More from Breeder Mariella: all my friends are having babies

More from Breeder Mariella: all my friends are having babies
September 01, 2019

Registered: 13 years ago
Posts: 12,432

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Letter Writer
I’m 34 and have been in a close friendship group with four other women since university. Our relationship has been a constant comfort, but during the past year I’ve found it incredibly difficult to connect with them as all four have had babies. Suddenly our WhatsApp group looks more like Mumsnet – and I just can’t relate. I don’t know if I want kids or not. My husband puts no pressure on me, but this is bringing out the worst in me. I feel left behind, confused and judgmental as these friends enter motherhood. I feel isolated and incapable of contributing, and when I do I feel disingenuous. I try to widen the conversation, but it always reverts back to babies. I don’t want to lose these people, but I feel marginalised, as if I’m fundamentally missing out on some intensely female purpose. How do I step back without being overly dramatic?

Time to ditch those breeders because it won't ever get better. Even if you join them, your kid will be a different age than theirs and so you still won't have anything in common and they'll just use it as an opportunity to give condescending advice from their vantage point of a few years further along.

Of course Mariella doesn't suggest finding new friends.

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Occupy at least some of the time while your friends are preoccupied by thinking hard about what you want out of your life (and less about what they are doing with theirs). Friends are friends, even when our experiences are at odds, so it’s an imperative life skill to develop resilience and patience for the moments when you slip apart.

Still, it was a reasonably sane answer by her standards.

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randomcfchick

Re: More from Breeder Mariella: all my friends are having babies
September 01, 2019

Registered: 12 years ago
Posts: 5,622

Yeah, that's not too bad a response by Mariella standards. I'd say expand your friend network so you have friends who aren't into the baby thing, and limit your group time with the mom brigade. I've noticed that mom types tend to gravitate toward parenthood stuff if they're not in the majority, and/or if the group is more diverse. There's a good chance that one of those moms is fucking sick of the babybabybabybabybaby conversations and would rather talk about other stuff for a while....but isn't able to overcome the herd.

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freya

Re: More from Breeder Mariella: all my friends are having babies
September 01, 2019

Registered: 9 years ago
Posts: 3,708

I think she got off relatively easily. By the time I was in my mid 20's I knew that most females lost their heads looking for a man. Obsessed nonstop about the man and how "he is the one" often after the first date. Some would start picking out baby names within a month of dating. And either this relationship would work out resulting in: marriage, baybees and then reality which often resulted in divorce and mutual hatred or the cycle would repeat itself until it completed.

She should count herself fortunate for not experiencing this until her mid 30s. If she is really lucky perhaps she will rekindle friendships with these women once their brats are around 5 or older. But if she decides to have brats she will likely be too bizzy to rekindle anything.