Making Friends with Parents

Parenting
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Now that we are able to move around in the world again, I can start thinking about making new friends with parents.

Unfortunately, I am in this weird place that all my closest friends do not have kids. I don’t have any strong feelings about it, except that I really want to have parent-friends with similar values because chances are they are going to raise kids as cool as they are. I mean maybe not. But maybe yes.

Sigh the thing is I have a hard time getting to know people face-to-face because there is a lot of bullshit you have to get through first before you realize you have a lot in common and like each other.

Please share with me your ideas, adventures, struggles, triumphs on this front.

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I met parent friends at daycare and elemtary school.

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I mean elementary school. I’m leaving the ttypo because it represents my brains function yoday

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So, I’ve had decent luck making parent friends. But parent friends with the same values are WAY HARDER. So I try for close enough lol.

Two main sources-
1- we spend an obscene amount of time at all our local parks. See the same people over and over this way. Chat. Make friends. Values may vary, but hey, convenience win.
2- Facebook groups. Most notably, my states 1000 hours outside group. Same priorities overall given the challenge. Met a few people in the same area. This also led me to my next step that I haven’t done yet-
3- free forest school. I have high hopes once I figure out the new app and in person events start back up.

Our closest parent friends we see IRL are our across the street neighbors. Dumb luck there really.

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Didn’t know about this, thank you!

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There’s an official FB group, my state has a group too (not sure if all do), and there’s another called “get yer butts outside” that’s a spin off from when the antivaxxers were overrunning the main group. LMK if you want invites to any of them if you can’t find them.

We’re not actually aiming for 1000 hours this year, we’re aiming for 500, but it’s still been really good for us.

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That’s how my friend met her closest parent friend, and their kids love each other too. Basically became family friends.

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Thankyou for this! I’m not aiming for 1000 hours but it seems like a good idea.

I am planning on taking kids to library events, like Lego building afternoons and sing alongs. I have picked a cafe to invite people to, and scoped out parks I like. This means if we do want to catch up, I have options available to offer straight away.

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Oh having a list of things ready to go is a great idea.

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I first met other parents through regular attendance at baby play time at a community center and library storytimes. Later, I joined a local moms group through meetup. Then, there was school. But I’m still friends with some of those people from the early years.

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How do you have a conversation with other parents when you are also watching a Wild Thing? Or do I just need to have more patience?

I got together with some friends over the weekend with a toddler of their own. My husband was totally on board with taking primary care of our toddler so I could catch up with my friends. Instead, any conversation I tried to have was punctuated with “mama. MAMA. MAAAMAAA!!!” Until I responded. It’s like this when we’re at the playground as well.

My friend’s toddler calmly sat on her lap while we chatted. Apparently there are calm babies out there, I just happen not to have one of those.

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Solidarity. I mainly scream out half thoughts while chasing a monster and pray I can finish a conversation a few years from now :upside_down_face:

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Oh! Sidewalk chalk helps though, for like 30 seconds.

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Sorry for the triple reply, but I thought about this more- the times I’ve had the most success conversing is when there’s something that distracts the children. Older kids at the park to follow, bunnies in a field to stare at, stuff like that.

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I have no actual need to make new parent friends (existing friends had kids around the time I did, and we have neighbors with kids the wiggler’s age) but I just had a conversation with another mom at the coffee shop about kids’ shoes :joy: it can happen anywhere!

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Haha I guess I’m such an enormous introvert that I overthink everything.

I really want close parent friends that share similar philosophies for raising, disciplining, feeding, teaching kids.

Mostly this is because it’s been hard being around my cousins kids that are so wildly different even if I love them. And relatives that do things and say things that are just complete garbage and I don’t want to have to reassert boundaries nonstop.

I may just be dreaming.

I may just have OCD and am an extreme helicopter control parent :grimacing::grimacing::grimacing::grimacing::joy::joy::joy:

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Aren’t you moving in a month? I think that will drastically reduce the need for boundaries and take a lot of pressure off.

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Yeah that makes sense.

Not having a figurative safe space I control and feel comfortable may bleed into the desire for finding friends who can be safe spaces.

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Hmmm but that said I think for sure there are things that I will always want. For example, parents that are into constant gendering, or who are always monitoring their kids weight, or who don’t emphasize good emotional language and consequences for bullying. Probably wouldn’t ever jive with them haha

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Having this has been very very important to me.

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