Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Friendship Vs. Motherhood

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Happy Hump day EICrunchies! So last week an Instagram post by a child-free creator went semi-viral. The post explored the perspective of its child-free creator (Danni Duncan) and many other child-free people who have felt sad when a friendship has changed following a mate having a baby, and want spaces to express that freely. In the visuals for the post she writes: "I know your kids come first but I still believe friendship should go both ways so that makes me selfish. I understand you’re busy but I still hope to hear from you, so that makes me needy. I don’t expect the same time as before but I do hope for some effort, so that makes me unrealistic. I miss our friendship and I’ll say that out loud, so that makes me difficult. Or maybe I’m not a horrible friend. Maybe I just believe friendship should survive life changes. And that both people deserve to be seen.”And we wanted to discuss this- with your help. We ask: is it fair for CF women to express their sadness when a friend has a baby? Is it on mothers to cross the divide or should those of us without kids do the heavy lifting? Are some friendships just seasonal? And where on EARTH are the dads in all this?Thank you all SO much for your takes on this- as empathetic, thoughtful and considered as ever. We luuuuurve being in conversation with you all. O, R, B xLinks:Danni's post Danni's follow up postWaterstones - Lessons from a Default Parent by Lou BeckettPsychology Today - The Ring Theory Book recs from listeners:Ghosts by Dolly AldertonSo Thrilled For You by Holly Bourne Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Ruchera and I'm Anoni. And this is Everything in Conversation. This is the Everything is Content, content top up, designed to carry you through to our Friday episode. We would love for you to take part in these conversations. We want your takes, perspectives, disagreements, counter arguments, everything. And you can give us those by following us on Instagram at Everything is Content Pod. That is where we decide on topics and open the floor for all of your opinions. Earlier this week, Anoni, you sent Ritira and I, a link to an Instagram post by at Danny underscore Duncan that had caught your attention and then immediately caught ours as well. The post, which has now gone semi-viral, explores the perspective of Danny and many other child-free women who feel sad about their friendship shifting after a mate has a baby and wants space and freedom to feel that sadness without being attacked or diminished.

In the visuals for the post, she writes, Hello, I'm Danny and apparently I'm a horrible friend. I know your kids come first, but I still believe friendship should go both ways, so that makes me selfish. I understand you're busy, but I still hope to hear from you, so that makes me needy. I don't expect the same as before, but I do hope for some effort, so that makes me unrealistic. I miss our friendship and I'll say that out loud, so that makes me difficult. Or maybe I'm not a horrible friend. Maybe I just believe friendship should survive life changes, and that both people deserve to be seen.

And Danny herself is a content creator with a focus on creating a platform for, in her words, people exploring life beyond the default partnerships. And the comments below this post are in their hundreds and are filled with people agreeing, people disagreeing and people accusing her of intentionally rage-baiting her audience and beyond to marg her herself and her business. And all of this, I think, demonstrates how divisive and how necessary a conversation about this topic is. Obviously, none of us are mothers currently, but we all know and love people who are parents. And we're very lucky with this podcast that our audience is very diverse on this front and can bring to this discussion, real nuance and lived experience,

which we are very excited to get into. Firstly, though, I wanted to ask you both what you made of this post and the wording specifically, which even if it's not rage bait, is written in quite a provocative way and definitely designed to ignite discussion. So as I said, I sent this to you both, and I saw it, I think it was the day out of Valentine's Day,

I was on a romantic weekend with my partner, we were watching a film and I saw this post and I proceeded to read every single one of the 600 comments because it triggered me and I do not, I couldn't understand why. but I basically just could not see myself in what this creator had expressed and could not see myself in the commenters and it actually made me feel really alienated. And some of the comments were, I think, really harsh. So I'm just reading again now. So a lot of the time mothers were

chiming quite kindly saying, I've actually experienced this, but on the other side, you know, my friends disappeared, blah, blah. And people replied things like, but girl, you made the choice to step into motherhood. Choices were made here and not by your friends who still have lives, still have needs, and still matter. We also choose whether we bow to social pressure or not, a hard one for the choice, not the left. I have four nieces. I've watched my sisters go through motherhood quite closely. I've got two really close friends at the minute, both with newborns, their breastfeeding. And my nieces range between the ages of like 13 to 2. So I'm around babies and around kids a lot. And I have never once in my life felt anything but compassion and the want to support the mothers

in my life. And I felt really, really confused. and like weirdly hurt by this because I'm not a mum. And some of the comments were like the minute my friend said she's pregnant, you know, I just know that's the friendship's over. I had for a period of time really, really considered whether or not I wanted to be a mother. And for a while was like, I actually don't think motherhood is something for me. And one of the things that gave me joy in that decision was I was like, how exciting I'll have time to give to my friends who do become mothers.

That actually makes me a really useful part of the village. I may not have my own children, but I could tend to my friends' children, my sister's children. I could be, you know, the fun, cool, rich auntie, which is kind of how I think I always saw the child-free community being framed, was often, I'm the cool, rich auntie, I'm the one that's going to turn up with really fun presents. I'm going to bring you wine round whilst you're, you know, in the depths, I'm going to clean your house.

Then I realised what really got to the cracks of it for me was, we are living in such a divided, fractured time and women already are being the punchbags in kind of every scenario. So to have child-free women and mothers suddenly pitted together as two camps, and I know the creator of this post has since said that's not at all what it is. But if you read the comments and you read the post, whether or not that was her intention, that is certainly what came out was child free women can't relate to mothers. Mothers can't relate to child free women. These are two camps. You'll never ever be able to provide for each other properly.

And I was like, this is just not what we need in the world right now because actually the thing that makes mothers suffer is inept partners who don't support them and give them the time that they maybe need in order to be with their friends, not enough state support for mothers, not good enough maternity pay or maternity care, not enough support just in general. We don't live near families, parents are older, so maybe your parents can't care for your kids, maybe they don't live in the same city. Whatever it is, in my mind, the fault is never with the mother. It's so, I don't, because I don't want to be rude to the creator. I'm not, this isn't me trying to lambast anyone, but the post is really provocative and it is quite blaming, I would

say. It feels like there's blame being put on to parents and it's quite antagonistic, I'd say, and the comments more so, the comment you read out is quite inflammatory and I, even I just went, yikes, that is bad. And framing it like you've made a choice. It's not on me to adapt to you is really individualistic. It really pains me that somebody honestly feels that way about friends and friendship. And there's something about how vulnerable we know mothers are in that time. And I know it's really difficult. I know people have to shift things. But also they're often in these circumstances really fucking struggling. And it feels really difficult to stomach on the other side being like, you made this choice, you chose, it's not on me, that's you, that's your fault, that's your life.

It feels really black and white and quite severe. I think even if the post wasn't intended for that, there's something here which is really quite brutal and I don't love it. And I think we need to unpick what's going on and how we got here. I tried to read this from both sides, even though I'm obviously very firmly on one side and I don't have children and I can just see, and we've got a message from Becky who said, I think a lot of it is valid on both sides, but the sides is the problem. This creator is actively polarising people despite what she says to the contrary, women against women is a huge problem, keeping us from supporting each other disappointing. And I can absolutely see why a mother who is in the thick of it, who is struggling to juggle

things and is just whether she's loving it or not, it's incredibly time-consuming and hard. When she's in that, knowing that she has not spoken to her friends in a long time and is likely suffering for that, but can do nothing about it, would read this and go, great. So that's the public perception on top of the fact that motherhood is already really sideline, really lambasted. I'm probably doing the line show. of the work, even with a very good partner. It would rub me, I think, very much the wrong way to position this as a divide and as someone being culpable. But then I do, on the other side, I think if you are a woman who has quote unquote lost friends, and that's the language a lot of

the women on RTM said, lost friends to motherhood, whether temporarily or permanently, you might think, but I just want a place to say the unsayable. I want to say like, I don't know how to navigate this and I'm really, I miss my friends, I've lost my friends. I want the freedom to express that. And so I do, there perhaps is a natural side, but it's not one against the other. It's just the same difficulty in different forms and different experiences of it. And so I think it's a really worthy conversation. And I didn't know how I felt about the tone of the post. I think more than anything, it does maybe speak to something that does exist in child free women, which is a feeling that may be temporary and maybe with conversation and communication does go away, that you have

been left behind and that you can't really speak to the distance without being a bad friend. And it may be true. It may be the thing that you shouldn't say that you want more and that you, even if you know you can't have more, that you are really missing them. I don't know. So we had a message from Annalise who said, I had a baby 10 months ago and honestly I'm absolutely sick of seeing this type of content. It feels constant and there's hardly ever anything from the other side. Having a baby's by far the hardest thing I've ever done, much harder than I ever imagined. I feel like I've been fully shelled out like a husk of my former self and that isn't by choice. It's not like this is how I want to be. So when I see these posts, it's like, oh, you want more from me. There's

nothing left to give. Motherhood is so incredibly isolating and lonely and it's relentless. It's not that I don't want to be there for my childless friends, but it honestly pisses me off seeing posts like this. Be patient with your friends that have a child, they'll come back to you when they can. And that's kind of what I felt. I really did sit with this because I was like, I couldn't believe the overwhelming response from the child free women in the comments that were basically like, I completely agree with this. Like my friend just constantly talks about her baby. If I want to see my friend, she always brings her baby with her. If I want to see my friend, it makes me go to her. because I was thinking, but you do, one of the things surely about being child free is that you do have more agency and you do have more time. And I would never expect my friend to like leave their baby behind, especially if they're breastfeeding. So I was like, maybe it's about sort of like a different age because surely everyone understands for at least the first six months or a year. If my friend didn't reply to my text for six months for a year, I would call her. I'd rather go around or I'd just be like she does not have time and I'd just text her and I would never expect a response. And this makes me worry about where we're going. Because I think that is, I think it like you said, Ritteritt kind of points.

It's this very individualistic idea of, and I said this to you guys in a message where people often talk about, you know, you can want to be child free, but you can't live in a child free world. Children are super important. And throughout history, we have always kind of tried to, I mean, with everything coming out in the news, you think about how safe children are. But normally people, even if they're not your own children, it is part of a healthy functioning society that everyone in society is protective of and cares about the younger generations and children. I think it does feel selfish. And I wonder if that is the way the creator posited the post was kind of saying, I guess I'm a horrible friend, I guess I'm selfish, I guess I'm needy, in a way to, I guess,

position them as a victim of their friends' new priorities. But unfortunately, I did think, well, I do think that's selfish and needy. I really do believe it is those things. And so I was interested that our comments were leaning more towards how I felt, because clearly there are massive numbers of people who do genuinely feel that if someone becomes a mother, I mean, there's more, there's more comments that I wanted to read on the post, but I think you should go and read them for yourselves, but just so many people saying, like, I just don't really understand the fact that they would have to bend around mothers. And I think messages from Annalise is so important to recognise that it's probably more likely

that the mothers are totally isolated and feeling really lonely and want to be your friend rather than them being like, I only care about my baby now. My friend of 20 years no longer matters to me. I think I am a bit worried about the intensity of the commentary and just that one message that you did read about saying, oh, you know, my friend's pregnant. That automatically means the friendship's done. That's a lot. What has made people think that it is an automatic, oh, you know, that friendship's over now.

That's really tough because if I'm trying to look at it from a 360 point of view, if you have just gone through motherhood, you've given birth, you're in that frame of mind. You need your friends more than ever. You need that kind of portal into the outer world, outside of your baby bubble. So much you need to know life outside because it can be so isolating, as you just said. And sometimes people can't ask for help. People can't send the first message. people can't extend their hands out to you when they're going through that. And I think there's like

almost a loss of, there's a loss of compassion and friendships that we've spoken about before where everything feels quite transactional and everything is like, to be a good friend, somebody has to do this for you. And it's all about what you receive. And there seems to be such a focus in our conversations culturally at the moment about what any of us are giving out. And I think that's really fucking weird. I don't know how we've got to this point where it's all about receiving and nothing about what you put out into the world. And also nothing is transactional, nothing. relationships are constantly give and take. Sometimes it's 2080, sometimes it's 6040, sometimes it's 100, 0 when I'm in a mental health spiral. And I cannot imagine somebody saying to me, you know,

the conversation is just really bad at the moment. You're not giving me anything when I'm in a really bad spot. But it feels like it's almost being reduced to that. And I really have a lot of sympathy for people who say their friendships have changed and it's really difficult. That must feel like a grief and a loss. But we have to know that that's not forever. These things are malleable. They can come back. but the thing that can't change is if you already put the walls up and you're not there for your friend, you might never come back from that because they're in a really difficult spot with this new frame of their life. What they need for you is to be sensitive, empathetic and malleable. Not every friendship can survive that. Some friendships, maybe you're not strong enough to withhold

that, but we're not doing ourselves a service by automatically talking about it like this. So I think we should, and we will in due course, get into, we got examples in our DMs where it was not this season of friendship where it was the newborns and it was actually really, really difficult and they actually, these friends who'd become mothers, literally did not have a minute in the day to do anything but mother, there's a few examples in RDMs where this extended beyond, where the mothers seem to have made the decision, I just want to have mother friends. We will get into that. But I will say, I think I really subscribe to this idea that we have to reject this checks and balances friendship, which you talk about, the keeping of school, especially in this season of life,

which is notoriously, unforgivably, brutally different. And we got a message from a shield, which said, One of my best friends became a mum a little over a year ago, and I don't know if I ever want kids. I can see that my friend is more distant from most of other friends, and I think that's really sad. I do genuinely think it's mostly on us without kids to maintain the friendship and to accept that the friendship will change and that their children are a part of the relationship now. I love her daughter, and I feel so honored to be a part of her life and to babysit. A couple of years ago, she was there for me when I went through a horrible breakup, and life goes up and down. Therefore, we switch who has to carry the relationship over time if we

wanted to continue. The price of community is inconvenience, and so on. and this makes me think of there's this, I think it's a psychological concept called the ring theory which is about crisis. So it's not perfect, it's not a perfect mirror to this, but it basically is, you draw a circle and then you put in that circle the name of the person that is in crisis or kind of has the most demands on them. And then you draw the circles around that of like people most closely connected. And the idea is you just, you dump in kindness and you dump out, you're venting. So if you need to vent about a situation, so your friend is busy with the baby and you miss them, you would dump that out to someone else who is in one of your circles. You wouldn't dump it in on them because they

don't have any ability to carry that. And I think that's how I hope that when this time comes for me, I am able to conceptualize it as in this person is going through something miraculous, brilliant, total life upheaval, unbelievably hard. And it may be really, really miserable at times. It makes no sense for me to dump in on. While this is going on, while this is as hard as it's ever going to be, I have to dump out and I have to maintain my point in the circle, which is someone dumping comfort, dumping hell, that is community. And I do, in those situations, I do think it must be quite terrible as a new mother to then think, oh, I'm also a bad friend. I think that relationship surely cannot and should not survive someone laying that at your feet when you're going through something.

I do think the tone of this post, and I know that the creator has contested this, but I do think that was the problem because if we think about that seminal episode of Sex and City where Carrie talks about losing her shoe at the baby shower, this thing about being, you know, child free and or single in a world that is set up a heteronormative partnership and children, There is a conversation to be had about how child-free women are really left out of the conversation and how perhaps it isn't the norm to talk about being child-free by choice. But I think the framing of this as being like the ones that are letting down child-free women are mothers is what has got my backup.

And it is interesting because we had another comment along the vein of what you said from Natasha, who said, a close friend's just had a second baby and I just show up in ways that suits her. Our friendship is allowed to shift shapes and I don't mind meeting for a coffee at a soft play or going over to her messy house teat-up leftovers. It takes a village and even though we live far apart, I don't. rather be her village than not in her life. I don't require anything back as a friend because her light and love and existence is enough. And I, that's how I feel. Like my friend, both of my close friends who have babies, they now no longer live in London. So both times I've gone to see them both. I've stayed

for the weekend. I've gone with another school friend. We've actually made like a whole trip out of it. It's been really sweet. Quite magical to watch your friend breastfeeding, bring to life, hear their birth story. I find it really interesting. I spend so much time with my sisters now that I constantly talk about my nieces. So I can totally understand why when it's your kid, that's kind of like all you want to talk about. And I do think the tone in our DMs has been much more balanced. And I just wanted to go back to this post because it's so interesting how what it's kind of encouraged the conversation to turn into because there's a mother who chimes in and says, you know, as a mother, I remember being child free. But when you're child free, you've never experienced what it's like to be a mother.

And, you know, it is really exhausting and draining all the things we said. Child pre-comptor said, we genuinely do have every idea what it's like to completely lose your identity and full bodily autonomy, which is why we chose not to baby cakes. You're not morally superior to anyone just because you chose to give those things up. Blimey. I think that we have learned so much about motherhood that actually that is one of the reasons why I thought I wanted to be child free. I do not understand it. I conceptually recognize now that motherhood is not something if you take it lightly. I conceptually understand the idea of sleep deprivation of hormonal imbalances of the ways your body's changing your relationship change. But I do not understand them. I've never experienced

it. So I cannot say to a mother in good faith, I know exactly what it is you're going through and that's I've chosen not to do that off the back of a conversation about why mothers are bad friends. I think that that is a really toxic aspect and I'd not seen this kind of aspect of the child-free community. And to be honest, it did really, really worry me. That tone and that response is really dark. I think that is a really wild thing to say to somebody and to mean that with your chest. It's so unsympathetic and it is just at the root of it quite cruel. All are messaged and said, the conversation around child-free women and mothers is so exhausting and unproductive online. It feels like rage bait.

I don't think it should be a one versus the other conversation. I think it should be something you take up with your own friends. My best friend is child free and we've adjusted our friendship. She's there for me and loves my child and I've been there for her through caring for her father and losing him recently. My only point and maybe bias plays a role here, but I rarely see child free people speaking positively about mothers online. At best, they acknowledge parenting is hard, but it's almost always steeped in centering themselves, misogy and misunderstanding the wider systems at play. That's not to say there isn't tension when mothers say,

stupid stuff, like you haven't experienced love until you've had a child, etc. But a mother talking positively about motherhood or her children seems to trigger supposedly happily child-free people, or it's seen as boring to talk about parenting, whereas we're supposed to listen to how exciting your travels are, how much male attention you're getting, how much money you have to spare. It's a typical you versus me situation and we can't see past it or understand we can all have happy lives. And I think that kind of lands on what you're saying, which is it doesn't have to be so polarized, polarized, sorry. It just seems to be both camps, have real hurt. And it doesn't even need to be camps, but it's, it's feeling like camps at the moment.

And I think that's the really heartbreaking thing. There are so much to gain from learning from these different experiences, but for some reason it's become so oppositional. And I do think there are different kinds of, not camps, but different kinds of child-free people, people like perhaps you and only who, whatever happens, you want to be a part of the village. And I think, as you say, no one is owed a child-free world. And I think anyone that's ever used a word like crotch goblin, or, you know, when they just really put down children, any anti-child sentiment, I think, comes from a foul place. Children are a very vulnerable group. They need protecting. They need all of us. But there are some people that really don't feel interested to hear that much about other people's children. And when

someone has a baby, it may be that that is all you hear about for quite a long time. For some people, that's absolutely fine, maybe even interesting, maybe even exciting to be like, yes, it's new life. For other people, they might just be bored. And I'm not going to moralize that. I will just say, sometimes friendships are seasonal in that sometimes your friends at university, I'm going to party with you and you are going to give me the most joyful memories I've ever had. But then we are going to go on to adult lives and have nothing in common. This is sad, but it's not a tragedy. And it may be that this is the dividing line for some people where they have to depart

gently and graciously someone else's life because the person that you knew and loved and the common interests is not there anymore. If motherhood is as transformative as it can be, you might have to say, my friend is gone, or at least she is someone different. And if we can't serve each other, this could be the healthiest thing. And I don't think that's always a tragedy, even if it is really sad. but we did get a message from an anonymous listener who said, I'm the only one out of my girl group who doesn't want kids.

No one has had any kids yet, but I'm scared of what will happen to my friendships once they do. Already very isolating to be the only one who doesn't want kids. They don't understand me and I don't understand them. When a baby comes into a restaurant, we are all in. They go mad at how cute it is, and I'm just sitting there with no interest. It's still seen as weird for a woman to state publicly and honestly

that she doesn't want kids and isn't maternal. I feel very, I do. I think this is maybe a completely separate conversation, but I think there is an othering. I mean, there's an othering of all women, but there is definitely an othering of women who are really not maternal and perhaps don't want to be closely associated with children and don't really feel that they have that much to give. And it's kind of boring to be around them. And I do wonder in this case, it's not like a death now, but I do wonder in this case if it is a sign that you should have more friends who really align on that because otherwise you would just feel like the black sheep, you would feel completely, completely alone. Totally. And loads of what was so interesting was lots of the comments were people, child free people, who by the way, I completely empathise with that. It is. is really hard that stage of life. It's hard of this stage of life that we're in. But then I also found that confusing because this makes total sense to me. I kind of was ready. This fraction has happened

quite, you know, slowly. People couple off, then they move away, then they have a baby. And you learn to fill in the gaps with new friends or you work our ways around your friendship. But lots of the child through people are saying, feel really left out because they're just hanging out with new mum friends. When I went to see my friend recently, she told us that she'd made a load of friends with these mum friends. And me and my other friend were like, yay, thank God, because one of my biggest fears is her not having this group around her. And I was so pleased because I can't, as much as I think I'm like a pseudo mom because I'm so close to my nieces, I actually don't necessarily know certain things. Like I can't answer you on a question. And I put her baby's nappy on back to front. She texts me afterwards. It's like, I've just lit to the nappy. I don't know how you did that. Sorry. Anyway, so it's like, if your friend is making mum friends, maybe take that as a sign that actually I need to fill my cup up with some child free friends rather than that's my whole friendship era left. And other comments from moms on that post were like, I actually stopped hanging out with my friends so I could tell they look. had like a glazed overlook when I kept talking about my baby. Like there are people that complain about, you know,

mothers constantly go on about the babies. That might make your mum friend feel like she doesn't have a place in a friendship group anymore because she just can't help herself talking about it. And I think that friendships to me, maybe because I've had some of my friends for like decades, but I go through periods where I might not talk to summer for months. Then we hang out every day for two weeks and then we speak every day. And then, you know, I've got all these different friends that kind of ebb and flow

and they move and change. And even though my friends have babies, I have spoken to you less. I have seen less. They're still my best friends. and I know that they will be my best friends, or I hope they will be my best friends in 40 years. This is a long game to me. I'm not worried about how long this is going to last.

And I think we've touched on this before with relationships. I think it's always a really good thing, especially at this time in your life, to have people around you who are making those same decisions. Whether it's you've suddenly gone freelance and all of your friends work in an office, really good idea to find people that are doing similar things to you, just so you've got that sounding board and that sense of sanity. And I think you should be just as happy for your friends that are also making those same choices. is we cannot, we do not live in a sitcom like friends where everyone goes to the same coffee shop every day. It is difficult to maintain things over this time. But to me it is just not, I just don't see that as like something which I'm a victim of, more that it's just a process of growing up and growing older in these life stages.

That's really interesting reframing it as it being a long game and what you said, Beth, about friendships having seasons and also I guess just not trying to control things. I said it before, but just being malleable. I think it does come back to that and being really patient and understanding. And that just is like two of the cornerstones of friendship. It's not one way. There are so many times in my life where I've just had a breakup where I'm acting absurd and ridiculous and people have been so patient with me.

And one of my best friends who had a baby a few months ago. I honestly, and I'm not just saying this, there has been no difference in our communication. She replies to me instantly because she's awake at all times of the night. And I take days to reply because I'm just like fannying about doing like nonsense, stupid things. And she's listened to my nonsense about so many things recently. no change. And I know that's not the same for everyone. So maybe that is informing the way I'm approaching this discussion because I have had my first very influential and very much positive experience of this change of my circle. We had a message from Giananni. Just for context, by the way,

most of her uni friends are older and married with kids. They said it was a little bit heartbreaking initially because I could tell they were spending time together without me. And when we did, I couldn't relate to it a lot. But with time, I've accepted it will be a bit different. And even if I have kids, I'll always be behind them, so it won't be the same as sharing huge life changes at a similar time. I take the lead on arranging our meetups every few months and I'm more than happy to. They have whole humans to look after. It's a shame we won't get to do group holidays or have nights out like we used to, because their responsibilities are different to mine now. I'm trying to be more positive about it and take joy and seeing their kids grow, see how they navigate such a different life to

mine. We'll always share our bond from our time at uni and it's unfair to expect this to never change. All friendships do at some point, which I thought was really. beautiful actually. Something that I think about, I guess, in relation to that is it's so friend-specific. It is on you as a person that can navigate changes and be really patient and it's on them to not bounce back. That's the horrible verbiage for it, but kind of adjust and then sort of resettle that balance and then shop as a friend again in time. And there was stories in our inbox where sort of wasn't happening. We got a message from Anon that said, I feel like I'm struggling to celebrate an ongoing big birthday because I've really struggled with the group dynamic. It's all kids

and marriages and me being nag to go back on the dating acts when I'm not interested just now. I've contributed to every single milestone they've all had, but it seems to be on the proviso that you celebrate it to be given something. I'm single and child free, so this kind of is my milestone. Another one of our group is celebrating the same birthday later this year and she'll probably get gifts. She's had for engagements and getting married. So the unfairness feels real. And this is the Carrie Bradshaw problem. It is you have to be really confident in making this thing about you and explaining sometimes to people that might be caught up in the traditional milestones that they this is the thing. And I think any good friend, even if in the first instance there are a bit like,

oh, yes, sorry, I was wasting it wrong, will then catch up and they will. But you have to communicate so heartily that this really matters because otherwise you do end up not saying anything, passively communicating and feeling really miserable and isolating yourself and allowing yourself to be isolated. I'm not saying that's easy, but I do think it is a child free person's burden to say, this is what matters. I need you to shut up for me here and just make it as easy as possible to have these friendships last and last? See, yeah, I really do understand that framing more, like the understanding of the amount of money you might put into going to

hens and weddings and baby showers. And if you're single and child free being like, God, how do I advocate for myself to be celebrated? Is my life only valuable once I've introduced another character, e.g. a husband or a partner or a baby. Like, when can I just be seen? And I can understand that element of it more because I think that is actually a societal issue in the way that we frame.

women's wins being oh my god well got done you got engaged well done you got married well done you had a baby those were really exciting whereas you know you might get a career promotion and you know maybe you don't get the flowers that your friend get you know it's such a societal norm to be sending cards and flowers and presents for certain occasions and not for others and that i find a real bummer but like you said something that you can adjust in groups and i do hope that we're wiser like i do it's something that me and my friends do talk about and do think about and do try to readjust but that that can be a tricky territory to navigate. And I know it isn't as easy as saying, just make new friends, because it is really hard to make friends. And I know that this content creator's thing is all about sort of like finding child free people. But maybe, maybe unfortunately that has kind of calcified into something that through its very nature has become quite othering and toxic and negative because of all the real true things around, you know, single tax and being a woman who's on her own. And there are real world negative connotations to being someone that chooses to live a life.

a slightly different direction. But I don't think that the answer to that is to perceive yourself as a victim of other people's choices. Rather, you have to kind of find a way to, like you said, Beth, advocate for yourself, do put yourself in new spaces. Yes, it's an unusual thing to talk about, but it's also not unusual now, especially for women in their 30s. And we did have a message about this, but there are lots of people as well who are child free, not by choice. That's a massive thing, who are single, not by choice, who would love to have a family and love to have a partner, but that isn't something that has happened for them. And we had a message from Emily saying this,

saying so much this conversation focuses on having children or child free by choice, but crucially neglects the child free not by choice crew. If you've always wanted kids but haven't found the right partner or have had fertility issues or cancer, where does that leave you? Having kids undoubtedly changes your world and your priorities, but not everyone without children has opted to be in that position. It completely turns the relation dynamic into another dimension of grief and jealousy, which is even harder to navigate.

I want to shut up for my friends, but I can't help feeling overwhelmingly sad that I'm not there with them in the same club. It's frustrated me that this has been left out of the conversation almost entirely. And I think that that is really interesting because that is something which you can't shout about as much as being, there's a confidence in saying I'm child free by choice. A lot of women who are child free not by choice potentially will never ever talk about that. And I think that that is a real bubbling problem under the surface that does produce a lot of grief and maybe is a bit more difficult to be direct about with your friends. We had one message from James who said, we lost 90% of our friends when we were going through IVF, abandoned us because they couldn't, wouldn't understand how tough it was to go through. And he puts in brackets that they went through it three times as well. I think it just comes back to what you were saying before, which is, I mean, I know how difficult this is. I really appreciate how difficult it is, but we, we always need people in our corner who have similar life experiences. For me, that's people who, you know, understand my experience as a brown woman. That is people who do a similar career.

to me. That's like all these different things and it's really having those people in your corner to have those chats with because it's so important and I can't, I can't imagine not being child free by choice because, A, I've not put myself in the position of actively trying or knowing what my fertility is like so I don't know. But my core beliefs feels as if having people who understand that process will be so healing. Yeah, I think it's so important to have read that message. I'm glad you messaged in. The other thing we had a few messages about was men. They're not really part of this conversation, but I thought some of the messages we got were really interesting from Lubov, who said, stating the obvious, but it's glaring how much the entire conversation

revolves around mothers and their friendships. We'd genuinely love to read an article about what happens friendship-wise from a father's perspective. And I do think we've spoken about male friendships before. Obviously, they are their own beasts. They're very different to female friendships, not to do gender essentialism. They just, they are anecdotally. And it's interesting to hear that there's a shared experience here between child-free fathers and fathers who are having children or going through that process as well. That is, I guess, like, an additional sadness. It doesn't feel great to know that's mirrored across the board. I mean, when you said about the men, we did also get the messages from people saying, this is sort of men's fault. This is the fathers.

We have to talk about the fathers. When mothers are losing friends, we have to look at the root of that and assign some proper blame to less involve fathers, that if fathers were more involved, if fathers were really doing a 50-50 job, women would have more time and energy to maintain and keep their friends and not risk losing them. We got a message from Jade that said, recently divorced, successfully 50-50 co-parenting a toddler in my early 30s, I totally understand and see both sides of the stories. Yes, moms have no time.

Yes, having free time in the week at weekends when your friends are all having kids is hard. Weirdly, though, this dynamic wouldn't exist, or at least would be much easier to navigate if men stepped up to the fucking plate and did half of the labour. You know, took on the mental load. There are times when it wasn't even worth going out for a couple of hours because it would take longer to explain the nighttime routine to your partner and you wouldn't be able to enjoy your evening anyway

in case it was a bad night. Your partner couldn't cope with doing the bedtime routine solo. The fact is, women's lives suffer and measurably more than men's upon having kids. And losing friendships is just one part of it. Just look at how many new dads are doing a half iron man or taking up high rocks versus new mums. Please let's stop blaming the women who frankly have enough on their plate and identify the real issue. Men. Which I have to admit, it took me until reading that message to really truly consider the men and the fathers of it all.

and actually that weaponised incompetence and this traditional understanding that women will do easily 70% of the labour. Of course, there's a lot that you have to do when you're breastfeeding and the baby is very fresh. But that's a really good point that actually one of these sacrifices on the altar of traditional partnerships is,

if you want to maintain your friendships, you have to even work harder than that, whereas men could feasibly nip down to the pub. But this is why I think one of the things that raving up so much, because a lot of the comments are like, she always bloody brings her kid everywhere. And it's like, okay, well, where's her kid going to go?

are her parents living nearby? Is her husband capable to look after them on his own, e.g., like, do they settle with him? Like, are they not being breastfed? In what worlds? Also, what if she wants to bring her kids with her? Like, I want to bring Astrid everywhere I go. I can imagine if have a baby, I would be so stress leaving them behind. Some people are naturally really chilled chilled. I have some friends who, like, did not talk about being pregnant the whole time they're pregnant. Like, barely even brought it up. Like, they have their baby. It's just chilling in the corner. Like, they're not talking about it. Other people are really hands-on, much more anxious, like really want to be around their baby. Their baby's really colloquy or

difficult. Or their children are, for whatever reason. But the mass. gaping hole in this is dads. Like how many dads give up whatever their weekly game things they do every night, their football? New mothers are not having hobbies. They are maybe at most getting through a season of maths while they're breastfeeding in the middle of the night. Like men are by nature of the way it's all set up even when you're not breastfeeding, even whenever men could go to lunch without the kids and probably no one would be like, where are the kids? Whereas if a woman turns up, oh, well who's got the kids today? You know, that is the classic thing of, you know, he's babysitting. He's not babysitting. It's his children. As much as we think we've come really far away

from this. We really haven't. Like, men are not doing as much as women. And the mental load is massive. And I know that random segue, but Rob Beckett's wife, Lou Beckett's just written this book called the default parent, which is like beyond the mental load. It's about how like the mum is just the default parent. The default understanding is that the mum's going to be with the kids. The dad needs to pop out. He can. If the woman wants to pop out, that is like that listener said, you know, it's like an hour of explaining all of these things you've got to explain. This is why it's so, even if I can empathize with child-free people feeling like their friendships have changed. the world around them has changed and they don't have that support.

There's just no world in which I can ever imagine lumping that on a mother, even if I think the worrying side of this is going, I'm child free by choice, so you're a mother by choice, aka you brought all of this on yourself. And I think that's a really bad kind of place to get to, which is motherhood is a very biologically biological calling for a lot of people. It is also a very logical sound conclusion to decide you don't want to be one. And I think it's actually the least selfish thing you can do to decide you don't want children because you shouldn't have children if you don't want them. And I really commend everyone who decides not to have them.

But I think it's really dangerous to kind of conflate those two things as equal opposites. Because they're not, because motherhood is so much more than this just the choice to become a mother. It carries weight of the patriarchy and the structures around us and something which involves even those child-free women. We're all victims of being women under a patriarchy. The way a lot of the comments you read out makes motherhood feel like everything that happens from that point is earned and deserved and it has nothing to do with me. that tone I really take umbrage with and that's that's my issue. I just think it's really unkind and I don't think it's very nice and I think demonising mothers and just thinking well you're fucked and that's your fucking problem. I didn't like I've made my choice is just a horrible way to live your life and it

won't be isolated to just motherhood. If you live like that and you think that whatever choice people have in their life means that they earn and deserve everything that they get from that point onwards, I think you will be living in a very cruel, very individualistic world which will never get better. will never, you know, encourage rights for all types of people. I think it's such a toxic, individualistic approach to this. So last thing from me is, and I won't read the whole thing, but we did get a message from Natasha who's sort of going through this best friend had had, has had a baby really recently and she just misses her and she says, I'm hoping we'll find our feet and will continue the

friendship the same way. But selfishly, I want her, as in my best friend, not her and her baby. I miss her as my best friend, not her as a mom. Does that make me an awful person? And in the longer message, she did say, if you've got any advice for this, please let me know. So if you have any advice, kind of not judgmental, if you've been through this on either side, then both RDMs and the comments on our Spotify are open because I do think there is a dilla taboo with not knowing how on either side to navigate this. And I think there shouldn't be or it's a lot easier if we are just open and proactive and all pulling for the same team, which is friendship is amazing. Let's keep these things going. We have one more message I think was really interesting from By Bean, which I wanted to read out. And they say, I feel like this is a continuation of patriarchy and late-state capitalism. Caring for babies and children is antithetical to the values lauded in our current power structures.

It doesn't surprise me that as a society we have very little time or space for families. But it's super damaging to families and children to not be included in public life, being only allowed in better commas in dedicated family places, which means child free people seem to have more entitlement around who is allowing which places. And this widens the gap between the two groups and makes it harder to maintain friendships. And I think that is a really interesting thing. And we've touched it before, but even the way that women, you know, women are. anecdotally and by choice having families later, but also being encouraged to freeze their eggs in favour of like careers and doing things. We are at the minute living in a time which is very focused on the workforce on individualism. And whilst that for certain individuals is really

empowering and actually incredible and gives us lots of options and agency, it does also squeeze those other people and puts them into a different position. I thought that was quite an interesting rounding off of how we got here. Thank you so so much for listening and for all of your opinions and takes on this topic. We had so many messages and so many were so vulnerable and so interesting and so generous and we're sorry if we don't always read them out. We always read every single one but we wouldn't always have time to read out the podcast. So do know that we are always reading and always so grateful and please do keep sending them in. Please also give us a follow on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content Pod. You can always

send us your thoughts post episode before an episode. We really want to hear what you think if you haven't already. We'll see you as always on Friday. Bye. Bye.