When people talk about millennials, they can’t fail to bring up two things: their addiction to social media and their overinflated sense of entitlement. In the three years since becoming a father, I’ve discovered that when you add motherhood into the mix, an addiction to social media and an overinflated sense of entitlement combine to create a perfect storm that threatens the very future of society. Hyperbole? Perhaps. But this post is a request, nay, a demand that certain people grow the hell up before they suck all the joy out of one of life’s genuine grown-up pleasures: adult friendship.

Now I’m not saying that all millennial mothers need to get in touch with their ‘inner adult’, and I’m not even sure it is restricted to the ‘gentler’ sex – since I have no friends of the masculine variety in the millennial generation, I’m lacking data to make a comparative analysis – but it happens often enough for it to be an issue. It might even have nothing to do with motherhood – perhaps there are significant numbers of women who act like they belong in a school playground even without having procreated – but golly gosh it needs to stop.

What am I talking about? Well, it’s probably best to begin by explaining how I, an autistic male born in the 1970s, understands friendship. To me, friendship is a one-to-one relationship with an individual that rests upon shared enjoyment of certain activities, backed up by compassion and understanding. If Person A invites me to the cinema with Person B, and then another time Persons A and B go to the cinema together without me, who cares? My friendship with Person A has no bearing on their friendship with Person B, or C, or D for that matter.

What if I’m also friends with Person B and want to invite them out for a coffee? That’s no problem either. I don’t have to check with Person A if that’s okay because I haven’t needed to ask anyone’s permission since I first grew facial hair – I can be friends with whoever I want. Sometimes all three of us will meet up, sometimes just two. You meet up if and when you want to and if you don’t, you don’t. You demand nothing and expect nothing. An invitation to a social encounter is a privilege, not a right. That’s what I understand of friendship.

Among the millennial mothers who have befriended my millennial wife, however, friendship seems to work in a completely different way. It’s like they’re all married, or something. Whether they’re friends from NCT, friends from mother-toddler groups, old school friends, it goes like this:

My wife and Mother A bump into one another while out with the kids and spontaneously decide to have a coffee. Afterwards, Mother A posts this on social media. Mutual friend Mother B, seeing this, then sends both Mother A and my wife a snotty text-message demanding to know why she wasn’t invited, and saying how hurt she is to have been excluded. This leaves my wife and Mother A feeling awkward and guilty about doing something completely normal. So they apologise and arrange to meet up with Mother B and her kids.

They do this and share it on social media, whereupon Mother C, who is friends with my wife and Mother B, then sends them both a snotty text-message demanding to know why she wasn’t invited, and saying how hurt she is to have been excluded, especially when she’s known you so much longer than Mother A. So my wife and Mother B then feel awkward and guilty and arrange to do something with Mother C and the kids without Mother A.

So they do it, and what do you know? They share it on social media, and now Mother A is wondering why she wasn’t invited and then texts both my wife and Mother B a snotty text-message demanding to know why she wasn’t invited, and saying how hurt she is to have been excluded, and so on and so forth.

You think I’m exaggerating? I’ve had three years of it. The politics of millennial mother friendship is more complicated than the frickin’ Cold War. The number of times I’ve had to listen to this prattle, advise my wife on what to write in a text message, tell her to stop obsessing over what someone’s put on Facebook, I’ve wasted weeks!

Had a good time without me, did you? I’m really upset. I was free that afternoon. I could have done with some time-out. I feel like I’m the one always making the effort. I thought we were friends? You’ve made me feel like shit. 

Can you imagine the massive sense of entitlement a person must feel to think that not only are their friends obligated to invite them to any and all social encounters, but they should challenge them if they don’t? I can understand you might be a bit upset if it seems your friends prefer each other to you, but how can any rational, grounded person possibly send a message that pretty much reads, ‘How dare you not invite me?!’ I mean, how big must your ego be to make a statement like that?

I’m hoping this is all the result of hormones and the pressures and strains of parenting – I know first-hand how staying at home with little people can drive you completely insane – because if it’s not, then there’s a hell of a lot of people out there who think friendship comes with chains, with guilt-trips and emotional blackmail to boot. It’s like primary school – ‘You can’t be friends with her!’

So here’s what I’d like to say to all the millennial mothers out there who don’t understand that friendship is voluntary and not an obligation: Grow the hell up! Or at the very least, stop sharing all your comings and goings on social media, because I seriously can’t cope with another three years of this shit.