Do you socialize with other families? - Page 2

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

No we do not. Neither dh nor I have friends outside of family. Or I should say I dont have any and the ones dh has he dosnt see socially.

[just_lily]

I honestly don't know what I would do without our group of friends!

We belong to a bible study / life group through our church that consists of seven families.  We meet on Friday nights and take turns hosting and bringing snacks.  We all have young kids (there are currently 10 kids in total, and the oldest is 4!) so we hire a teenage girl to watch the kids in the basement while the adults remain in the living room and have some social and prayer time together.  Our whole family loves it - DH and I enjoy spending time with other couples, and DD loves playing with her friends. 

Seven families sounds like a lot, but I think that is what makes it work.  It is very, very rare that everyone is all there.  I would say on average four families will turn up any given week, or sometimes just one parent will come with kids, or even just one parent on their own.  With a larger group if someone has another commitment that night or is sick or something you aren't putting anyone out by not being able to attend. 

We don't have any extended family nearby, so it is important for me to forge these relationships so we are surrounded by people who know and love my kid.  If I ever needed emergency childcare, I have six families she would be very comfortable with.  I could have a car accident tomorrow and end up in hospital - and I would have a small army of people at the door with meals and providing us with childcare.  You never know what is around the corner.  We all need community.

[erinsmom1996]

We live in a great neighborhood where several of the families get together and hang out almost every weekend. The adults will hang out and the kids hang out in some cases. Sometimes, we do things with another family and their kids like go to a Hockey game, go out to eat, etc. We have neighborhood parties for the 4th of July, New Years Eve, Memorial Day, etc. as well. It is wonderful to have so many great friends for us and our daughter right on our street.

[Doodlebugsmom]

We socialize a lot with my best friend and her kids. She's good friends with dh too, so we all three like to hang out together while our kids play. We're spending the Thanksgiving holiday together in a rented cabin in a resort area. Should be lots of fun! We usually hang out several times a month, once a week even. Our kids take turns sleeping over at her house or ours.

We do big get-togethers several times a year with lots of other friends who have kids.

[waiting2bemommy]

well we used to have this one family that we hung out with....the mom and I met at the playground, hit it off and for a couple weeks kept bugging the dads to meet each other. One night they were all out taking a walk and we were all outside playing with the kids, and the dads met and the rest was history. It was terrific....our boys are less than a month apart, consider themselves best friends at this point. Our problem (or my problem, at least) was that the parenting styles didn't quite mesh. we would get together to drink and hang out and the kids would be there, and around 10 or 11 PM (on a weekend) I feel is the latest people should be dragging their young kids out with any regularity. Everyone would get pissed at me because I would call an end to the fun so that we could get the kids home and in bed.

Then my boyfriend got HER boyfriend a job working with him, sicne it was sudden I offered to babysit their ds for $20/day at least temporarily, had to make TWO trips to get everyone where they needed to be because of all the kids and carseats and the fact that they don't own a car and we only have 1 car. When the job ended suddenly the babysittign ended as well without me ever seeing a dime of the money. SO continues to hang out with his friend because he feels the arrangement was between me and her and has nothing to do with his friend. So now he and ds go over there all the time and the mom and I are barely on speaking terms.

Basically the whole reason why I can't be bothered anymore to look for friends. Waaaay too much drama. I rarely stick my neck outlike that because I ahve socail anxiety, but I stuck it out this time and got burned. No more! It sounds great in theory but my experience is that it eventually goes sour.