Say, Say Oh Playmate
When I had babies I had a group of friends who also had babies. We were friends because we were mothers. We would talk about breastfeeding and sleeping and food. We joked about our lives before our babies. We invested ourselves fully in our small children.
As my children became more self sufficient and didn't rely on me for every need of theirs, I branched out in my interests. I joined a book club that is made up of women ages 30-65. I took up belly dancing and joined a dance troupe of women from 20-60. My friends are single, married, divorced, with kids, without kids, with grandkids even. We relate as friends and not just as moms. As children get older it gets harder to relate to other parents just because your kids are the same age. We are thrown together at music events and sporting events and we all have 7 year olds or 12 year olds in common. But by the time kids get to that age parents are more comfortable with parenting - they aren't looking for input and support usually. And kids develop different personalities that may make their own previous friendships less important to those children.
"I don't hear about Uta much anymore," I commented recently.
"Oh, she plays mostly with Jennifer now. I play with Catherine and Abby the most. Uta and I are still friends, just not friend friends," she explained.
We lose our control over our children's social life. I watch as mothers who are friends try to force their children who are the same age to also be friends. Four year olds may be happy to play with other four year olds, but eight year olds have opinions about who they want to play with.
I sat in the back of the gym at the Fourth Grade Orchestra Concert last night. I saw the usual cast of parent characters and was unsurprised by who got their extra early to get a front row seat, who thought the concert was Friday night and not Thursday night, who greeted me and who did not. My son played with his friends who had older siblings in the orchestra. My older daughter sought out other older siblings to say hello to and noted the absence of a few who "had better things to do."
Last year I was pretty sure that I should have been a rocket scientist when I grew up. This year I am pretty sure that I should be a sociologist.
As my children became more self sufficient and didn't rely on me for every need of theirs, I branched out in my interests. I joined a book club that is made up of women ages 30-65. I took up belly dancing and joined a dance troupe of women from 20-60. My friends are single, married, divorced, with kids, without kids, with grandkids even. We relate as friends and not just as moms. As children get older it gets harder to relate to other parents just because your kids are the same age. We are thrown together at music events and sporting events and we all have 7 year olds or 12 year olds in common. But by the time kids get to that age parents are more comfortable with parenting - they aren't looking for input and support usually. And kids develop different personalities that may make their own previous friendships less important to those children.
"I don't hear about Uta much anymore," I commented recently.
"Oh, she plays mostly with Jennifer now. I play with Catherine and Abby the most. Uta and I are still friends, just not friend friends," she explained.
We lose our control over our children's social life. I watch as mothers who are friends try to force their children who are the same age to also be friends. Four year olds may be happy to play with other four year olds, but eight year olds have opinions about who they want to play with.
I sat in the back of the gym at the Fourth Grade Orchestra Concert last night. I saw the usual cast of parent characters and was unsurprised by who got their extra early to get a front row seat, who thought the concert was Friday night and not Thursday night, who greeted me and who did not. My son played with his friends who had older siblings in the orchestra. My older daughter sought out other older siblings to say hello to and noted the absence of a few who "had better things to do."
Last year I was pretty sure that I should have been a rocket scientist when I grew up. This year I am pretty sure that I should be a sociologist.
posted by Lea at 8:22 AM
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