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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the gist of this thread can be summed up as this:
Parents, have your own friends. And let your kids have their own friends. Those kid friends might be completely unrelated to your friends and that's fine.
This culture that has developed of "friends who are like family" is controlling and exclusive. There are countless threads of people upset they don't have this. I think it's because most kids don't have local family anymore and parents want to develop these cousin like relationships. Your kids should of course be polite to your friends kids but they don't need to be best friends and certainly not their only friends.[/quote]

I sort of agree with this. But actually, it is *because* my spouse and I have our own friends outside our kid's school and activity communities that she has "cousin like relationships" with those kids. She hangs out with them because we are friends with their parents, and over the years the kids have learned to play together and have fun even though they are different ages, go to different schools, live in different neighborhoods or even towns.

I think the key is avoid making your kids' school or extra-curricular community the center of your family's social universe. We are friendly with families from the school, but most of my friendships go much further back and are based on deeper things than just having kids the same age in the same class. No one at my kid's school knows me that well, and while I see them socially at school events and birthday parties and can chat with them and enjoy their company, we aren't vacationing together and I'm not getting together with all the moms for girls night or anything. I wouldn't want to do that because I don't want my social relationships with the parents to impact my kid's relationships. Sometimes she's friends with kids whose parents aren't really my jam, and it's fine because I can coordinate with those parents for playdates and things but I don't need to be best friends with them. There are other kids she has no interest in even though I think their parents are very cool, and there's zero pressure on her to become friends with those kids just to facilitate me getting to know their parents better. And that's how it should be.

I view parents at the school the way I view colleagues -- I want to have good working relationships with them. I am respectful and open minded about them because it's a large community that exists for reasons well beyond my personal social needs. But I also keep people at a bit of arms length because I don't want it to impact our work (parenting). Also, just like in any job, the likelihood that we will all be working together like this longterm is slim -- people change jobs and schools, kids move on to there activities, this is not a static situation. If you keep the relationships professional, there are no hurt feelings and it doesn't upend people's lives if one family goes private or the kids head to different middle schools or someone moves.[/quote]

Even the Obama kids and the Biden grandchildren formed a bond from the family experiences. You can't stop bonds from happening. You also can't force bonds.

But trying to police when people with bonds get together isn't going to work.[/quote]

That is a bizarre example because being the child or grandchild of a President or Vice President is a singular experience with which very few people can relate so of course it would forge some bonds. That's not the same as attending preschool with 5 other kids and your moms all becoming a bestie clique that follows you to elementary, where you actually develop other friends and interests yet your moms insist on you continuing to do all your socializing with those same 5 kids because those are the moms they are friends with. Very different situations!

The point is that that building your family social life around the families your kid goes to school with is dicy because your social interests and your kids' social interests will not always perfectly align. If you keep your social life more independent, your kids can choose friends and activities more freely. And avoiding becoming too intertwined with school families is useful because school is a necessarily temporary situation and as your kids get older and your situation changes, it won't be as impactful on your social life if your friends are mostly from outside that community.[/quote]

People relate and don't relate for many reasons. Sometimes it's all first-time girl moms who start to bond over hating the boys in the class. Sometimes it's the lazy moms who can't stand the overly-intense, perfectionist moms. Sometimes it's the perfectionist moms who all enjoy their superior perfection. Sometimes it's the wine-o'clock moms.

Bonds happen. Family parties happen. OP should move on.[/quote]

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