Life is not linear. In college or university, you hit the same milestones as your classmates at more or less the same time. Upon graduation, big life moments, such as marriage and motherhood, occur at different times, if at all, for each individual. It is not always easy understanding or accepting divergent eras of life, as one Reddit user experienced.
This childless woman struggles with the fact that her mom friends from university often bring their children to girls' nights. She just wants to unwind with her friends without kids. She took to the popular forum to see if she reacted too harshly when leaving a girls' wine and barbecue night early after her friend brought their 8-year-old.
Girls' nights are looking different these days.
The Redditor begins by explaining that she has a group of seven girlfriends from college that is made up of one childless woman, two expecting moms, and three moms. She herself is childfree.
“We as a group rarely meet up,” the original poster explains. “I've seen all of them maybe twice in the last year, and we all live in the same city. Every time someone asks to meet up and we finally find a date everyone is available, one of the moms always asks if they can bring their child, or children. Its usually 1 of 2 moms, as the third actually wants to have a kid free evening. And before anyone else can answer, the other mom says yes.”
The moms have child care options.
The childfree woman makes sure to stress that her friends do have options for child care. In her opinion, they just choose not to use them.
“All 3 moms have husbands who can watch their kids,” she goes on to say. “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.”
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The childfree woman has a plan.
The Redditor has devised her own way of dealing with this. “So at this point I've stopped answering until they've set a time and place, someone has asked about kids, and I say I can't make it,” she explains. “I hang out with them one on one, or in smaller groups instead. Well a few days ago we agreed to finally meet up. No one had asked about kids and we were having a bbq and wine night.” Or so she thought.
Things did not go according to her plan.
Her hopes were quickly dashed. “We'll, who shows up with their 8 year old? Yep, one of the moms,” the user recalls. “I clearly didn't hide my annoyance and one of the girls asked me why. I just waved it off and 30 min later I excused myself and left. Said I didn't feel well. In those 30 min we hadn't had any 'adult talk', we were just entertaining the kid. I would rather go home thsn do this for another 3-4 hours.”
Her friends called her out.
Her friends caught on to the real reason behind her exit. “After I left, I think they realised this was a pattern and I got text from most of the girls in the group,” she recalls. “Some calling me an [expletive] others just saying they were annoyed with me for leaving, while the third mom having my back, and asked to meet up later that week to have a proper wine night.”
The OP makes sure to clarify she does not dislike children — in fact she works with them. She just wants relaxing girlfriend time. She signs off by asking if she acted poorly.
The childfree woman is not wrong.
Most of Reddit sided with the childfree woman believing she was not in the wrong in this situation.
“Wine night with friends from college pretty definitely means no children,” wrote one user.
Another fellow mom agreed: “I’d be PISSED if someone brought their kids to a night out. If I’ve sorted a sitter I don’t want to see any kids.”
This user should communicate her needs to her friends.
Other Redditors think the childfree woman could have communicated better and not acted so passive aggressive. They understand her frustration, but wish she would have handled the situation differently.
“I would communicate the lack of desire to be around children as it doesn’t seem this boundary (which is reasonable) has been established or communicated,” advised one user.
Sometimes, friends grow apart and that is OK.
Another user broke down different phases of life for the user.
“It sounds like your friend circle is naturally fracturing, it's not necessarily a bad thing," the commenter explained. “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.” Perhaps there is some way for this friend group to meet in the middle.
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