A few years ago, most of the personal posts on this blog were about making the adjustment to living in the suburbs after years of urban life. There are many things I really love about being out here. I love growing roses in my backyard. I love having a parking place and appliances. I love that the schools are good enough. I love having storage space in a garage, basement, and attic.
I still haven't gotten used to the quiet. It drives me crazy really. There are no throngs of people to shove through, no bus sounds, no loud speakers of salsa music. It's just quiet. And too solitary. Other people seem very comfortable spending their days alone in their homes. I hang out in Starbucks and the gym on my non-work days. We'll most likely move back to NYC when Ian is done with high school.
It must be that time of year. Grey snow. A cold wind ripping through the streets. Barron trees. But I seeing a lot of griping about social isolation. On the blogs and on my listservs. The special ed moms have an especially tough time, since the regular kids don't invite them over for playdates. (Note to moms of regular kids: invite one special ed kid over for a playdate this week. Consider it your good deed for January.)
The introduction to Outliers
It wasn't their diet; the people in this town had stopped eating healthy Italian food and were eating American crap. It wasn't their genes: people from this area of Italy who moved elsewhere in the US weren't living long lives. It wasn't smoking; people in this town smoked and drank. So what was keeping these people so healthy? Turns out it was their thick community life. They lived close together and families ate around the dinner table with three generations. They socialized often. They went to church. Community ties kept these people alive.
I've been so distracted with the kids and work that I haven't worked the community ties enough. We do have a thick family here. My brother, sister, and parents are 15 minutes away. We'll have two nieces crashing on the floor tonight and a buddy from the city will get the futon. But I could do more. I've made a few, new friends in this town, and I'm going to make a point of throwing more parties with them. I need to take an art class and meet new people.
Local communities and government could be doing more to organize people and keep them from hunkering down in front of the TV.
Apt. 11d 
I have little interest in getting more involved in community life, and i’ve often wondered why, since i’m social by nature. i think it’s the combo of 2-full-time, WOTH, *tired* parents and a close-in suburban neighborhood where you don’t have to set up playdates to have playmates (the kids just knock on doors). But I still feel guilty about preferring to hunker down at home all but 1 or 2 weekend evenings/month.
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Fred Frankel, says in “Good Friends Are Hard To Find” that friendships among girls form very slowly. Presumably, the same goes for adult women.
I think it’s really important to have opportunities to just hang around doing nothing much. Pick-up and drop-off time at my daughter’s preschool co-op and pre-K in DC were very social times, with lots of hanging around on the playground and chatting with other moms. We don’t have a pedestrian commute to school anymore in TX, so it’s a bit different. My youngest gets out of school an hour before my oldest, so I’ve been hanging out with him on the playground shared by the two, but I haven’t seen too many people doing the same thing. Yesterday I bumped into two moms with the same situation on the playground, and we talked the whole time. They said it had also taken them a long time to start meeting people at school. The primary method of drop-off and pick-up is a big vehicular line-up snaking around the block. I’m looking forward to seeing more of these moms–we discussed everything from dairy farming to local crime to Jonestown. I’ve also had good results this year from just hanging around waiting for my oldest to get out of ballet. This may explain the otherwise inexplicable popularity of wall-to-wall extracurriculars.
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There was an interesting article somewhere (NYtimes?) writing about how the economic downturn might, instead of causing people to re-bond with their families and communities, result in people becoming isolated and depressed in front of their televisions (and computers).
I’m not sure what local communities and governments can do, so much, to help organize people. I think churches have played this role, but the churches “work” for this purpose because the people buy in to the community — they share something already, a common belief, and a newcomer is part of the community through that shared belief. Schools and community centers can try to produce this sense of community, but it’s harder, because there isn’t the presumption of beliefs. A newcomer will need to find the school/community that they can fit into, and then “prove” that they fit in. And that’s the problem — the work required, that causes people to hunker down at their televisions instead.
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” a close-in suburban neighborhood where you don’t have to set up playdates to have playmates (the kids just knock on doors)”
But, this is a community. I guess you’re saying it’s a community for your kids, more than for yourself as an adult?
“I think it’s really important to have opportunities to just hang around doing nothing much. ”
I agree so much. But, that’s also what makes it hard, ’cause you have to make yourself available, without necessarily being productive, and in over-committed lives, it’s hard to find that space.
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Speaking of the difficulty of “organizing” community networks, the Onion has a story today:
“Area teen accidentally enters teen center.”
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/area_teen_accidentally
SANDUSKY, OH—In a moment of confusion, area teenager Eric Dooley briefly walked into a local teen outreach center Tuesday, a place that neither he nor any of his teenaged friends would ever knowingly enter. “Oh, geez. I’m sorry,” the 15-year-old said as he quickly assessed the four battered foosball tables, outdated PlayStation console, overly friendly counselor, and garish orange and purple paint scheme—all intended to appeal to him—before exiting the facility in less than six seconds. “This isn’t where I’m supposed to be. Sorry. Sorry.” Dooley reportedly joined a gang later that afternoon.
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I live in the city and I love the front porches and close proximity.
I had a fabulous, huge front porch when I lived in suburbia/country, but nobody walked by regularly.
In the city, I can look out, see my neighbors having wine and go out and see them for 5 mins. Of course, it always turns out to be an hour. If I have to commit to driving somewhere, then I simply cannot be bothered.
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Local communities and government could be doing more to organize people and keep them from hunkering down in front of the TV.
I agree, but Amy’s Onion link is not only funny, it’s dead-on. I have nothing against “teen outreach centers” in principle, but I’ve never seen that kind of upfront efforts at organizing people so they could develop social ties really work the way people imagine it might, on any kind of level. What local communities and governments can and should do–and many do, though the “outreach center” mentality is a tough one for policy makers (who just want to through money at a problem, build something and then forget about it) to get away from–is take to heart Amy’s earlier point (and BJ’s too) and think in terms of what kinds of investments and projects creates spaces and opportunities for people simply “do nothing much” in public, to find people on their own–randomly if that’s what it comes down to–where shared interests and beliefs and ways to kill time can be made manifest. Build more and better sidewalks, improving zoning so that schools and churches and stores and gyms are nearer homes and people can walk to them, invest in public safety so people will be more willing to get out of the house and use those open spaces, rather than huddling in their cars, going from garage to drop-off/pick-up point, and back again.
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I grew-up in a walkable town. We were about 3/4 of a mile from school (all of the schools), church, dad’s office, and the store we went to most. Public safety wasn’t an issue. It encouraged community involvement, but I don’t think it encouraged walking that much. Before turning 16, we would walk/bike if we didn’t have a choice or were going to do something that we didn’t want mom to know about. After turning 16, walking in public was a sign that you were being punished by having the keys taken away. And open container/minor in possession laws kept us out of public places for social events. Even adults were relucant to walk except during the evening. If someone wasn’t clearly walking for exercise, you were expected to offer them a ride.
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After being on the Internet for 16 years, I finally am talking to people on the net whom I know in real life, thanks to Facebook. A second local mom just friended me, and I’m going to see about maybe making some other contacts. It’s kind of weird, but it’s a great way to socialize without having to negotiate all the playdate stuff! Maddie and Soph never see each other any more? No mind! Maddie’s mom and I can keep up on FB.
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I am really bad about socializing in my community. I really only know 3 couples on this street and I almost never invite them over. Most of my friends live in further out suburbs or in the city. We try to get together a couple of times a month, but it’s hard. Since I’m not working full time anymore, I’ve thought about getting out there more, but I don’t know how. Going to PTA meetings usually makes my skin crawl. I used to belong to a book club. The library has a book club that I’ve considered. I don’t know–it’s just so hard. I like the idea of finding some of the moms through Facebook. I could see that leading to coffee or lunch or something. And, I should try to work at Starbucks or the library once in a while.
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We live in the city, made a huge point of staying in the city even after the kids were born, just because of the community. And you know what? Almost all our friends moved away. And then the new replacement friends we made also moved away. It got to the point where I wouldn’t bother with a new person until I had found out what school they were sending their kids to. If the kids were 3+ and they didn’t already know, they would end up moving. I could deal with it, although I wasn’t happy. The kids were absolutely destroyed by constantly losing their little friends.
Now we have the same life that people in the suburbs complain about: we have to make formal playdates with friends and drive the kids there as time allows. We are very busy with work and caregiving and thus don’t have time to keep up our old friendships much less build new ones. We do know our (very long-term) neighbors well, which really helps, but we don’t have tons in common. It’s just hard. I personally think it has more to do with long work hours than with porches or walkability or church-going habits.
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“We live in the city, made a huge point of staying in the city even after the kids were born, just because of the community. And you know what? Almost all our friends moved away. And then the new replacement friends we made also moved away. It got to the point where I wouldn’t bother with a new person until I had found out what school they were sending their kids to. If the kids were 3+ and they didn’t already know, they would end up moving. I could deal with it, although I wasn’t happy. The kids were absolutely destroyed by constantly losing their little friends.”
That is so sad.
We moved from DC summer 2007, and I spent about a year fielding remarks from my oldest about how she missed DC and she missed her friends and she missed the Air and Space museum, etc. But 1) her oldest DC chum later moved to the Middle East (where her mom is probably having the same conversations) 2) we had to leave our ritzy NW neighborhood anyway, since we couldn’t actually afford it (we had four years of campus housing) 3) around 5th grade, middle class DC parents start bailing out of the public system anyway, so staying until then would just be prolonging the inevitable.
It’s hard starting over socially, both for big people and little people both. My personal list of resources is something like this: 1) monthly mother’s group at parish (mostly Catholic graduate student moms) 2) hang out during ballet 3) hang out at playground between preschool and school pickup (???) 4) Make point of strolling neighborhood and going to the neighborhood events (4th of July, Halloween, Christmas party). 5) make another walking date with local cousin to see historic neighborhood 6) I’m supposed to be organizing a walking group for the campus women’s club 7) actually go to departmental events (there’s a monthly graduate student potluck, among other things) 8) do a monthly movie (Jonestown is the next planned, and Juno probably sometime around Valentine’s Day) 9) go to the parish adult education class. When I make out the list, there are actually a lot of appealing opportunities, but as Woody Allen says, 80% of success in life is just showing up. (I’d add that at least 10% is sending out emails in a timely manner.)
My husband, meanwhile, is enjoying an unexpected social bonanza from his new amateur astronomy hobby.
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It’s a great idea to invite those children with special needs for play dates. God bless you.
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Yes. I should mention that our neighbors are alleither gay couples, couples with kids under 4, or older couples. Jen’s comment is accurate here too, except the the elementary schools are excellent in the city, but people race away to avoid the middle schools
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