This week’s Whiny Wednesday topic comes from a reader and is ripe for a rant and perhaps some ideas.
She writes:
“I still haven’t figured out how to make friends with people my own age (40s) who have children. I often feel disposable, or okay to invite to things when it suits them. I’m a thoughtful, caring person who deserves better.”
What do you think about this? It’s Whiny Wednesday, so let it all out.
All of my friends have children and some already grandchildren so…. the conversation never ends….
And I am seated there…without saying anything…
unfortunately I’m absolutely clueless when it comes to this problem. I think the answer is, you can’t have a friendship that is based on an equal footing, period. It will always be a-symmetrical.
We’re about a decade older than our current crop of friends, and get-togethers with them, by necessity, involve lots of children. Our two closest friends just had a daughter last year, and have a three-year-old as well. We are the only childless ones in the bunch. Normally, this is fine… having children would have been very dangerous for me to do, given my complicating and long-standing health issues. Now in our early 50’s/late 40’s, children are no longer a possibility. Instead, we’ve cultivated the personas of ‘beloved Uncle and Auntie’, who show up to birthday parties with presents and books. We’re generally made welcome, though it is a relief to return to our quiet, clean home (or as quiet as a house with three parrots really gets). It’s the making of new friends, especially in our small town, that seems a thornier issue. Life in rural areas of the U.S. is often centered around three nexuses: work, one’s children’s school, or church. I work from home and my husband commutes into the city, we have no children to use as a means of making friends with other parents involved in school or after-school activities, and the idea of going to church in such a conservative area leaves us both cold. Therefore, the usual avenues for local socialization are very limited.Two of the neighbors with whom I have a good relationship are relatively childless – one does not want children at all, but is blindingly busy with two near full time jobs, and the other’s kids are grown and have long left home. It takes a lot of effort to maintain friendships with couples with children, in much the same way it felt as a single woman to maintain friendships with friends who married. Priorities change and sometimes, single friends just aren’t as high on the ‘must attend to’ list as they used to be. Same thing with parents vs. childless couples. I think, because parents of small children tend to get wrapped up in the never-ending needs of both work and small creatures, those who want to socialize with them, and who aren’t parents, have to prepare for those shifts in priorities. I’m not saying that there won’t be a certain amount of pain and melancholy attached to doing so, but there’s little to be done about it until the kids are older, and more independent.
I’ve also noticed that having a place where a single parent (if the other has caregiver duties that day) can briefly unwind in a shriek-free environment is a plus.
I have no answers for this one. I wish I did.
My heart just broke recently when my husband said “I don’t have anything to talk to him about,” regarding one of our acquaintances-with-kids at a party. And here come the holidays, where I fear this will happen more and more often.