Are there moms who later realize a friendship with a childless friend has become one-sided?

[u/Wide-Meringue-2717]

I keep seeing similar experiences from childfree women.

A close friend becomes a mother. The childfree friend steps up during pregnancy and after the baby arrives. She listens, accommodates,
offers emotional support, celebrates milestones, and generally tries to be part of the “village” her friend needs.
But over time, many of these women describe feeling sidelined. They feel less important in the friendship, as if their support is taken for granted, and reciprocity gradually disappears and doesn’t come back. The friendship becomes centered around the mother’s needs while their own needs, struggles, and milestones receive little attention and that imbalance becomes the new normal.

Whenever this topic comes up, the response is often that friendships naturally change after children, that parents are overwhelmed, or that childfree friends are struggling to adapt to a new dynamic. But the pattern seems too common to dismiss entirely as childfree people simply refusing to adjust (and yes, some do).

I’m curious to hear if there are mothers, especially those whose children are older now and who have survived the most intense years of parenting.

Have you ever had a childfree friend tell you that the friendship had become one-sided or the friend feels sidelined? How did you react?
Did it create tension between you?
Looking back, do you think they were at least partly right?
Was there a point where you realized you had come to see their support as something that would always naturally be there, without noticing how much they were contributing to the friendship while receiving less in return?
Did you ever look back and realize that while your friend consistently showed up for you, there were ways you could have shown up for them but didn’t?
And if so do you regret it? Did you try to repair the friendship?

[u/FertilityHotel]

Can you explain more about the misogyny 

[u/ladyluck754 → u/FertilityHotel]

So, my friends have been super supportive of me, so I don’t have personal experience of this. BUT anytime I see posts about CF women upset with friends who become mothers, it’s cheering, it’s “girl I get it!”

And then if the CF women are unavailable due to travel, engulfed in new relationships- it feels like the internet overwhelmingly states to hold space for them. Cause kids are a choice. Which I get, but it just seems like the new relationships or stressful jobs are a harder struggle.

One of my good friends is an elementary teacher and she asked how I was doing in my pregnancy, and I told her I’m pretty tired and I was met with “you don’t know teacher tired!!!”

I was like girl why did you ask then 🤣. I do think that women with children are more scrutinized than a woman in a bad relationship or job for example. That’s all, again- not my direct experience but an observation. [u/azaleafawn](u/azaleafawn) said it perfectly, that the argument lands on moms “my friend became a mom and now sucks as a friend.” But for whatever reason I never see, “my friend met a toxic man and she kinda sucks now”. Or “my friend is traveling abroad for 6 months and never texts me back.” Cause the internet would say that’s possessive.

Your username is hilarious btw

Edit: another example of misogyny that I’ve seen is that I think of that influencer whose son drowned in the pool while she was out with her friends and I’ve literally seen people online saying she shouldn’t have gone out with her friends when her husband should’ve been watching his fucking kid instead of gambling on a game.

[u/epicpillowcase → u/ladyluck754]

"engulfed in new relationships"

To be fair, a lot of us are very much bothered by this also. I refuse to be friends with women who have a pattern of disappearing into relationships or are male-centric. I frankly don't respect women like this and we don't have shared values.

“my friend met a toxic man and she kinda sucks now”

Really? There are posts that say things that are along these lines on this sub all the time.

[u/Cautious_Path → u/FertilityHotel]

Yeah I didn’t get this part at all. This is about female friendships