To feel sad about about having an only child in this insular society..

29 replies

Powersout · 14/10/2022 13:33

DD is an only child by choice. I had some PND after she was born, struggled generally throughout toddler years then felt she was 'enough' when finding things a little easier. DH and I have siblings who we are not very close to and live far from so were very aware that DD doesn't have much in way of extended family...but we thought nursery then school would provide a good social life for her (and us - we're not from the town we live in so don't have many friends here yet.) Now our assumptions were based on our own experiences growing up in the 80s - I went to a village school where I used to go on regular playdates with all my classmates, my parents became friends with my friends parents and used to go on regular nights out with them, they would often arrange a babysitter to sit a couple of us at one house. There were lots of PTA events for children and parents where we used to play then the parents would all gather at one house for drinks afterwards. All good memories...

When we put DD in nursery we were really surprised at how unfriendly people were at drop off and pick up. I'd smile and say 'good morning' and sometimes people would deliberately avoid eye contact! We put it down to them being in a hurry and thought that school might provide more of an opportunity for us to make a friendship network. DD now in Year 1 and I feel quite despondent about everything. There are some friendly parents at the school gate and I chat to some of them but nothing in the way of friendship forming really. We recently threw a big birthday party for my DD and about 2/3 of the class came. Lots of parents just sat on the side not talking to anyone. Whilst some parents said 'hello' and made a little conversation when I saw them on the Monday, others kinda looked through me, almost without recognition. They'd been at my daughters bday party for goodness sake! There's no PTA events going on - I haven't heard a peep out of them other than for sweet sales after school.

I'm not naive enough to think that school provides instant friends for us as a family but AIBU to feel that my experience so far is a bit depressing? I have some NCT friends who I don't see as much since Covid but those I have invited over with their kids don't seem to invite back. We've met up with a family from nursery at the weekend (on our suggestion) but they havent contacted to arrange anything else. Should we be taking this personally?! Or is everyone just socialising within their family units r not at all these days? I've even started to think that I need to have another child just to give my child someone to reliably socialise with.

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TheMoops · 14/10/2022 19:05

Are you really telling me you have never had a bad falling out with someone EVER?

Even if you are perfect sainty mcperfectson the person your befriending could easily be someone whose a hard work drama queen and then boom your kids got no friend anymore because drama face took issue with you.

Wow! If you speak to people in real life like this then I can see why your life might be filled with drama.

But to answer your question, no. I've not had any big dramatic fall outs with people as an adult. Of course there are people who I don't particularly like or get on with, but we're perfectly capable of being civil if we need to. Especially if children are involved.

There are parents of children in DS's class who I have nothing in common with or any real desire to become friends with, and there are parents who I genuinely like and will socialise with. I suspect this situation is more common than big dramatic fall outs between parents!! Who has time for drama on that scale?

Original poster

Powersout · 14/10/2022 22:18

Buteverythingsfine · 14/10/2022 14:12

Soon your daughter will be choosing who she likes as friends and you can then specifically invite those children over and hope for some invites back.She doesn't need 100's of friends or to be part of a big group of adults/kids, that's nice but not likely but it is more likely that she can make good friends and have them over for tea and vice versa as time goes on. The days of people having the energy to have people over for dinner on Wed and all having big parties/get togethers are mostly over I think, most parents have 2 parents working and everyone is a bit frazzled. Opportunities will come up, though, your party sounds great and over time, the solid good reliable friends will emerge, for her or you.

I think I need to accept that I can't replicate my childhood for her, times have changed. I find it hard though - meeting up in big groups with the kids feels like getting 'the village' together for me, I always feel rejuvenated afterwards no matter how frazzled I felt beforehand.

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Hbh17 · 14/10/2022 22:25

Surely she will just make her own friends at school? Why do you need to be friends with the parents? I know I am old, but parents kept out of all this stuff when I was a kid - 40+ years later, my 2 closest friends are people I was at school with.

Original poster

Powersout · 14/10/2022 22:26

TempsPerdu · 14/10/2022 14:11

I completely get where you’re coming from OP. We are in the same boat with our one DD, who also has no cousins and very little extended family. We are ‘one and done’ largely by choice (DD was carefully planned and we still see many upsides to having an just the one child), but also partly due to age and some medical issues on my side that would make a second pregnancy quite a risky undertaking.

It’s weird, though, that despite the tumbling birth rate and lots of stuff in the media about small families increasingly being the norm, I’m not seeing this borne out around me at all - everyone else I know either has or wants two, and social networks often tend to be built around having that as a model - lots of parents bonding over how tough it is with a school-aged child and a toddler etc.

It sounds like we’re in a slightly better position than you because we are well established where we live, have a strong local network and DD started school with a group of children she already knew. We chose the school in large part because of its strong community ethos and active PTA - there’s loads going on, and people do get that bit more involved than at some of our other local schools. It’s also a church school, and although we’re not actually religious ourselves we have found that it seems to attract a type of person who values community and a

But even so, I can definitely identify with the ‘insular’ thing. I do get a general sense that people are increasingly tending to retreat more into family groups, and are wary of being open and developing new friendships. I think it’s partly a hangover from the pandemic and the distrust of others that was instilled in us during that time, partly the many stresses of life at the moment meaning that people have limited head space for anything outside their nuclear family, and partly because many people have little money to spare and can’t afford to socialise as they used to (but are often too proud to admit to this).

We’re currently organising a party for DD’s 5th birthday. We’re fortunate in that we can share the party with a couple of children in the class who we met via NCT, so it’s a joint effort. But we sent the invitations out to DD’s whole class last week, and so far we’ve only had 3 replies out of 30 saying they can come - and they’re from the same few parents who tend to involve themselves in everything. It’s not a problem, as we have other friends and neighbours who can come, but I do worry a little that this is the way it’s going to be throughout DD’s school career.

I have to admit that the insularity and misanthropy that I’ve noticed around me over the past several years has made me regret our decision to stick at one (particularly given the lack of cousins etc) and if I had my time again I might be more inclined to start a family earlier and try to provide a sibling for DD (despite all my other instincts telling me that this would not be the optimal choice for us in lots of other ways).

We missed a trick in considering how strong a community or active PTA our school had. We mainly focused on DD being able to walk herself to middle/high school and to friends' houses.

I do think we're in a funny area. My friends from school (with more money) live in a local town that we couldn't afford - there seem to be a lot more families who have moved there for work and are keen to establish social networks. I get the impression that many of the parents at my DDs school have always live here and still have siblings/parents in the same town who they see a lot of. Maybe I arouse suspicion as an 'outsider'!

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