Friends with Baby

alecia_kasher · January 2015

Me and my husband's best friends (married couple) of over 10 years had their first baby in July. My husband and I have been on the fence for years about whether we want children or not. We love kids and we've always seen ourselves having kids, but timing just hasn't been right yet. Of course, we constantly get the question "when are you guys going to have kids?". Our friends know how irritating it can be to constantly get that question but now that they've had a baby, it seems to be all they can talk about. We rarely see them now and when we do, all they talk about is baby and try to persuade us into having one. They recently took me out for dinner for my birthday (husband was out of town so it was just us) and all they could talk about the entire time was baby. I've made it pretty clear that when and if we decide to have a baby it probably won't be for another year. We just bought a house and want to settle in before getting pregnant and to also make sure our finances are in order. I feel like we shouldn't be pressured into having kids because when it comes down to it, it's our decision. I think our friends are feeling left out now that they have a baby and we have gone on about our normal lives. I can understand that they want us to be at the same place as them, but just because they decided to have a baby doesn't mean we're ready to take that leap too. Tonight we are meeting up with them for dinner and I'm worried that the same conversation is going to happen again. I left dinner the other weekend feeling annoyed and disappointed that that was all we could talk about all evening. My friends know me well and they know that pressure doesn't work on me - it actually drives me further away. So their plan to constantly nag me to have a baby is just pushing me further away from wanting one. I'm someone who needs to do things MY way and I will have a baby when I'm good and ready. How should I handle the situation if it arises again? I'm really tired of talking about this with them.

islandmonkey8 · January 2015

Tell them you'll let them know when you're ready. Or tell them you're not having kids and then if you change your mind you do. Or if you really think it's about a year from now and they still won't back down, just say it'll be 5 years or more from now. Or you don't know. Or just tell them to stop bothering you and the state of your uterus is none of their business.

islandmonkey8 · January 2015

Or just ignore them each time they ask.

Basically, we can't really tell you how to handle this. It depends how you want to handle it.

brij2006 · January 2015

Don't have any advice as to how you should handle this, because your relationship with your friends is your own. But when people would pressure us we told them that we were on the, 5 years to never, plan. Meaning that we may have children in 5 years, or we may never have them. That usually got people to stop.

However, our friends were a bit of a different story. We told them 5 years to never until we got pregnant and lost our baby over a year ago. Then we told them how long we had been trying and that we had been going through treatment. We would never give people a timeline for us, because we honestly didn't know at that point. We knew we wanted children, but had no idea when.

Flamingo86 · January 2015

I would personally have a difficult time maintaining a friendship with someone who pressured me so much to have a baby. That's great that they are happy with having their own baby but everyone is different and they should respect that.

Aimothy · January 2015

A simple, "we've discussed this before and won't be having children for at least a year (or whatever time you feel is right) ."

And when they bring it up
again, I'd ignore. But like flamingo, I'd have a hard time continuing a relationship to people who didn't "listen" to me.

poppies717 · January 2015

Per usual, ditto @Aimothy.

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