curious to know what your kids upbringing is like relative to yours.
in particular, something i have been observing of late…
when i was a kid and coming up through school we basically only associated, befriended and hung out with people in our own grade. in elementary school especially.
in highschool it blends together obviously; i assume it was similar for you.
However, with my kids… after school they go to the parks on the property and there are 20 parents there are 40+ kids from age 2 (crawling around) to age 15 and they all intermingle 100%. tie each others’ shoes, the big kids piggy back the young kids… there is absolutely no bullying, swearing or aggression of any kind.
in fact, my kids, 7 and 5, brought their friends over after school… two ten year olds and two 13 year olds to play lego and run around the yard for an hour and a bit. We went trick or treating with these kids the other night in fact. kids twice my son’s ages come to the door all summer.
is this the same, similar or totally different for you guys
Growing up my close friends from the neighborhood were +/- a year or two max. We’d have loosely organized games like kickball where the age mix would be greater but those kids weren’t close friends.
My daughter is 8 and has three close friends on our street, 2 in her grade and her little bestie that’s one grade ahead. There are a few other kids on the street that are a 3-5 years older that also play when the group of kids get together but they’re not as close. All good kids though. On Halloween the parents from several streets in the neighborhood got together and we had a group of kids from 2-13 and it was great to see the older ones help drag the little ones door to door, making sure they said trick or treat and thank you etc.
This can happen when the parents have enough giva-a-shitivity to teach their kids how to interact in society like a decent human.
At my local playgound, I’m the jerk grownup that tells kids to quit swearing etc…
Your experience sounds like a result of your neighborhood and it’s status.
Shitty neighborhoods have shitty kids, who will loiter at the palyground without supervision or proper role models.
Do I sound bitter about telling 3rd graders how to behave while their parents at home, several blocks away?
its a pretty eclectic group. The school catchment goes from fairly lower income to upper middle…
my wife did ask some of the other parents if things were just like this all over now but they seemed to agree or assume it was at least somewhat of a unique situation.
i should clarify, i dont necessarily think it’s a good thing that all of these kids are growing up in a 16 hour a day fantasy land. i worry they wont be able to handle conflict or stress when it does come about.
i think the bigger more noticeable difference is…
I played nintendo/sega sure…but as soon as I heard my dad was replacing his brakes, or my friends had a street hockey or football game going on - or anything cool outside was going on, i would throw my controller and run outside.
Now? goodF’ing luck getting a kid to not be on their iPad every second of the day or crying that they need to see your phone to look something up they are totally shot and in return have HORRIBLE social skills.
Come hang out at my house with the Real Housewives of WNY and tell me how bad your life is.
It seems everyone in our group of friends decided to get pregnant at the same time. There’s probably 8-10 families that my daughter is around on a monthly basis. They do swim classes and music classes and all that crapola. For me, it’s more about whether I’m comfortable with the people I’m forced to hang out with. Oh and if I’d be comfortable with them watching my daughter for 24 hours. I treat it like dating. Would I date this couple? Do I want to see this couple on a weekly basis? Would I feel comfortable with this man watching our daughter’s swim meets? Do their kids suck? What do they do for a living? I REALLY don’t want to hang out with a mathematician on my free time. (Sorry Mathematicians). With WNY being so small, you tend to meet a lot of people through “Oh, my sister just had a baby too! You guys should totally hang out and have a play date”. We’ve had a few, which were like bad first dates. THOSE parents never got a call back.
Growing up my parents had very similar circumstances. Friends/family all had a dozen or so kids all within a few years of each other. Dads were at work, mom’s hung out with the kids. I don’t know if our parents had the economic means that we do, so it was more or less play dates at the house. I don’t think I was ever on a plane until my teens. Now at 18-24 months our kids are going on trips to other countries, the god damn super bowl, $100 music lessons, weekly swim classes, the zoo on a weekly basis, etc.
^ It’s key to find parents who parent like you and get your kid to be friends with their kid. We’ve found a couple where if we’re going to Darien Lake, or hiking etc that they’ll always get an invite because having them along makes it more fun. They’re not hover parents that won’t let the kids get more than 10 feet away because they think they’ll be kidnapped, but they’re also not the parents that will stand there oblivious while their kid runs around screaming in a restaurant.
I still remember the looks of horror and disgust I got when I told one of the way too overprotective parents of my daughter’s friend that we don’t keep hand sanitizer on our boat, because god forbid you take a swim in the river and then eat a few potato chips without having a chemical bath first.
i wasnt complaining… i just think it’s another form of spoiling in that the social environment my kids are growing up in isn’t an accurate reflection of what real life is going to be like.
dude, you think it’s hard playing real housewives and couples dating… try being the youngest family in your neighbourhood by like 12 years of age and then being a massive prick on top of that… well that you guys can probably relate to that
couples dating is so hard because there’s 4 of you that need to get along… and you have to match in geography, professional status, intelligence etc. etc.
My kids are only 1 1/2 and -6 weeks, but I have to say my daughter plays with a bunch of kids that are from all around my area. My wife got into a bunch of online forums and groups when she was expecting and established some good friendships from there.
Before school age, I almost exclusively only interacted with kids who were somehow related to me- brothers, sister, cousins. While my daughter gets a lot of that, she also gets to play with a bunch of kids with a much more diverse background and family history. I think that is probably good.
after going to a dozen or so first birthday parties in the past year I’d have to say my wife did pretty good on picking friends. Most of them and their husbands/baby daddies and kids seem like decent human beings. I’ve even gone golfing with a few of the guys.
I want a kid, but I don’t want them growing up in this generation. Trust me, this generation of children/parents sucks. I work with 20+ year experience teachers that talk about how this is the worst they’ve seen in their career.
and then being a massive prick on top of that… well that you guys can probably relate to that 