When you don’t have kids, parent pals chatting nappies and night feeds can become a little grating.
But this woman’s frustration has reached such fever pitch that she’s distanced herself from her mum friends, turning down their requests to meet up because their children are always in tow.
Posting to Reddit, she explained that, among the group of seven women who met at university, she’s the only one that’s child-free. Although one other is childless (not through choice), three of the friends already have children while two are currently pregnant with their first babies.
The group ‘rarely’ meet up despite living in the same city, with the woman saying: ‘I’ve seen all of them maybe twice in the last year.’
Then, when they do ‘finally’ find a suitable date for everyone, she claims at least one of the mums asks if they can bring their kids along to the gathering, ‘and before anyone else can answer, another mum says yes.’
‘All three moms have husbands who can watch their kids,’ the poster wrote.
‘Most of them also have both sets of grandparents who are involved. But somehow they never manage to find someone who can “babysit”, as they call it.’
In response to this, the child-free friend ‘stopped answering’ until the groupagrees on a set time and place to meet. If someone asks whether they can bring children, she makes her excuses and says she can’t make it, instead hanging out with them one-on-one or in smaller groups.
At a recent barbecue and wine night where ‘no one had asked about kids,’ the woman was dismayed when one of the mothers turned up with her eight-year-old.
She wrote in the post: ‘I clearly didn’t hide my annoyance and one of the girls asked me why. I just waved it off and 30 minutes later I excused myself and left saying I didn’t feel well.
‘In those 30 minutes we hadn’t had any “adult talk”, we were just entertaining the kid. I would rather go home than do this for another three or four hours.’
It seems as if this incident tipped the group off about the woman’s plans as she later received multiple texts from them, with some ‘calling [her] an a**hole’, others saying they were annoyed at her for leaving, and one of the mums asking to reschedule ‘to have a proper wine night’ undisturbed by minors.
‘I don’t hate kids at all,’ she continued in her post, in which she sought advice on whether she was in the wrong.
‘I work with them every day and don’t want to spend my time off, relaxing with friends, having to entertain other people’s kids again.’
Reactions were mixed, with some Redditors arguing the woman could have handled the situation differently and others agreeing with her no-children-allowed stance.
‘The selfish mindset that all your friends have to be cool with your kid is ridiculous,’ said one user, while another called it ‘silly’ to bring children to an event focused around alcohol.
‘You’re allowed to want adult time and honestly it’s a little weird to me that the mums in the group don’t want that too,’ added a third.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, one commenter wrote: ‘It is quite natural for young parents to want to socialise with their children in tow when their friendship circle consists of other parents in the same situation. It’s also a nice way for their children to mix with others.’
Another said: You seem to be the only person in this friend group who is directly opposed to having kids around. Nothing wrong with that, but there’s nothing wrong with the fact that your friends are in a different place in life than you.
‘Also, it doesn’t seem like you’ve really advocated that you want “adults-only” hangouts, you just sulk in the background.’
Many suggested the woman should be firmer in setting boundaries before get-togethers, including one who commented: ‘You can’t assume the others will automatically think of or want to arrange childcare when one of you suggests hanging out, and then get mad when they don’t.’
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