Parents, how do you make new friends as adults?

[Anonymous]

I agree don’t focus on making kids through your friends. Do you have any kind of college friend through either of you in the area? Friend of a friend even? College alumni nerwork and events? Hobbies, work etc.

I think when kids are so young and require so much supervision it is very hard to actually talk to the other parents. It’s all disjointed half conversations. That part gets easier when they get older. 5+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I agree don’t focus on making kids through your friends. Do you have any kind of college friend through either of you in the area? Friend of a friend even? College alumni nerwork and events? Hobbies, work etc.

I think when kids are so young and require so much supervision it is very hard to actually talk to the other parents. It’s all disjointed half conversations. That part gets easier when they get older. 5+

Sorry got that backwards. Ha don’t make friends through your kids.

[Anonymous]

I don’t depend on my kids for friends - so weird. I make my friends through activities, at our health club, and at work. When I was younger (pre kids) there were a lot of friends of friends, but not so much these days

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t depend on my kids for friends - so weird. I make my friends through activities, at our health club, and at work. When I was younger (pre kids) there were a lot of friends of friends, but not so much these days

Do you have kids?

For the past decade, I have been hanging out with moms with kids. We did play dates and hang outs with the kids in preschool and elementary. We would hang out at the pool or soccer games, carpool, go out to eat together, go to basketball tournaments on weekends, etc. Moms would bond and hang out with or without kids.

DH does not make friends though the kids. He has his own friends through work and friends of friends. I can’t think of a single parent that he would choose to hang out with over his work or his own school friend.

I moved to dc with kids and most of my friends have kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t depend on my kids for friends - so weird. I make my friends through activities, at our health club, and at work. When I was younger (pre kids) there were a lot of friends of friends, but not so much these days

I think it depends on how you spend your time. If you spend a lot of time with your kids, you will naturally meet and spend a lot of time with other parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of putting myself out there. Offering up my house. Offering ideas for "adventures" with the kids. Sending links for rec activities and "lets do this." Offering to drive. Never, ever flaking unless it was a true emergency. Then after drop-off "are you free? Do you want to..."
Even with all that I rarely click with someone and half the time they end up moving away after we do click.

This is a great list. 100% agree, especially the not flaking. And when people invite you to things, you have to accept most of the time. If you decline a lot at the beginning of a friendship, they stop inviting and the friendship can't develop further.

It's really a numbers game. Of a hundred people, you might click with 40 of them. Of those 40, only 15 have kids that are your kids' ages. Of those 15, only 5 live close enough to make hanging out a possibility. So there are 5 people out of 100 that you have a chance to make a lasting friendship.

When I first moved out of DC into my suburban VA neighborhood, I told my old friends that I think I had moved into the least friendly neighborhood in the world. Everyone on my street had college age kids/empty nests. No one was my age. It look me a while, but by that baby was preschool aged, I had made a decent group of friends. Now 10 years later, I love my neighborhood and these ladies are my best friends. Now we travel and go on vacations together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of putting myself out there. Offering up my house. Offering ideas for "adventures" with the kids. Sending links for rec activities and "lets do this." Offering to drive. Never, ever flaking unless it was a true emergency. Then after drop-off "are you free? Do you want to..."
Even with all that I rarely click with someone and half the time they end up moving away after we do click.

This is a great list. 100% agree, especially the not flaking. And when people invite you to things, you have to accept most of the time. If you decline a lot at the beginning of a friendship, they stop inviting and the friendship can't develop further.

It's really a numbers game. Of a hundred people, you might click with 40 of them. Of those 40, only 15 have kids that are your kids' ages. Of those 15, only 5 live close enough to make hanging out a possibility. So there are 5 people out of 100 that you have a chance to make a lasting friendship.

When I first moved out of DC into my suburban VA neighborhood, I told my old friends that I think I had moved into the least friendly neighborhood in the world. Everyone on my street had college age kids/empty nests. No one was my age. It look me a while, but by that baby was preschool aged, I had made a decent group of friends. Now 10 years later, I love my neighborhood and these ladies are my best friends. Now we travel and go on vacations together.

I do agree it is a numbers game. It is almost like dating. Both sides have to want to make the effort.

[Anonymous]

You can't really make new friends as an adult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't really make new friends as an adult.

That is absolutely not true. I made tons of friends when I was a young professional in nyc. I made many friends and acquaintances with other moms when my kids were babies, toddlers and in preschool when you hung out with moms you liked. Now my oldest is a teenager and I’m making many adult friends. People have more time and seem to make effort and open to making new friends.

[Anonymous]

OP here: Do you think public or private schools are better for making parent friends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here: Do you think public or private schools are better for making parent friends?

Honestly I would say public school. At a private school the first question is "where do you live" and if youre too far away from most people you're basically written off unless you're super charismatic. At a public school it's assumed everyone lives in the same neighborhood.
But I felt preschool was the easiest time because you can basically put any kids together and they'll be able to play. By mid elementary kids pick their own friends. I made a friend with a son the same age as mine (10) but we only hang out alone because the boys don't mesh.
I'm the one who posted the list above and while I've made some close friends I've never had a friend group. One of my close friends managed to make a group and she seems to not even care for half of the women. I'd rather have one on one friends I actually enjoy.

[Anonymous]

We made a few friends at pre-school but those didn't survive the move to ES. Some of our closest friends are parents whose kids were in the same Cub Scout den with our kid. The first few years of Cub Scouts, parents are asked to stay and help with the meetings. You get to know the other parents because you are hanging out together on a weekly basis. Our Den had somewhat regular "field trips" as a group, so you were hanging out together. And then there were the fall and spring camp outs where you are hanging out at the fire and during the day.

We did not find sports or other activities led to my kid developing new friends, the kids were only on the same team for 2-3 months and all they did was that sport, there was not much time for socializing. Parents were dropping kids off and leaving so there wasn't much time to get to know the parents. Same for other activities.

I would guess that travel sports would be similar to Scouts because you are together for more time and there is more time to talk and get to know each other.

Most people find friends at Church or the pool, places where there is time to talk and hang out while the kids are doing their thing when there are social events.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here: Do you think public or private schools are better for making parent friends?

No clue, I only have experience with public school. I also did not make parent friends at school. I saw other parents at pick up and drop off, my kid was a walker, we had to walk with him through first grade. After that, different parents allowed kids to walk solo at different ages. The PTA Mafia was its own thing, I chose not to join but the PTA parents at our school were very, very intense. We volunteered to help with clubs but didn't really meet other parents there.

We found you make friends when you find activities that reflect your interests and when they run longer then 3 months and encourage parents to stay and observe or participate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We made a few friends at pre-school but those didn't survive the move to ES. Some of our closest friends are parents whose kids were in the same Cub Scout den with our kid. The first few years of Cub Scouts, parents are asked to stay and help with the meetings. You get to know the other parents because you are hanging out together on a weekly basis. Our Den had somewhat regular "field trips" as a group, so you were hanging out together. And then there were the fall and spring camp outs where you are hanging out at the fire and during the day.

We did not find sports or other activities led to my kid developing new friends, the kids were only on the same team for 2-3 months and all they did was that sport, there was not much time for socializing. Parents were dropping kids off and leaving so there wasn't much time to get to know the parents. Same for other activities.

I would guess that travel sports would be similar to Scouts because you are together for more time and there is more time to talk and get to know each other.

Most people find friends at Church or the pool, places where there is time to talk and hang out while the kids are doing their thing when there are social events.

We are still friends with a few friends from preschool. My oldest’s best friend from preschool is still friends in high school despite going to different elementary and now different high schools. We used to sign up for the same camps and soccer team in early elementary. We are also still friends with my middle child’s preschool best friends’ parents and kids are still friends also. We have traveled together with these people, celebrated adult birthdays. We still celebrate adult birthdays even though the kids don’t invite one another to their own birthday celebrations. They have their own friend groups in high school and they didn’t go to the same schools after preschool.

We also made a lot of friends during scouts. My two boys did cub scouts and my youngest is currently in Girl Scouts. We are still adult friends with both my boys den leaders and I’m a leader for my daughter’s current troop.