It's funny how different my social circle is now that my kid is in first grade. Once peopled with friends from all walks of life, there's one word that could sum up about 80 percent of my best girls these days: mom. It seems the fertility gods were kind to me. But sometimes it feels like motherhood homogenizes your whole life.
You've heard of the mom mafia? The stroller squad? What makes those names hurt isn't that we're being made fun of for procreating, but the reason so many moms have so few friends in the child-free camp. We've all been dumped by at least one or two along the way.
I used to think it was just my (unlucky) lot in life, but the more moms I ask, the more I've found that just about every one has the story of being unceremoniously dropped by a non-parent friend. No wonder we feel so alone! But some of the these "friends" really top the stupid scales. As they say on every Law & Order rerun, here are there stories:
1. My friends couldn't understand why I was exhausted at 10 p.m. . . just when they were ready to go out! So they said if I couldn't "make time for them," I wasn't a good enough friend. What happened to making time for me?
2. I was invited to my friend's destination wedding, and I really wanted to go. But when she told me it was child-free, I felt really uncomfortable having to find a babysitter in a strange place far away from home. When I told her that, she didn't offer to help. She just stopped talking to me!
3. My friend wanted to go out, and my husband was happy to stay home with the baby. Score! Trouble is, she didn't warn me she expected it to be like old times complete with a boatload of drinks. I was still breastfeeding, so I offered to be the designated driver, but she wasn't happy with that. She told me to just take her home then, and she hasn't really returned my call since. I guess I'm not "fun" anymore.
4. So my best girlfriend ever is not a "baby" person. And I told her that was no problem. I wouldn't expect her to change diapers or anything; I'd be happy to have an occasional girls night out with my best friend after my son was born. Fast forward to 6 weeks after delivery, and I called her up to invite her to his christening. She coolly informed me that a "real best" friend would have asked her to be the godmother, and no, she would not be coming. What?
It's stories like these that make me appreciate my daughter's (child-free) godmother when she shows up at my house for dinner, and spends an hour watching my kid do silly dance moves in the living room!
How about you? Do you have an "I got dumped" story?
Image via JD Hancock/Flickr
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Comments 165
As a single, childless woman, I had the opposite experience. Despite being available, willing and able to hang out with them and their children, none of them (which was all of them, except one, also single and childless) had time for me anymore. That hurts, too.
I've been on both sides of the fence and I know there is always two sides to every story so I can't really say any of the stories mentioned are horror stories.
I will share my side of the story though :)
I had a friend that got pregnant and from the moment she got pregnant she went bat crap crazy. There was no longer any negativity around her child even before it was born! No complaining about work or hubby or boyfriend no venting about the crazy driver in front of you. After the baby was born she became even more obsessed, from the moment she popped it out you couldn't even drink a soda in her child's presence because he would pick up the bad habit and it just spiraled out of control. I finally couldn't take it anymore and dumped her as a friend.
Her verision of the story is that I became jealous because I wanted a baby and that all of her time was now devoted to her child
my best friend has stuck with me through thick and thin. she loves DS. i had lost other friends. i met a woman with a child my DS age but she was extremely obsessed with cleaning and it bothered me. her DS and my DS bonked heads while playing and her DS freaked out and so did she. that friendship ended right there and than with her never calling me again and her taking my off facebook. i apologized but it was just too much for her so she ended it.
One of my best friends in the world pretty much dumped me once I got pregnant with my daughter.... Since I couldn't go out to the bar every night and pound back shot after shot like we used to.... She thought that me being pregnant shouldn't stop me from at least joining her at all of the clubs -- I was happy to go out with her once in a while, but honestly, once all of the endless sickness and fatigue of the first trimester was over, i didn't feel quite so cute in my old club wear.... she never understood that I just wasn't comfortable going, and declined my offers for alternative ways of hanging out (dinner, movie, sit down pub even)..... shortly after my child was born, when I still wasn't back to my old self (quickly enough for her, anyways), I was basically dumped, no call or text returned again. Her loss, my daughter is way better company anyways