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[quote=Anonymous]I think OP is dealing with a parenting community where parents gatekeep their kids' friendships based on specific sorts of socializing among adults. I encountered this a bit in my kids' elementary school and it can be frustrating if you don't enjoy that specific kind of socializing.

In my case, it was a group of families who socialized via backyard gatherings, group "date nights", and joint vacations that revolve around heavy drinking, posting extensively to social media, and a specific kind of networking that is just not my thing. It's not that you couldn't join the group if you wanted to -- they invited us many times to join them in these activities. It's that if you didn't join them in these activities, they would not permit your kids to be friends. Even if you were happy to host playdates, invited their kids to your kids birthday party, were friendly and available at school events, etc. If you wanted your kid to be able to hang out with theirs, you had to participate in their specific sort of socializing. And this lasted well past the little kids phase -- even if your kids were friendly at school in upper elementary or middle school, they would discourage a closer friendship if you didn't socialize with the adults.

It's a frustrating dynamic because while I don't think there's anything wrong with how that group chose to socialize, I just can't do it. I drink extremely rarely for health reasons, I prefer a more private type of socializing with fewer photos and definitely no online posting, and my family is just not set up for joint vacations. Trying to keep up with a group like that would make me miserable for no real reason -- sometimes you just aren't meant to be friends with certain people. But it was sad that this meant our kids wouldn't be friends either.

I don't expect people to match my social style in order for our kids to be friends. I'm fine making friends outside the families in my kids' peer group. Fortunately, my kids made friends via activities outside school and also in middle school, the social circle widened so this one group of parents and their kids were less dominant. It was a lonely few years there though and I definitely felt the pressure to perform friendships with those folks just to get my kids access to birthday invites and playdates. [/quote]

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