Childless friends' reaction to children (long and rambling)

[emkana]

Last week I went back home to Germany for a few days to visit family and friends. Most of my friends from uni are still childless and living the good life . I visited one couple in their flat for lunch. It was lovely, and they were very nice to dd1 (3) and dd2 (14 months), but they got quite nervous when the dd's started to run around a bit, giggling and laughing. I think they thought they were too noisy, even though to my ears it wasn't bad at all. Then I stayed with another friend overnight, with another friend staying over as well. In the evening the children were playing, which in dd2's case means touching and examining everything, again totally normal I think, but my friends were saying to each other "God, it's such hard work, isn't it..." And they looked totally shocked when I let the children watch a bit of Teletubbies before bed, saying how they couldn't imagine their own children watching this - just you wait and see, I thought.
Anyway, my point is - I suddenly felt like such a gulf was opening between my friends and me, caused by our different perception of the children and what behaviour is normal. It didn't help that I thought to myself sometimes that their lives are so 'empty' in a way, so hedonistic... I'm just sad that my relationships with people that mean a lot to me seem to deteriorate, even though I guess it's normal...
Will it get better again as the children get older or as my friends start to have children?
Sorry that this is such a waffle... am a bit tired.
Will be quite surprised if anybody posts on this thread now as it's so incoherent, but I'll post anyway

Reminds me of how I felt about children before I had them. You always imagine that your children will be so well behaved and do everything you tell them. I'm not saying that yours weren't, it doesn't sound to me like they were doing anything wrong.

I have a friend who doesn't have children, and isn't having any, who is horrified that mine aren't in bed at 7, she says she wouldn't have them up so late, but what can you do, you can send children to bed, but you can't make them sleep.

I think once your friends start to have children they will change their opinions, it does completely change your live and you can't relate to it until it happens to you.

Before I had my dd, a friend at work who had kids said that once you had the baby you will feel as if you crossed a bridge! I didn't think anything of it at the time, but I soon realised. My life is completely different now, and I cannot always cater for my friends demands like I used to in my pre-dd days. My experience is that friends who can adjust to the fact you are also a mother will and those who cannot will fade away, on the bright side most people I know even the ones that don't like children have got used to me being a mum and I don't have much probs although I have yet to stay over at a friend's house with my dd!!!

IMHO our friendship with a childless couple has changed and will never be the same I have known her for over 20 years and DH has been friends with her DH for over 40 years.

She is very career minded and does NOT want children.

DS is 9 years and she doesn't understand at all about family life. we went away with them and another couple it was HELL!!!!! we were together for several days in a cottage NEVER AGAIN.

The other couple are great we went there for dinner last week and she wanted DS to come and after dinner he went upstairs to watch videos. everybody happy

anyway maybe your friends will be different when they have little ones.

BTW your children sound very well behaved

emkana i know exactly what you mean.This happened to me a couple of years ago.Some friends we hadn't seen for ages came to visit.Ds must have been about 2.5 and he was being really sweet.You know the way they start showing you all their treasures? He kept bringing things to show them and they just didn't get it! They had no idea how to react to him and kept looking at me as if to say 'what do I do?' I found the evening really hard and escaped early on the pretext of bathing ds and putting him to bed.We haven't seen them since and I'm quite glad in a way, because that evening showed me that we really had absolutely NOTHING in common anymore!
However, we are friends with another couple who we kind of lost touch with, but when they had their baby they got back in touch and it was easier.
I also understand what you mean about their lives.What makes them adult? They don't have any concept of responsibility in the way a parent does.And as I'm sure my talk of children bores them, their talk of nights out and new handbags bores me.

it happens. happened a bit to us when we had our firt, but to be honest it happened more when it became clear that ds1 was autistic - with some friends who had children- those that knew ds1 from an early age were often fine and some have been great- although we lost a fair few- but I do find making friends with people who only have normal kids difficult. Your post has really clarified why as well it is because of "our different perception of the children and what behaviour is normal". I'm going to ramble now but dh has been at a gathering today (representing the family- no way couuld we have taken ds1) and he rang to say he was finding it really difficult. I suggested that it was because the smalltalk (kids/school blah blah blah) was so far away from our reality so you feel fake- but we can't actually talk about our life as it's not something that others want to know about or can undertand. DH said he thought that was exactly that. Point being there is a similar gulf between childess and those with kids. They can't really know what it is like (for evidence see the teletubbies comment!)

However I suspect it doesn't mean they're gone for ever. Some of the people who were dreadful in the early days have improved (although not all but I just don't bother with them), and now ds1 is at school full time I am beginning to mix in "normal" circles again. I suspect the same thing will happen with you as your children get older.

This is a thread I am going to be pondering on all night I think- so thanks! But it just occurs to me that I actually find it easier to mix with the childless now than with parents of young children - probably because they have less idea of normality and so are less shocked by him.

Emkana, can I suggest that there is quite a cultural gap between expectations of parents and children in the UK vs Germany? I have just come back to Oz after 2 years in Germany, and honestly it is like I can breathe again. I found in Germany that people were very uptight about children and their behaviour. Interactions were still expected to be quite formal etc. Also the birthrate in Germany (0.9?) has dropped so much that some towns are shrinking and schools are closing down etc. I think I am right in saying that the UK has the highest birthrate in Europe and the Australian rate is about the same (1.9/2.1) Only children are very common in Germany. People don't engage babysitters as much and aren't as dedicated to trying to maintain a social life away from children. Lots of couples are deciding not to have any children as they are too expensive and involve too many sacrifices - I think that this is quite a contrast to the UK or Australia.

Having said that I still think that childless couples have little idea about what it is like to have a family. I know I didn't before DS.

Extended families don't seem as close anymore, so childless couples don't come across children that frequently anymore. When I was a kid I had heaps of cousins that we saw very frequently (dad was 1/7, mum 1/5). On a quick count I have 25 cousins. However, I only have 1 full brother, 1 step-sister and 1 half-sister (much younger) - and 2 step-brothers I have nothing to do with. In all that mess there are 5kids, plus my DS.

I hope I haven't offended anyone with my sweeping generalisations.

one of the things that most annoyed me was something my childless friend said. being a parent is hard work anyway but being a single parent is lonely too, i was having a conversation with this friend about a night out i was due to have (which isnt often) and she said proudly "when I have children thats it for me...i WILL NOT be going out ever again, not with my friends and not with my partner...i WILL NOT be going anywhere without my children" he he he i thought...just you wait sweetheart...you wont be so full of it when you have kids too. she made it seem so wrong that anyone should need/want an hour or two away from the kids..yet she hasnt the faintest idea what its like to look after any!

I have adjusted my social circle since having children. I still have childless friends, but as a rule I never mention my children when I am with them or with my colleagues at work. It's just two completely differnet worlds and I sometimes think both parts pity eachother. The childless pity the parents who have to spend their whole weekends in playgrounds and parks feeding ducks and only go out occasionally. The parents pity the childless because they don't get to spend whole weekends in playground and parks and have no children to snuggle up to at night.

My experience is the opposite to nightowl. I often get comments that I need to get out and spend time without the kids more. I am now on mat leave, but normally work fulltime and the rest of my time I want to spend with my children so tend to socialise with family and friends who have children. I have so often heard the comment "you need to have your own life", but spending time with my children/family IS how I want my life to be!

Maybe, some friends are worth hanging on to and can cope with the shifts in our own lives? developments that temporarily pull our interests apart and others just fall by the wayside.
I have lost some single childless friends - and it hurt at the time but now I don?t miss them at all as I have made new ones who are in a similar position in life and have more in common. I just don?t need all of these ignorant comments and high standards that are just plain rude and upsetting - can relate to teh Teletubbies comment so much. My sister (posh house, car, holidays, no kids) is always coming up with rubbish like that and if she weren?t my sister I would have ditched her too by now!

Luckily (but strangely) for me, all of my friends have had children within 2 years of each other.
We are all in our 30's and have had a great social childless life throughout our teens and 20's. Our social lives now are sparse and very much geered around our babies, however when we do have an evening out it is fab. Usually we go for a nice meal and are home by 10-10.30. And yes you guesed it...all we talk about are our babies! That will sound completely and uterly sad sad sad to millions of people but we dont care we love it! What else is there?!

And then there are the friends who don't have children - through choice or circumstance or a bit of both - who remain brilliant friends and have time for the kids but also give you a way back to the 'you' that you still want to hang on to!

I think one of the major things coming out of this thread is the gulf between those who are used to children and those who are not. The declining birth rate is part of the problem, because it means that kids grow up without experience of other kids - I have always been around children, and responsible for looking after them (babysitting etc.) from the age of 13 (shock horror). Because I have 40 odd cousins, 25 of them close (!), of all different ages, at every single lifestage I've been at, I've known children and toddlers, and therefore had some idea of how they behave. What is happening now, is that young adults are cut off from children until they have the shock of having their own, which means that from about the age of 15 to 35, it's perfectly possible to go through life without any contact whatsoever with young children. Not a particularly healthy development for society, in my view. And not really in the interests of individuals themselves - perhaps parenthood wouldn't be quite such a culture shock if people were more used to children.

My best friend was just like that. She would go out to a pizza restaurant for Sunday lunch and then complain that there were dreadful children in there and really people shouldn't go out to eat unless they could control their children etc. etc. She also had one of those childless weddings (I snuck ds in up my dress, unbeknown to her!) because she didn't want it spoilt.

So I was a bit scared to tell her that I was pg! Luckily she instantly fell in love with my ds - so much so that we weren't going to have godparents, but the relationship she developed with ds was so beautiful that we decided we should. When I went back to work she came to stay for 3 days to look after him. Before she came a friend (who is a SAHM!) told me she'd said to her "well, I can't see what's going to be so hard about looking after a 6 month old baby".

She travelled on the tube one day over to the area where she used to live. I caught up with her - in a pizza restaurant - after work. She was moaning again - about waiters who put knives, glasses etc. close to the edge of the table, not enough space to park the buggy, poor changing facitilies, nothing provided to entertain small children (they really need it, it's unfair to just expect them to be quiet). I didn't point out to her how amusing her complete swing in opinion was! Oh, and don't get her started on the difficulties of public transport, getting along pavements, negotiating shops, changing facilities etc. etc. And she confessed to me that one afternoon she played Baby Mozart THREE times back to back because she was so exhaused and needed some peace and quiet.

So a few days OD-ing on baby care soon put her right!

I don't know about the cultural differences you mention, but I do remember that when my baby brother was a baby/toddler we left him home in England for our annual trips to stay with friends in Germany!

Certainly not offended, AussieSim, and I do agree with you to some extent - it always strikes me when I'm in Germany how less child-friendly Germany seems to be. One example - in England people always seem to give the dd's a smile in shops or on the bus - in Germany this rarely happens. We were on the bus last week, and dd2 was doing her 15-month-old "flirt" routine with a woman sitting behind us - the woman didn't move a muscle, and this is not uncommon!
Also it's difficult to find places to eat in with children in Germany - hardly any have non-smoking areas, not all have high chairs... Best place to go to really is out of town McDonald's, not exactly a gourmet experience!
MI and Issymum, the friend I stayed with overnight couldn't be more loving towards my dd's, but still I find that she just doesn't understand what it's like, and there is the implication of "When I have children I'll do it all differently..." which in my insecure moments I take as unfair criticism of my childrearing abilities!