Woman doesn't invite friend to engagement dinner; 'You've changed since you became a mom.' AITA?

When this woman is upset with her friend who has a child, she asks the internet:

"AITA for not inviting my friend to my engagement dinner since she never shows up after she became a parent?"

So I have a friend group from college, this is about Millie. Millie married and has a kid about a two years ago. The problem is that she always turns down invitation. At the beginning I was understanding. She is a new parent who just doesn’t have time to met up.

Overtime it got tiring though, I don’t understand why it is so difficult to leave to get brunch one day. She has a partner it shouldn’t be difficult to be gone for a few hours. She has missed event after event.

The times she does appear she will make a big deal about changing the outing so her baby can join. The last time I saw her was around Christmas.

So I got engaged and I was having a dinner to celebrate. I decided not to invite her, she has turned down so many invitation. I also didn’t want to deal with her trying to change the event or bringing the baby.

The dinner happens two nights ago and I got a call yesterday from Millie. She was upset that she wasn’t invited and saw the event picture online. I explain that she never comes to events and I saw her last Christmas. She told me that I was being unfair and that she would have made time for the party.

We went in circles for a bit and it turned into an argument. She basically told me that I was being extremely unfair and I won’t understand because I am not a parent. I told her if she actually cared she would have showed up to events. A few hours every month shouldn’t be that difficult.

Let's see what readers had to say:

slayedwilson writes:

NAH. It does get tiring having a friend decline invitations repeatedly. However, as someone who stopped getting invited to things because I've had to decline so many times (mine due to health), it sucks to know you are no longer being invited to things.

It is still nice to be invited and at least given the chance to say yes. If someone is your friend that you care about, you invite them to important thing, no matter what. If they aren't invited to important things, they have stopped being important people to you. She is right, though, you don't understand what it's like to have a baby. And that is okay.

But you don't have the right to throw that in her face. Yes, she has a spouse. Could she get a babysitter? Probably. But you don't know what goes on behind closed doors. And you probably haven't asked. It doesn't sound like you've tried or stopped by or offered to go see her.

She doesn't seem like a big part of your life. Her spouse may not be helpful. She may not have money for a sitter. She might feel like she's doing this all alone. And now she's being made to feel like she's a burden for having a kid. I've been made to feel this exact way for this exact reason.

And I lost every friend I had when I had a baby, because I was no longer "fun". Because I didn't go out and party all the time and drink 4 nights a week and couldn't be spontaneous enough to just hop in the car for a weekend girls trip.

One day, they all just stopped calling. And it gets hard to know that people don't invite you anywhere because you have to decline most of the time.

neksu writes:

YTA imo, christmas was not that long ago it hasn't even been a year, a few months of not seeing a friend is all it takes to write them off of your life? Like damn

You also don't know, or haven't explained, her living situation, circumstances can be difficult and you don't know what's going on in her life that makes it so difficult to attend to things. Inviting someone takes no effort, unless you don't consider her a friend anymore at which point why do you even care what she thinks?

greaaam writes:

Gentle YTA. Sometimes just inviting even though they can’t right now is enough. Honestly you kinda came off selfish with an attitude of “how dare my friend be a responsible adult and parent to a very young child and prioritizing family?!”

Give it time and as the child gets older a routine is set, they’ll have more free time to go to events.

I had a friend who got married over 10 years ago in Vegas and had other good friends come along. I found out over social media. He assumed that since I lived in a different state and the timing that I wouldn’t have been able to go and decided why bother? And it hurt for a couple years. But we’re good now.

Sometimes the invitation has to be enough ON BOTH SIDES. Since clearly she was hurt by your not even extending it even though you knew the likely answer. Hell, that could have been one of the rare times she wanted to get out and be child free for the day.

ambitois7 writes:

NAH, honestly friendships are like any relationship they are only going to be as good as the work that goes into them.

I’ve been on both sides of this. I had my kid young so I became completely displaced from all my friends and peers. And now that she’s 17 and I’m almost 40, I’m still displaced from my friends who have kids.

Their kids are young, there’s a lot of mom guilt, for taking time away from them for yourself and a lot of them have useless husbands and partners who can’t let them have a brunch with the girls without calling 6 times.

And honestly it really really sucks. I still made time to do stuff with my friends when I had my daughter. I didn’t get to very often, but about once a month with some planning I could make it work.

I haven’t seen one of my friends without something being centred for her kids or one of her kids being there for almost a year. I feel like an afterthought and it’s meant I’m dropping the rope on the relationship. Because there’s only so many times you can be the first to message or the one to invite and get a no or no response. It really sucks.

glitchcratfwt writes:

Eh, yea OP is kind of TAH here. Example: My husband is literally only home 1 day a week. I don’t owe my friends a copy of my husband’s work schedule, nor my bank statements showing I can’t afford a sitter right now. “I’m busy/I can’t” is enough explanation - elaborating isn’t necessary, this isn’t a research paper.

Everybody’s situation is different. I can’t just be like “oh here, take the kids so I can go out and do this random thing on your one off day”.

Also, I can’t just drop the kids off somewhere due to my own family stuff. I will make accommodations if possible for large/important events or send my regards and a gift. Like?? And it’s not like the friend misses everything just for saying no, she does try to come with the kid sometimes.

“If I can’t bring the kid I can’t come this time” is a valid response, just the same as “this is a child free event” is a valid request. My friends and I all had kids at different points in life and we made it work.

Child free friends made time to hang under circumstances where kids could be, and the mom’s found sitters when it was affordable and reasonable in their lives. Events that didn’t work, just didn’t. I haven’t seen my best friend irl in like 5 years, but that’s still my best friend. It took a couple years to get into the swing of things, but we all actually valued our friendships, so we kept them as best we could.

HOWEVER: the specific moment the friend is an AH is when she tries to change events to be child friendly. That isn’t her decision. She can attend what was planned, or wait until a child friendly plan is made/make a child friendly plan. We don’t get to shift other people’s events around our children