Dear D P,
There is nothing wrong with children being able to converse with adults, that is a necessary skill. I enjoy conversing with kids...how they feel about what's going on in the world, what they want to be when they grow up, etc.
But, the key phrase is "adult conversation". And I agree, kids do not need to be privvy to certain things.
I have a friend who allowed her daughter to listen in and be involved in things she never should have been allowed to. As a result, she repeated everything she heard and became "adultified", meaning she became bossy, even to adults, decided she didn't need to ask permission for things and took it upon herself to make decisions about things (when people could and couldn't get in the pool, when people could and couldn't eat from the snack trays her mother put out for everyone). It drove her mother crazy.
If we were discussing an "adult" topic and Little Miss got in the middle of it, I would just say, "I think we should talk about this later." One time her mom said, "Oh...it's okay, she already knows all about it" and I said, "That's my point. I really think we should talk about this later." I had told her I thought there was way too much being said in front of her daughter.
We were on the phone one day and I was confiding some things to her that my ex was doing, dragging me to court for more custody to get out of paying child support and all the sudden, in the background, I heard her daughter chiming in about what she thought I should do. SHE HAD PUT ME ON SPEAKER PHONE!
I said, "Damn it! My personal business is NONE of your daughter's business! You take me off speaker phone right now or I'm hanging up!" I said, "Don't you ever do that to me again. You know I am so careful for my son never to hear me say anything about any of this stuff and I don't want your daughter hearing it either. If I can't talk to you about certain things in confidence, then I just can't talk to you about them at all. You wonder why your daughter acts like such a know-it-all and has to be right in the middle of everything, it's because you've let her. That's your business. Do what you want. But, when it comes to me or my kids or my business, it's all off limits to her. Those are my boundaries. Period."
I was mad and I just said exactly what I felt. She apologized and said she didn't even think about it because she was doing something and it was easier to have me on speaker phone. I said if she's too busy or something, just to say so because we could always talk about it another time. Granted, I've known this woman for years and I didn't think the friendship would end if I was frank with her about it. It didn't end. In fact the light went on about her involving her daughter too much in things. Then she had the up-hill battle of changing the dynamic so that her daughter wasn't right in the middle of everything and her daughter assuming there were secrets being kept from her.
I was raised that certain things were just off limits to kids. Details of other's messy divorces, how much money so and so makes or how much their house cost and what interest rates they're paying, whose unemployment is running out, whose husband is sleeping on the couch, whose mother in law is driving somebody crazy...
I don't know if it's gossip. When someone tells me something in confidence of a personal nature, I keep it that way. Mamas on here ask for advice everyday and keep confidences. At least I think they do. My son's 14....I don't let him read any of this stuff.
I didn't mean to get so long-winded, but you can try mentioning to your friend that you aren't comfortable discussing adult things when her daughter is present. If that doesn't work, then just change the subject or say, "I'd rather not talk with you about this." If that doesn't work you can always say you think it's time for you to go and maybe just the two of you can meet to talk over coffee sometime.
You can't really do anything about what she involves her daughter in, but you can do something about being involved in it yourself.
I hope you get it worked out.