Reply to Family friends stay friends as they grow up?

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Family friends stay friends as they grow up?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My definition of family friend is different.

Our family friends are friends WE had before we had kids.  When we all had kids, we continued those friendships, which were based on liking each other and commonalties totally outside of our kids.  Our kids ended up spanning ages and they are more like cousins than anything else.  We all live in this general area but they don't go to school together.  Do they love each other every minute?  Did you love all your cousins?  Maybe not.  But they are relationships they've had in their life the whole time and it ebbs and flows.  Yes as they grow into teen years they don't always participate in everything we do as a group and that is also totally fine.[/quote]

+1 exact same situation here. I think these friendships have more longevity in part because we never viewed our kids as needing to be close or to get most of their socializing from these friends. Again they are like cousins -- they hang out together when the adults get together and there's an age range but the kids are different and their differences are fine. Also we don't get together with these friends all the time. Though we're all local we live in different neighborhoods and our kids attend different schools. We see each of these sets of friends maybe 4-5x a year. Occasionally we travel together.

I think the problem with friends you make through your kids is that there is often this expectation that the families will be in lock step together in terms of schools and activities and holidays. I like that with these other families those expectations don't exist and I think it keep things more mellow and easier. I also think the fact that our kids are of various ages and in different schools and activities means there's less competition and direct comparison. It also gives the kids the opportunity to learn from each other because their varying ages and experiences mean they all bring something slightly different to the table. Again like cousins.[/quote]

Yes this is also my definition of "family friend." Growing up we had a group of families we met with almost weekly. All fairly local but different schools, all had kids but ages were a spread. This wasn't parents getting together for a playdate but parents getting together as friends and we kids were expected to entertain ourselves or each other. My parents were immigrants and these families were from the same region.

We stayed in pretty close touch through HS/college - definitely got competitive at times. As adults we've gone to each other's weddings. I'm not in close touch with others but would happily socialize if local. A bunch of th  "kids" live in NYC as adults and they do still get together.[/quote]

This was definitely the Indian American experience of the 80s. Can't say I really liked it or am close to those "kids" now. Parents HAD to see each other all the time because they were each others' safety net in a new country, so after having been in a new world with white people all week at work, on the weekends it was time for Indian food and gossip with the friends they immigrated with and thus had known since HS/college age (or the people they invited weren't their original friends who may have been back in India but their friend's brother or cousin or whomever from back home who had ended up immigrating and living 20 miles away). Yeah it was competitive because well . . . Indians. So grades, college, etc. and then over time as the parents become well off it was all about who upgraded to a luxury home or luxury car. Can't say I ever once reached out to any of these "kids" on my own. I stayed the hell away. Not that they weren't nice kids, they were. Had I met them myself independently thru school, we may have been friends. But the overlay of knowing each other's parents made them not real friendships because ANYTHING you'd say to said friend was 100% gonna be repeated back to their parents and then their parents would ask your parents as if they deserved an answer. So Vishal told my boy Rohit that he hates biology or isn't going to med school or has a girlfriend or didn't get into an ivy or is gay - IS THAT TRUE??

I did get invited to all their weddings but that's only bc Indians throw 500+ person weddings and the invites were for my parents' family, not bc they independently wanted me there as a friend. There's literally 1 of these friends I text with occasionally as an adult and that's only bc she ended up in the same profession as me but is 5 yrs younger so she uses me as a sounding board.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics