AIBU to think we simply don’t socialize like our parents did?

[Enchanted82]

I have been thinking lately about how much more insular and less social people are now compared to my parents era. I’m early forties, young family, lived in different places and always put friendships and making new friends/acquaintances a priority and I love hosting but I do feel lots of other families don’t seem to want/enjoy having people round or meeting up much at all!
in the 80’s my parents and friends parents were round each others houses, enjoying their company regularly but I don’t feel my husband and I have this despite being sociable people.
what’s changed?

????? Sorry - there are a lot of valid points on this thread but not buying this one 😂

My grandparents had 5 kids, both worked full time (my grandad in a factory and my grandma as a cook and cleaner for a big company) and they hosted / went to dinner parties almost every weekend.

I hadn't thought about the long term, but it's a good point. I'm not sure people are forward planning in that way tbh. Seems to be a real 'live for the now' mentality amongst my cohort. Maybe a year or two ahead but no further.

I am in my forties and I always struggled to make friends. I got bullied a lot, my parents had kids late and where often not in the best of health and they fought a lot too. It was often embarassing and/or difficult to have friends over.

I don't know how much this has impacted me, but I enjoy my own company and have learned to accept that friends are hard to come by and hard to keep.

I'm the same, a small family far away. I found if I chatted to people whilst out walking or whatever then some would blank you (as per some threads on here where some MN'ers hate being spoken to) whilst others are keen to engage and after a while trust builds and a friendship can blossom. But it starts with the first "good morning" in passing. Good luck.

I think there’s a lack of community now, less local pubs where you would pop in for one on your way home, less social clubs you’d go to on a Friday and or Saturday night.

I blame people having longer commutes and house prices.
with two people working and out the house there’s a lot less free time by the time people have worked, sorted the kids, cleaned the house. I don’t think they can be arsed

Did pubs used to be more social? I've mostly gone to pubs as part of a group or with a partner and just seemed to stay with them. I've never experienced mingling with new people in pubs but people have suggested going to the pub to make friends.

Born mid 1970s and I agree with this.

I think life's too full on these days, now that mums often work full time. (I do, long hours professional job.) My mum worked very part time though she had a cleaner. She had lots more time for socialising and getting involved with community stuff - PTA, church etc. And extended family was closer, not spread out.

I do make an effort to keep up with friends but at the weekends there's a lot of running around getting kids to dance class, swimming lessons, 11+ tuition. This is all stuff that can't be done in the week because ... work. And I have to fit in cleaning and admin, pop into town for anything I need, supermarket shop, any other admin. I feel totally frazzled if I arrange more than one social get together at the weekend. Impromptu ones are even rarer. I'm also an introvert ...

I subscribe to ‘the housing theory of everything’ (https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/).

It is certainly true for us and our local friends. We live in small flats, often without gardens, making hosting bigger groups difficult. We also all spend a lot of time travelling to see family and friends as we can’t afford to live where we grew up, so our weekends are booked out and impromptu socialising with local friends rarely happens.

@OnePeachWriter lots of people have said similar things to you and I TOTALLY understand the craziness and overwhelm of life but how can social media replicate a friendship? Also, what about a few years down the line when kids are older and dont need you as much or are doing their own thing maybe left home. Do you think people arent worried abiout being lonely and isolated or just dont think about it?

I think our parents had bigger houses, retired earlier or one of them worked less, eating out options were more expensive in relation to home cooked food. All these factors made the inviting guests in a more preferable option.
Plus people are moving around a lot and it makes more difficult to form close friendships.

I would prefer to watch TV or stay in with dh/dog/kids. We have a lot more work to do than my parents did. Very significantly more.

I am not interested in making new friends/acquaintances. I have enough on my plate and haven’t got time and don’t want to run the risk of people turning out to be weirdos / have extreme views etc.

My parents were part of a generation which used to play out in the street/village with several other local kids, all without their parents and all completely organised and decided on by the children themselves. It was casual (often decided on the spur of the moment with no fixed start or end time) and it was frequent (i.e. every evening).

I’m from a generation which didn’t have that type of freedom, where my play dates were arranged for me, with pre-determined drop off times and often entirely supervised by parents, when me or my friends weren’t doing extra-curriculars. Socialising became a lot less causal and more of a scheduled activity.

I am really sociable and probably go out too much if anything, and see friends most days of the week, but I think I am an exception rather than the norm. It's definitely a generational thing as I've noticed my kids socialise much less after school and in the holidays than I did at their age, which I assume is down to social media/gaming/parents being a bit more 'helicoptery' around their kids.

In my case it's a mixture of:

• Work long hours so exhausted and no time to plan
• Friends also work, schedules are busy
• I've moved around a lot and now found myself in my 30s somewhere new again, it's much easier if you just transition with your existing friendship group from going out in your 20s to dinner parties to family events as you move through life phases together
• Antisociable DP who doesn't like going round houses and doesn't like inviting people round, he will not commit so we look flakey

In contrast my parents moved somewhere in their mid 20s and stayed there, developing bonds. Both are social and enjoy having people round and hosting, mum also worked part time when I was young so more time to arrange hosting nights.

I am older than most on here, and if Mumsnet is typical then there is a huge difference since my children were small. The whole not answering the door/ how dare people just pop in/reciprocal play dates only/how dare anyone ask a favour vibe is completely alien to me. I would hate to be starting parenthood in that atmosphere.

@StripedTomatoes sorry, I really didn’t mean to reply to your post. I pressed quote by accident. Wish I could change it but don’t know how.

I actually feel the opposite. I'm the same age, early 40s, and I truly cannot remember a single instance of my parents having friends over. My dad, I don't think he had friends. My mum would meet friends for lunch or go over to theirs for coffee, but I really do not remember people coming to ours, ever. We certainly never had anyone to stay or hosted anyone for Christmas.

Whereas, we see friends often. Have BBQs, friends for dinner, friends to stay the weekend. We host Christmas every year.

Yes all my childhood birthday parties were held at home, as were everyone else’s.

So you have space to accommodate 20+ children too? Complete ignorance to not realise other people live differently.

My Dad got moved around with his job and when we moved here in late 60s he joined the local Lions club and met a lot of people, Mum and Dad got involved in all the charity work and socialised with the other members. They took it in turn to host dinner parties, coffee mornings and cheese and wine evenings. In those days couples tended to stay together more than now (rightly or wrongly). When couples split up each party tends to lose some or all of the friends they had together.

I stayed with a friend of my Mum's when I was in Australia and her husband had died a few years previously. She said all their friends had just dropped her after the funeral because the women saw her as a potential threat to their own relationships. It's sad that when you need friends the most they just disappear from your lives.

You'd think that with all the modern technology and social media it would be easier to stay in touch, not harder, but I suppose back in the day we had to make more of an effort to make friends and keep in touch.

To prefer watching TV to spending time with new people in case some turn out to be ‘weirdos’ is in itself a bit weird.

Why do you have to have 20 + kids at a party??? All my birthday parties were held at home when I was a child too - and we lived in a 2 bed terraced!

Nothing to do with being ignorant! My grandparents lived in a 3 bed terraced with 5 kids. We just make excuses these days.

I really cannot understand how watching TV or messaging a friend on whatsapp can replace hanging out with a friend face to face?! worrying how insular we have become!

Maybe it's learned behaviour to some extent? My mum has always been super-sociable and loves seeing mates and playing golf and doing charity stuff and having dinner parties etc and I am the same. So is my brother. My sister isn't, but she has her own issues! I'd say my brother and myself are more extrovert, as is my mum, and my sister is an introvert though.

What's changed ? There is no need to have a catch up as you know everything that is happening in each others lives the moment it happens because it is all on SM. It is a by product of phones.