I’m pretty close with this person outside of work and we used to have good non-work conversations but now I feel all I get is stories and photos of her children. We work in a tight knit team so I can’t really avoid them.
I got no less than 3 updates this weekend about a sports event with her kids including photos; more photos and another update about said event this morning; another photo of another child; updates about what her toddler was doing, and updates about how her kid made the track and field team and she absolutely needs to take time off work to go.
I don’t ask for this and I don’t really respond when she does it. I prefer to talk about other things. We used to talk about other things and now it’s kids 99% of the time to the point where it feels really one-sided. I tried to talk about a concert I went to this weekend and got really lukewarm reception.
I’m thinking I need to tone it down and say goodbye to the relationship/chit chat for a while? I feel if I tell her bluntly I’m tired of hearing about her children it will hurt her feelings. Any ideas?
You could try asking how she is doing, not her family.
Realistically, a lot of parents are so enmeshed/co-dependent they’ll misperceive any negativity (or lack of sufficient positivity) as an attack.
That’s not a bad tactic. This morning I was like “wow you’re so busy I can’t wait to see what you get up to when the kids are gone to university.”