Would Like to Make Friends!!! (Houston, The Woodlands: how much, lawyer, neighborhoods)

[Mommy/Artist/Lawyer]

Originally Posted by feufoma

Based on the small children I know of, it seems that the ones who go to daycare and/ or pre-school are miles ahead of the stay at home children, both socially and intellectually.

Wow based on your assessment I guess I should dump my two year old off with a group of strangers and head back to my old law office for some R and R. I'm sure spending 8 hours a day, five days a week with someone other than his mother will do him a world of good. People place way too much emphasis on maternal nurturing anyway. Everyone knows that a day care worker will give a child every bit as much love and attention as their mother.

Some parents have no choice and daycare is a means to an end. Lets not rationalize though. Daycare isn't the ideal and certainly doesn't produce an emotionally and intellectually superior child.

[katmama]

And I see the debate goes on.

[feufoma]

I'm not trying to debate the issue: just stating what I've personally oberved. I'm sure there are positives and negatives in both scenarios. Frankly, what's really amazing to me is how a family can survive financially without both parents working full time jobs that pay 6 figures minimum.

[ReneeG71]

Originally Posted by Mommy/Artist/Lawyer

Wow based on your assessment I guess I should dump my two year old off with a group of strangers and head back to my old law office for some R and R. I'm sure spending 8 hours a day, five days a week with someone other than his mother will do him a world of good. People place way too much emphasis on maternal nurturing anyway. Everyone knows that a day care worker will give a child every bit as much love and attention as their mother.

Some parents have no choice and daycare is a means to an end. Lets not rationalize though. Daycare isn't the ideal and certainly doesn't produce an emotionally and intellectually superior child.

[tstone]

Originally Posted by feufoma

Frankly, what's really amazing to me is how a family can survive financially without both parents working full time jobs that pay 6 figures minimum.

[ReneeG71]

Originally Posted by feufoma

Best of luck. One thing that you mentioned interests me: is there really a bias against working mothers? Seems like it should be the other way around. Based on the small children I know of, it seems that the ones who go to daycare and/ or pre-school are miles ahead of the stay at home children, both socially and intellectually.

Wow..I guess I just got lucky that my daughter is a straight A student with lots of friends. I better hurry up and get a job and sign up my younger 2 for daycare before my luck runs out. I wouldn't want them to turn out to be ignorant social misfits!!

Seriously, daycare is fine if that is what you want, but in NO WAY is it superior than staying at home with a mother.

[texas7]

Originally Posted by Mommy/Artist/Lawyer

Wow based on your assessment I guess I should dump my two year old off with a group of strangers and head back to my old law office for some R and R. I'm sure spending 8 hours a day, five days a week with someone other than his mother will do him a world of good. People place way too much emphasis on maternal nurturing anyway. Everyone knows that a day care worker will give a child every bit as much love and attention as their mother.

Some parents have no choice and daycare is a means to an end. Lets not rationalize though. Daycare isn't the ideal and certainly doesn't produce an emotionally and intellectually superior child.

Well the majority of people who leave their kids in daycare don't "dump" them with a group of strangers. Most check them out very well. When mine were young (yes they were in daycare - and honor students btw - so they weren't damaged by the "dumping") the stay-at-home Moms were snooty and ugly at the children's school functions as if they were doing some superior job to those working moms. I was always nice and cordial but my thought was "get a grip on yourself - your staying home doesn't make your kid any better or worse than a working mom." I found it rather amusing. However, could be that some of those stay-at-home moms perhaps had some hidden self-esteem issues and acted the way they did due to treatment from the working moms - what a cycle with women.

[karuna95]

Originally Posted by LAM1010

Hi,
I have been a member for a couple of years but I guess I haven't been very active. I am looking to meet people and make friends. My husband and I relocated to Houston a couple of years ago and we still know very few people. I guess I am reaching out to like-minded people out there since it's getting a bit "depressing' for me right now just doing 3 things in life: work, more work and kids!!!
I am African American, a Christian and a full-time working professional. I have 2 small kids under 3 years of age and we live close to the Woodlands.

What profession are you in? Are there professional networking groups for that profession? I find that I tend to have more in common with women/moms who share the same career as me. Much harder finding common grounds with someone who only shares "mommy-hood". Also consider alternative ways of staying close. One of my best friends live in Dallas, and we chat regularly via phone or IM. Haven't seen her in months, but we're extremely close. Another friend lives a couple of miles away, and we meet up every other month or so for lunch... have to make effort though. Hard to maintain friendships when one has career and family obligations.

[LAM1010]

I am a pharmacist. I tried to make friends with fellow mothers in the neighborhood when I had the youngest last year and even more so after the hurricane. But it seems there is little to talk about when all you have in common are the kids. having said that I wonder why that is the case...... I would like to think I am not defined by my work. However, I did realise that when I stop to say hello to a few of them, they would say hello back and then there will be an uncomfortable silence after the nicessities had been done with.
I never see the working folks in the neighborhood either coz I guess they are at work and all come home at different times. However, I am yet to meet some who have very young kids and still work. The working folks I have met so far in the mini-subdivision do not have kids yet.
Maybe what I need to do is to stop whining and succumb to a life of boredom for the rest of my life. Makes me miss the college years I spent in London though....hmmm

[Sampaguita]

LAM - My DH, twins and I relocated to the Houston area in November 08. I am a SAHM in The Woodlands and I can tell you that I've had a hard time making friends among ANY moms here. I joined the local moms of multiples group last November and you'd think with the common bond of "twins", there'd be much to discuss. Nothing. Zip. I went to a couple of activities & have never been subjected to so much obvious "...don't even bother trying to talk to me" attitudes.

Is it snobbery? I don't know. Up until the time I had the babies, I held down a well-paying job that had me traveling the US and utilizing my degree. I'm no intellectual dummy despite now being a SAHM. I will say that for the first time in my life, I actually wondered whether my ethnicity bothered people but I don't think that's it either. All I can surmise is that there seems to be a view that you have to "earn" your way into established circles of friends. A little hard to do when you can't even get people to respond beyond a socially obligatory "hello". I'm not sure whether it's symptomatic of The Woodlands area or not but between the MOMs group and a local mommy message board, I haven't found anyone to be particularly welcoming - especially to someone who is brand new to the community. I'll tell you that I was very disappointed and somewhat shocked by the lack of hospitality we've experienced thus far. I told my husband that people in Texas were extremely hospitable based on past experienced when I lived in San Antonio. I've been proven wrong at least in our current situation.

A friend noted that when I last lived in TX, I was a recent college grad with all my college circle of friends still intact as well as network of like-aged co-workers who were all about partying, having a good time & discovering life as young adults. It's a little different when you come back married with kids, I guess.

The friends we've made in Houston are the very close friends of my brother and cousin but they all live in the Sugar Land area (hence our decision to high-tail it down to SL at the end of our current lease agreement). We were "accepted" right away because of their love for our relatives. They eagerly drove an hour to spend Thanksgiving, December 23rd and our babies' 1st birthday with us. They regularly invite us to go out. We didn't have to go through an audition, so to speak.

I do think what katmama says has some merit:

The older we get, the more full our lives become, and it gets more difficult to make really close friends. We are just to busy with our own family and career to truly invest in building a strong relationship with another person. I think just having causal friends is good enough for me at this time, and who knows...even a casual friend becomes a good friend over time.

But I've found that even making a casual friend here doesn't seem to be easy.

I agree, LAM, that it's depressing but I'm trying to pull myself out of the funk because I'm realizing that it's easier for me NOT to even bother to try anymore than to be constantly smacked down. To that end, I joined a local mommy group (again) and so far everyone seems to be very friendly. The amusing part of it, though, is that I somehow missed on the description of the group that it was a shout-out to "young moms". LOL - I am far from being a "young" mom and indicated as much to the group. But, they don't seem to have a problem with it. So, we'll see.

As for the working mom vs sahm debate: I hate that debate. It's pointless. There's no merit to it as I'd like to believe that each family/mother decides what is best for their own families and who are we to judge any family's decision in these matters? I do, however, want to address two points that feufoma brought up:

Originally Posted by feufoma
Best of luck. One thing that you mentioned interests me: is there really a bias against working mothers? Seems like it should be the other way around. Based on the small children I know of, it seems that the ones who go to daycare and/ or pre-school are miles ahead of the stay at home children, both socially and intellectually.

I'm guessing you don't have children based on some of your assessments on this thread.

There is absolutely nothing to support that daycare or pre-school kids are miles ahead either socially or intellectually of children who haven't been exposed to daycare or preschool yet.

Some of the brightest children I know did not start going to school until they were 4 yrs old. I know a child who has been in a daycare/schooling environment since birth - we're all convinced that child is a sociopath. On the other hand, I also know very bright & engaging children who've spent the majority of their life at daycare & now school.

I think it's all about the individual child, the individual circumstances that child is put into and the involvement by the parent/s that will ultimately shape a child's socialization and stir intellectual curiosity.

Originally Posted by feufoma
Frankly, what's really amazing to me is how a family can survive financially without both parents working full time jobs that pay 6 figures minimum.

I have to go with tstone's eyeroll here.

I won't presume to speak for anyone else's situation but for us, it was a matter of shifting priorities. Because I now am a SAHM, I no longer am at liberty to shop til I drop nor do we eat out as often as we used to. DH & I no longer celebrate holidays/special occasions with extravagant gifts. And no, a 500k house is no longer a possibility. The way DH & I see it is that I had my 20 yrs of working at a well-paying, high-profile and some would say "glamorous" job. I've traded that in for the most challenging job of my life - raising our precocious twins. They test my creativity every day. We've had to make sacrifices to make do as a single income family and it works fine for us.