I found this article. Keep in mind this article was written by a woman who was married, planned on having children, and wasn't hoping to be childless. This is not me in that sense but I still feel what she feels and therefore, this article is pretty much accurate, despite that I don't fully meet the description.
You can look up the full article but this is where I found the most sense. Also, this is all probably coming to surface because of the area I live in and the lack of friends and contact due to this motherhood thing. Everyone has babies, wants babies, and doesn't understand why you wouldn't want to get babies! Maybe even because one of my friends is trying ot get pregnant and while I am so so so very excited for her and will want to meet her minime... it saddens me to know what may be ahead.... I'm still confident in her assurances of this not happening. I just think that it is natura to have the shift in priorities and she will be an amazing mother so she will have to succumb to some of these truths. And so will I.
"A fifth of women are child-free, why do we feel so peripheral, so shut out? Perhaps – despite decades of feminism – it's because there's an assumption that the only truly worthwhile job a woman can do is to raise children. Jennifer Leonard, a chartered psychologist and parenting coach, agrees that mothers of young children gravitate towards one another. "Once you have children, your priorities change and your interests alter," she says. "The result is that mothers tend to seek out reassurance about their parenting from one another. It's a growing trend, partly because we don't have the extended families around who used to provide that kind of support. Women who don't have children are in a minority, so as more of their friends have babies and build mummy networks, they can end up feeling sidelined."
The division between mothers and me was brought home at a party recently, organised by the mother of one of my goddaughters. Many of the guests were friends I hadn't seen for a long time. But when I tried to chat, telling them what I was up to, they couldn't concentrate on what I was saying.
I saw panic in their eyes, as if they didn't know how to have a conversation that wasn't about their offspring. OK, their children were there, too, so they were looking out for them at the same time and maybe their inability to concentrate results from years of having to do lots of things at once. However, I couldn't help but feel I was bothering them by talking about something other than their children. I was happy to listen to tales of potty training, broken nights and teenage hormones. I appreciate what pressures they are under and what a difficult job mothering has become. But when these mums began comparing notes about their youngsters, I felt completely excluded.
They are a very broadminded crowd and I don't think they consciously left me out. It's just that our interests are now very different – we no longer have things in common. Eventually, I drifted away and ended up chatting with the men, who were happy to talk about things other thanfamily life. But feeling increasingly lonely, and somehow not quite a fully fledged woman, I left early.
I discovered later that I had been invited as an afterthought, when my ex-husband asked why I wasn't on the guest list. This was hurtful, but not surprising, as I've missed out on invitations before. It's not, I believe, that my friends don't want me around any more, simply that their lives as parents, wage-earners and partners leaves them with no time for anything other than family-focused socialising, often arranged at the school gates. They bear me no ill will – I have simply dropped out of their world and their minds.
When I asked my good friend Jo if she viewed me differently to her mummy friends, she admitted that, while happy to meet for dinner, she would leave me off the guest list when hosting parties."
I end the article here because the rest didn't meet my m/o but you get the point. Your thoughts? The article itself had 209 comments to date so it is curious what others may think.
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