do child-friendly things'

I think that's true, in some cases. If I'm brutally honest, I don't think a friendship with a parent of young / school age children fits in to my life either. The stuff I enjoy doing with my friends (visiting pubs and restaurants, bit of shopping, theatre) is certainly not child friendly, and hard to organise around children