Are there any other parents like us?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing with these posts is that the parents always expect to find friends through their children. My mother never tried to revolve her friendships and social life around my brother and me. She had her friends with kids I wasn’t friends with and I had friends with parents she was not friends with. Make your own friends without having to rely on your children. If you happen to click with parents of your kids firiends, great but certainly don’t ever expect this! Problem solved.

The problem is that intensive parenting requires all your time spent on your kids. It seems impossible to make friends outside of your children. I personally don’t care if someone has kids or not, but don’t get the impression other parents would consider a friendship not revolving around children.

I think intensive parenting and achievement machine terminology is relative. For example, the young person who just won the spelling bee most likely had parents that supported him in achieving that accomplishment. I am a Black mom, who admires how Indian parents (just as one example of various cultures) push their kids to achieve. They and their children appear to do very well academically and professionally. I wonder what their secret is and what they think about this deep issue.

[Anonymous]

I know a few ultra-high networth families that parent a lot like you - their kids have significant trust funds, so they don't have to worry about their kids getting "ahead". They are 100% focused on raising good kids who will be good stewards of their families' great fortunes. They involve them in philanthropy from an early age.

We are only UMC, and I totally worry about my kids' future, especially as it relates to AI. I'm not raising them in a pressure cooker environment, but I'm raising them to think about their future and how they will support themselves. I hope they can have at least the same standard of living that we have.

[Anonymous]

Oh good grief! "I'm giving my kids a 90s childhood" is not a personality or an identity. Neither is "our kids play travel sports". There is no reason that different approaches here should drive a wedge between you and potential friends. You're not looking for someone to raise children with or a kindred spirit!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Living in Gaithersburg is likely the issue. It’s not an affluent area and is very MC. You mention you do a lot of things other families can’t afford. They can’t relate to you, and you probably seem strange in terms of what you do. If you want friends move somewhere nicer that isn’t MC.

I grew up in an MC neighborhood with ultrahigh-net-worth parents (from a business). They have lower-middle-class backgrounds and felt more comfortable around people like them, plus they needed land with horse rights. It was weird because we skied at least 30 days a year (but stayed in subpar hotels, so it didn't occur to me until later that we were privileged) and had horses and boats and other recreational toys, but my friends could barely afford a summer pass to the public pool in the summers. My peer group from my childhood isn't doing well. I have a friend who is a grandma in her early forties, and another one whose husband has been in jail for over a decade. It was just a weird childhood, and my parents were lucky that I was naturally intelligent and ambitious and got myself on a good path instead of following the path of my peers.

[Anonymous]

OP has evolved from NLOG to NLOP.

It's tiresome and attention-seeking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh good grief! "I'm giving my kids a 90s childhood" is not a personality or an identity. Neither is "our kids play travel sports". There is no reason that different approaches here should drive a wedge between you and potential friends. You're not looking for someone to raise children with or a kindred spirit!

This. Why try to find so many differences? How do these differences affect you so much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm so sorry you are too superior to be able to relate to the proletariat chaff you surround yourself with. My heart breaks for you.

My thoughts exactly!

[Anonymous]

It can be hard to feel like you don't fit in. I get that. But also OP doesn't sound like they are trying to fit in.

If you want to fit in with people who have less money than you, it's really not that hard. Just do the things the people with less money do. The end. You can still do things that cost more on your own, but prioritize spending time with other families and do the stuff they can afford. So if they like to take their kids to the local park on the weekend to run around, do that. You will get to know them and your kids will play together and it's fine. You can still take your summer vacation in Italy while they go to the Jersey shore. But when you are together you need to do things everyone can do.

What people like OP will do is they will always want to do an expensive activity other people can't afford, and then they'll be annoyed that people won't join them. So they'll suggest going to a trampoline park with a $30/kid entrance fee. Or taking the kids to the movies at $15/each plus popcorn and drinks. Or going to an MLB game. And on and on. And they want to do activities like that EVERY weekend, not as a special treat every once in a while. Well, the other families can't do that, so they will avoid you, because they don't want to be reminded over and over that they cannot afford to do that stuff, and they especially don't want their kids feeling constantly deprived of stuff they didn't even know was a thing until meeting you.

If you are the sort of family who can't leave the house without spending $200 and who think nothing of weekend activities costing a grand for just like an average weekend in May, then you cannot expect middle class people with budgets to befriend you.

You have to choose. What is more important to you? Public school and being part of a down-to-earth community of families, or doing really expensive stuff every weekend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the problem OP is that the people you describe as potentially your crew exist but they don’t match your politics. They are indeed liberals (white, brown, black, Asian, doesn’t matter) or even leftists (horror!) and that’s why they value public schools, mental health over exterior signs of success and don’t want to educate their kids to value materialism.

They live in the liberal enclaves you suspect.

But you probably won’t vibe on the “deep issues” you like to discuss..

I agree and I think OP may be burying the lede with the "not very liberal" comment. OP being MAGA and wanting to get into "deep issues" would easily explain why they're not making friends with otherwise similarly profiled people. The Liberals are exhausted. It's enough to have to deal with that crap at Thanksgiving, no one is interested in forming deep friendships where they have to recreate that dynamic.

Yep, my sister was a NHS researcher who had her whole facility closed. Our other sister is LGBT. I'm an active person who spends a lot of time reading, hiking, traveling.

But If you think I'm going to voluntarily spend time with people who think destroying my sisters (not to mention medical research, legal norms, and frankly basic human decency) is hunky dory, well, nope. Hard pass.

DP here. Anyone knows you should not talk politics. We are republican. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I sympathize for Gaza and am NOT antisemitic. I am glad DEI is gone. I still dislike Trump, but I did vote for him. I mean the guy got elected to be president so many people are republican. I am not MAGA and do not identify as MAGA.

I am around many very liberal people. I just stay silent when they talk politics.

I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal and agree with everything you said apart from supporting the candidate you support. Having studied history and lived in the world for 45 years, I can tell how "baby racist" policies can snowball to horrors of concentration camps... all too easily. I will gladly take the excesses of DEI and pronouns, which are frankly laughable and ridiculous, so that innocent people are not detained and harassed, and non-violent, non-criminal people who have let a tourist waiver lapse 20 years ago aren't thrown to die in Salvadorean prisons with the worst of the worst.

It's not as if anything about our current government is fiscally responsible! If they were cutting spending without giving a tax break for the rich (and *I'm* the rich in question!), then you might have an argument, in terms of weighing the pros and cons. But this government is destroying America's economy and its allies' goodwill built since WWII. For a true Republican, that's unforgivable.

I always remember that moderate governments in general, across the world, whether slightly left or centrist or slightly right, do their best to govern with caution. It's the extremes who seek to elicit abrupt change and thus cannot do their due diligence to check who they might hurt. And right now we have an extreme government which is hurting a lot of people, and we all saw it coming.

I think you're stupid, PP. Sorry.

+1. It's past time people like PP admit their politics are "I don't care what happens to you so long as my taxes go down"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the problem OP is that the people you describe as potentially your crew exist but they don’t match your politics. They are indeed liberals (white, brown, black, Asian, doesn’t matter) or even leftists (horror!) and that’s why they value public schools, mental health over exterior signs of success and don’t want to educate their kids to value materialism.

They live in the liberal enclaves you suspect.

But you probably won’t vibe on the “deep issues” you like to discuss..

I agree and I think OP may be burying the lede with the "not very liberal" comment. OP being MAGA and wanting to get into "deep issues" would easily explain why they're not making friends with otherwise similarly profiled people. The Liberals are exhausted. It's enough to have to deal with that crap at Thanksgiving, no one is interested in forming deep friendships where they have to recreate that dynamic.

Yep, my sister was a NHS researcher who had her whole facility closed. Our other sister is LGBT. I'm an active person who spends a lot of time reading, hiking, traveling.

But If you think I'm going to voluntarily spend time with people who think destroying my sisters (not to mention medical research, legal norms, and frankly basic human decency) is hunky dory, well, nope. Hard pass.

DP here. Anyone knows you should not talk politics. We are republican. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I sympathize for Gaza and am NOT antisemitic. I am glad DEI is gone. I still dislike Trump, but I did vote for him. I mean the guy got elected to be president so many people are republican. I am not MAGA and do not identify as MAGA.

I am around many very liberal people. I just stay silent when they talk politics.

I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal and agree with everything you said apart from supporting the candidate you support. Having studied history and lived in the world for 45 years, I can tell how "baby racist" policies can snowball to horrors of concentration camps... all too easily. I will gladly take the excesses of DEI and pronouns, which are frankly laughable and ridiculous, so that innocent people are not detained and harassed, and non-violent, non-criminal people who have let a tourist waiver lapse 20 years ago aren't thrown to die in Salvadorean prisons with the worst of the worst.

It's not as if anything about our current government is fiscally responsible! If they were cutting spending without giving a tax break for the rich (and *I'm* the rich in question!), then you might have an argument, in terms of weighing the pros and cons. But this government is destroying America's economy and its allies' goodwill built since WWII. For a true Republican, that's unforgivable.

I always remember that moderate governments in general, across the world, whether slightly left or centrist or slightly right, do their best to govern with caution. It's the extremes who seek to elicit abrupt change and thus cannot do their due diligence to check who they might hurt. And right now we have an extreme government which is hurting a lot of people, and we all saw it coming.

I think you're stupid, PP. Sorry.

+1. It's past time people like PP admit their politics are "I don't care what happens to you so long as my taxes go down"

Are you kidding me? I have to run to an event so I can’t respond. I am passionate and highly opinionated on many issues. Just because I can know when not to offend people and stay quiet does not mean I am stupid.

Yes, the main reason DH voted for Trump is for taxes. There are issues I actually agree with Trump and that is why I voted for him. What he is doing in office is not what I voted for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It can be hard to feel like you don't fit in. I get that. But also OP doesn't sound like they are trying to fit in.

If you want to fit in with people who have less money than you, it's really not that hard. Just do the things the people with less money do. The end. You can still do things that cost more on your own, but prioritize spending time with other families and do the stuff they can afford. So if they like to take their kids to the local park on the weekend to run around, do that. You will get to know them and your kids will play together and it's fine. You can still take your summer vacation in Italy while they go to the Jersey shore. But when you are together you need to do things everyone can do.

What people like OP will do is they will always want to do an expensive activity other people can't afford, and then they'll be annoyed that people won't join them. So they'll suggest going to a trampoline park with a $30/kid entrance fee. Or taking the kids to the movies at $15/each plus popcorn and drinks. Or going to an MLB game. And on and on. And they want to do activities like that EVERY weekend, not as a special treat every once in a while. Well, the other families can't do that, so they will avoid you, because they don't want to be reminded over and over that they cannot afford to do that stuff, and they especially don't want their kids feeling constantly deprived of stuff they didn't even know was a thing until meeting you.

If you are the sort of family who can't leave the house without spending $200 and who think nothing of weekend activities costing a grand for just like an average weekend in May, then you cannot expect middle class people with budgets to befriend you.

You have to choose. What is more important to you? Public school and being part of a down-to-earth community of families, or doing really expensive stuff every weekend?

Ugh this part is soooo true. I don't want my kids to grow up feeling poor or deprived, because we AREN'T poor and do a lot of cool stuff, but it makes it tough when these other families seem to be able to drop that kind of money on a random weekend activity plus snacks and takeout without thinking. I don't think spacing that stuff out is deprivation, but it's all relative.

But we organize pool and park meetups, we invite their friends over, we occasionally host parties. We're not unfriendly. We just have a budget. I'd be so bummed if people disliked me because I couldn't keep up with their lifestyles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the problem OP is that the people you describe as potentially your crew exist but they don’t match your politics. They are indeed liberals (white, brown, black, Asian, doesn’t matter) or even leftists (horror!) and that’s why they value public schools, mental health over exterior signs of success and don’t want to educate their kids to value materialism.

They live in the liberal enclaves you suspect.

But you probably won’t vibe on the “deep issues” you like to discuss..

I agree and I think OP may be burying the lede with the "not very liberal" comment. OP being MAGA and wanting to get into "deep issues" would easily explain why they're not making friends with otherwise similarly profiled people. The Liberals are exhausted. It's enough to have to deal with that crap at Thanksgiving, no one is interested in forming deep friendships where they have to recreate that dynamic.

Yep, my sister was a NHS researcher who had her whole facility closed. Our other sister is LGBT. I'm an active person who spends a lot of time reading, hiking, traveling.

But If you think I'm going to voluntarily spend time with people who think destroying my sisters (not to mention medical research, legal norms, and frankly basic human decency) is hunky dory, well, nope. Hard pass.

DP here. Anyone knows you should not talk politics. We are republican. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I sympathize for Gaza and am NOT antisemitic. I am glad DEI is gone. I still dislike Trump, but I did vote for him. I mean the guy got elected to be president so many people are republican. I am not MAGA and do not identify as MAGA.

I am around many very liberal people. I just stay silent when they talk politics.

I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal and agree with everything you said apart from supporting the candidate you support. Having studied history and lived in the world for 45 years, I can tell how "baby racist" policies can snowball to horrors of concentration camps... all too easily. I will gladly take the excesses of DEI and pronouns, which are frankly laughable and ridiculous, so that innocent people are not detained and harassed, and non-violent, non-criminal people who have let a tourist waiver lapse 20 years ago aren't thrown to die in Salvadorean prisons with the worst of the worst.

It's not as if anything about our current government is fiscally responsible! If they were cutting spending without giving a tax break for the rich (and *I'm* the rich in question!), then you might have an argument, in terms of weighing the pros and cons. But this government is destroying America's economy and its allies' goodwill built since WWII. For a true Republican, that's unforgivable.

I always remember that moderate governments in general, across the world, whether slightly left or centrist or slightly right, do their best to govern with caution. It's the extremes who seek to elicit abrupt change and thus cannot do their due diligence to check who they might hurt. And right now we have an extreme government which is hurting a lot of people, and we all saw it coming.

I think you're stupid, PP. Sorry.

+1. It's past time people like PP admit their politics are "I don't care what happens to you so long as my taxes go down"

Are you kidding me? I have to run to an event so I can’t respond. I am passionate and highly opinionated on many issues. Just because I can know when not to offend people and stay quiet does not mean I am stupid.

Yes, the main reason DH voted for Trump is for taxes. There are issues I actually agree with Trump and that is why I voted for him. What he is doing in office is not what I voted for.

Yes, it is. You may not be stupid but you are uninformed. He's doing exactly what he said he would do and you voted for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the problem OP is that the people you describe as potentially your crew exist but they don’t match your politics. They are indeed liberals (white, brown, black, Asian, doesn’t matter) or even leftists (horror!) and that’s why they value public schools, mental health over exterior signs of success and don’t want to educate their kids to value materialism.

They live in the liberal enclaves you suspect.

But you probably won’t vibe on the “deep issues” you like to discuss..

I agree and I think OP may be burying the lede with the "not very liberal" comment. OP being MAGA and wanting to get into "deep issues" would easily explain why they're not making friends with otherwise similarly profiled people. The Liberals are exhausted. It's enough to have to deal with that crap at Thanksgiving, no one is interested in forming deep friendships where they have to recreate that dynamic.

Yep, my sister was a NHS researcher who had her whole facility closed. Our other sister is LGBT. I'm an active person who spends a lot of time reading, hiking, traveling.

But If you think I'm going to voluntarily spend time with people who think destroying my sisters (not to mention medical research, legal norms, and frankly basic human decency) is hunky dory, well, nope. Hard pass.

DP here. Anyone knows you should not talk politics. We are republican. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I sympathize for Gaza and am NOT antisemitic. I am glad DEI is gone. I still dislike Trump, but I did vote for him. I mean the guy got elected to be president so many people are republican. I am not MAGA and do not identify as MAGA.

I am around many very liberal people. I just stay silent when they talk politics.

I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal and agree with everything you said apart from supporting the candidate you support. Having studied history and lived in the world for 45 years, I can tell how "baby racist" policies can snowball to horrors of concentration camps... all too easily. I will gladly take the excesses of DEI and pronouns, which are frankly laughable and ridiculous, so that innocent people are not detained and harassed, and non-violent, non-criminal people who have let a tourist waiver lapse 20 years ago aren't thrown to die in Salvadorean prisons with the worst of the worst.

It's not as if anything about our current government is fiscally responsible! If they were cutting spending without giving a tax break for the rich (and *I'm* the rich in question!), then you might have an argument, in terms of weighing the pros and cons. But this government is destroying America's economy and its allies' goodwill built since WWII. For a true Republican, that's unforgivable.

I always remember that moderate governments in general, across the world, whether slightly left or centrist or slightly right, do their best to govern with caution. It's the extremes who seek to elicit abrupt change and thus cannot do their due diligence to check who they might hurt. And right now we have an extreme government which is hurting a lot of people, and we all saw it coming.

I think you're stupid, PP. Sorry.

+1. It's past time people like PP admit their politics are "I don't care what happens to you so long as my taxes go down"

Are you kidding me? I have to run to an event so I can’t respond. I am passionate and highly opinionated on many issues. Just because I can know when not to offend people and stay quiet does not mean I am stupid.

Yes, the main reason DH voted for Trump is for taxes. There are issues I actually agree with Trump and that is why I voted for him. What he is doing in office is not what I voted for.

Yes, it is. You may not be stupid but you are uninformed. He's doing exactly what he said he would do and you voted for it.

Absolutely. He told us. If people selectively ignored then nonetheless they did vote for the whole package.

[Anonymous]

DH and I are socially liberal and fiscally conservative, he more so than me because I like my meat inspected, etc. But we never ever considered voting for Trump.
Lower taxes would be nice. More efficiency in government would be nice. But Trump, no way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the problem OP is that the people you describe as potentially your crew exist but they don’t match your politics. They are indeed liberals (white, brown, black, Asian, doesn’t matter) or even leftists (horror!) and that’s why they value public schools, mental health over exterior signs of success and don’t want to educate their kids to value materialism.

They live in the liberal enclaves you suspect.

But you probably won’t vibe on the “deep issues” you like to discuss..

I agree and I think OP may be burying the lede with the "not very liberal" comment. OP being MAGA and wanting to get into "deep issues" would easily explain why they're not making friends with otherwise similarly profiled people. The Liberals are exhausted. It's enough to have to deal with that crap at Thanksgiving, no one is interested in forming deep friendships where they have to recreate that dynamic.

Yep, my sister was a NHS researcher who had her whole facility closed. Our other sister is LGBT. I'm an active person who spends a lot of time reading, hiking, traveling.

But If you think I'm going to voluntarily spend time with people who think destroying my sisters (not to mention medical research, legal norms, and frankly basic human decency) is hunky dory, well, nope. Hard pass.

DP here. Anyone knows you should not talk politics. We are republican. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I sympathize for Gaza and am NOT antisemitic. I am glad DEI is gone. I still dislike Trump, but I did vote for him. I mean the guy got elected to be president so many people are republican. I am not MAGA and do not identify as MAGA.

I am around many very liberal people. I just stay silent when they talk politics.

I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal and agree with everything you said apart from supporting the candidate you support. Having studied history and lived in the world for 45 years, I can tell how "baby racist" policies can snowball to horrors of concentration camps... all too easily. I will gladly take the excesses of DEI and pronouns, which are frankly laughable and ridiculous, so that innocent people are not detained and harassed, and non-violent, non-criminal people who have let a tourist waiver lapse 20 years ago aren't thrown to die in Salvadorean prisons with the worst of the worst.

It's not as if anything about our current government is fiscally responsible! If they were cutting spending without giving a tax break for the rich (and *I'm* the rich in question!), then you might have an argument, in terms of weighing the pros and cons. But this government is destroying America's economy and its allies' goodwill built since WWII. For a true Republican, that's unforgivable.

I always remember that moderate governments in general, across the world, whether slightly left or centrist or slightly right, do their best to govern with caution. It's the extremes who seek to elicit abrupt change and thus cannot do their due diligence to check who they might hurt. And right now we have an extreme government which is hurting a lot of people, and we all saw it coming.

I think you're stupid, PP. Sorry.

+1. It's past time people like PP admit their politics are "I don't care what happens to you so long as my taxes go down"

Are you kidding me? I have to run to an event so I can’t respond. I am passionate and highly opinionated on many issues. Just because I can know when not to offend people and stay quiet does not mean I am stupid.

Yes, the main reason DH voted for Trump is for taxes. There are issues I actually agree with Trump and that is why I voted for him. What he is doing in office is not what I voted for.

Yes, it is. You may not be stupid but you are uninformed. He's doing exactly what he said he would do and you voted for it.

I concur. You could have said "He wasn't too bad in his first term, so I thought it was going to be kind of like that", and you might have a sliver of a leg to stand on. Except that if you'd paid attention, you'd have known that Project 2025 had carefully prepared his second term with brutal policies, and that no Republican in their right mind were ever going to be part of his Cabinet this time around. Last time he had crazy ideas that were stymied at every turn by his Cabinet and never saw the light of day - we just have the word of people who worked for him, to tell us he wanted to bomb N.Korea at some point and someone had to physically purloin the order from his Oval Office desk!!! The few crazy policies that made it out of the White House were eventually blocked by the courts, like the Muslim ban.

You failed in your due diligence, and the fact that so many people failed like you doesn't make your mistake any less egregious. You're foolish if you thought it was going to be only the criminals who were going to be deported and if you thought only carefully selected tariffs were going to be implemented to protect vital American industries. You know this man doesn't deal in finesse or actually cares about anybody. And your husband is a greedy sod.

- fiscal conservative with no political home.