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Whenever I'm around friends or family who have kids and they start on the kids, sports and school things. All I can hear is Charley Browns teachers voice, "Wha wha wha, wha wha, wha wha wha".
The worst is when you are out to dinner at a nice restaurant and the only subjects the parents want to discuss are potty training and bowel movements. Such a fun and pleasant evening for those without children.
Whenever I'm around friends or family who have kids and they start on the kids, sports and school things. All I can hear is Charley Browns teachers voice, "Wha wha wha, wha wha, wha wha wha".
If it's any consolation, I feel the same way about people who start in on their cats/dogs.
I don't know one single person with children small or big who has no social life. I think this is a huge exaggeration.
Pretty much all the people I know who have children have a more active social life than I did even before I had kids.
let me introduce you to my sister-in-law. All day, every day revolves around her kids. She's a stay at home mom with no real friends. She may occasionally see a mom from church out and about, but that's it. She does do date night with her husband every Saturday while grandma has the kids. They do the exact same thing every Saturday night. Her husband does have a social life. He works outside the home, goes out with his friends, and plays softball 3 nights a week. She doesn't go out with his friends nor does she go to his games. She's home with the kids. She keeps saying she'll have a life again when they're all in school....and then 2.5-3 years later she'll have another kid.
Well, she's obviously an extreme example. Not healthy for her or her son.
I agree that she shouldn't be dating. She already has to take enough attention away from him because he only has one parent. And kids don't need the drama of a parade of other people just coming in and out of their life.
So single parents shouldn't date until their kids are 18? Oh please! What about the married parents who have affairs? What about the parents who don't do things or spend time with their kids? Yeah I had a dad growing up, but rarely saw him because he was always working.
By "we" I mean those of us who decided not to have children, thereby making us "child free" not "childless" because we're not missing something we want.
The fact of the matter is, we either don't "like" others' children, because we don't really like kids to begin with. Or, we don't care about others' children because we didn't care enough to have our own.
And so, due to either of these reasons (or others) we may decide to mingle with people who don't have their kids dominating every bit of the time and conversation they share with us.
Oh yes we we absolutely get it! Just because we don't want or can't have children doesn't mean our brains have turned off. I would to know why people with children frequently say we don't get it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diane de Poitiers
That's how one of my uncles and his wife were when their kids were younger.......I remember not being "allowed" to say words like butt or fart around my cousins, no matter what the context was.
Why are people like this? If a child attends school, they're going to learn all kinds of words the parents disapprove of. Almost every curse word I know I learned on the school bus!
Quote:
Originally Posted by missik999
People who don't have children usually do not have homes with playrooms, toys, outdoor play equipment and other things that will keep kids entertained.
People tend to socialize with others that share common interests.
Also, some children do not know how to behave around adults. I have seen kids at gatherings who constantly interrupt adult conversation, run and jump on furniture, etc. And parents can get offended if everyone present doesn't think their little darlings are as precious as they do.
If it's any consolation, I feel the same way about people who start in on their cats/dogs.
AMEN!! As a proud parent of two young children (not fur-babies - what a ridiculous and asinine notion) I roll my eyes and shake my head when people play up their stinkin pets as if they are somehow equal to actual children.
I get it, you need someone to love who will love you back... That doesn't make them your baby.
Regarding the topic at hand: I used to have a fairly sizeable social circle. The vast majority of whom don't have kids, but honestly after being a dad for almost 5 years, I've grown tired of the discussions the other guys want to have. It's ALWAYS about some car discussion (track meet, upgrades, new cars), or some gadget (drone, digital thermostats, cameras, video game systems, etc). In the end I've found myself coming to the following conclusions:
1) They have more $ to waste than I do
2) They are very good at wasting said $
3) I've drifted apart from a lot of my old college buddies
4) I'm perfectly okay with that, as I'd much rather go home to play with my kids than go to a happy hour with them and listen to them ramble on about whether they should buy a pre-owned Porsche for a weekend car (this was an actual topic at the last HH I went to - I was the lone naysayer who suggested using the money as down payment for real estate).
Nothing in common. Two completely different lifestyles. "Oil" and "water" don't mix. I am speaking specifically about couples. There are singles who still hang out with their friends who have a child or children.
IDK, pretty much everyone we've socialized with for the past 20 years has kids at this point, so it's not as if we go out of our way to avoid socializing with child-free friends. Some of our friends have grown children, while others are just getting started with babies and toddlers; in some ways it's just easier because there is no need to explain kid-related hiccups in plans, or why a kid is doing something "weird" that is totally normal to someone who has been there already.
I will say that our friendship with our closest long-time friends did get stronger after they recently had children. For a while there, it felt like they just looked at us like a couple of dolt "breeders"; being well-educated teachers themselves, it was easy to arm-chair quarterback our situation. Then they had their first baby, and right about that golden age of 12 months, when they are chubby little bundles of sunshine, they had that parenting stuff down and made another one... and shortly thereafter, their first baby entered the toddler stage. I adored their innocence and optimism when they commented on just riding out the Terrible Twos, until I broke it to them that right after that comes the Treacherous Threes and the F'ing Fours & Fives. Their jaws dropped (as did mine, when I first learned that the Terrible Twos is a misnomer; Two was ridiculously easy by comparison). We told them "Honey, you are in the trenches now. For the next 5 or 10 years, your main objective will be to survive until bedtime. But cheer up: you get to escape to work... where you will be better teachers because you will now understand your students and their parents in a way you couldn't before." We love them to pieces, and it's neat to see how parenting is the great equalizer.
But to be frank, our social life is different now. Life is busy these days, and our main priority is to spend our kid-free time reconnecting as a couple. It's fun to go out with other couples too, but we have maybe a few times per year to go out by ourselves; sometimes it will be with friends, but we need time alone, too.
Last edited by Ginge McFantaPants; 07-26-2016 at 08:55 PM..
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