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?

I grew up in a council estate in Glasgow. My mum and dad were friends with other people locally.
They would have folk round for a drink on a Friday night, and we'd go to theirs the next week.
Very little planning involved.

DH and I live in Yorkshire. Most of our friends live down South, where we used to live. But, others are in Manchester, Scotland, and the Midlands.
Planning a get together is a huge effort.
We do manage it sometimes, but it's more of an annual thing rather than a short notice Friday night thing.

Also, back in my parents' generation, us kids were allowed to be pretty much feral. The adults would be doing their thing, and we'd be handed a Kwenchy Kup and a packet of crisps - and left to our own devices.

I'm not remotely advocating for that.
But, when DH and I got together with other couples with children, our DCs were far more 'centre stage' than we ever were.

My generation lives in cramped flats and it can be actually embarrassing because it’s always a mess, Also - no garden, etc

I am early 40s and I am pretty insular and not at all sociable. My parents weren't very sociable either, but more so than we are. But that's how I prefer to live, I don't feel the need to have lots of friends and I like being at home with my dcs and focusing on them, not other people. I like having privacy in my home and I don't enjoy hosting as it's my personal space.

I prefer going out to entertainment or structured activities (like a play or workshop) rather than just sitting in someone's house, and I don't like feeling obligated towards them for hosting.

DH and I do socialise though, meet friends at pubs mainly but not as much and rarely guests in the house for dinner or even a cup of tea and cake!

I spent my childhood being dragged around to ‘socialise’, as an adult it’s the last thing I want to do.

My parents did that and my Dad would have loved it but my Mum was more casual /informal. DH’s parents would meet others at their houses and one parent would just start playing a Bob Dylan song, it was a pretty regular occurrence!

At least we have Ocado now I suppose.

Yes I was about to say that a third floor flat with no lift is quite typical in London now. And with a baby there is invariably laundry hanging everywhere.

My parents generation seem to be better at staying in touch with people, they still get Christmas cards from people they worked with decades ago, they are also in touch with family members such as siblings and cousins and meet up with them as did my grandparents. Despite being close to cousins as a kid, I have no contact with them now and don’t see that changing. As far as friends and colleagues are concerned they seem to come and go regularly, which is sad as I have always wanted a lifelong friend who is always there and have a shared past.

I think it’s partly more people working more hours and partly the change in parenting. I have friends who spend hours on elaborate bedtime routines even in one case sitting on the bed of an 8 year old until they fall asleep. If I’m invited round of an evening I have to wait until I get a text saying it’s all clear before I can pop round. Then it’s quiet knock at the door, tiptoe-ing about and low voices. If there are older children the parent’s evening is often spent ferrying the teens to and from activities or their own social lives.

Our parents would send us to bed (maybe with a treat) after we had greeted any guests and said good night to them. Perhaps a parent would stick their head round the door later, maybe not. We would fall asleep to the muffled laughter of adults. If we were older we had far fewer activities (if any) and would make our own way there and back. Jobs and parenting have both become far more all-encompassing than before.

I think more people (particularly women) used to be SAHP so socialising at home during the day was more common. You can't do that if everyone is working full time. This also means that we see our neighbours less, so our 'friends' live further away and are less likely to pop in uninvited. Meeting up becomes more of an event and we chose somewhere midway, rather than travelling to one another's houses.

My 85 year old Mum worked full time and did a degree at night school and then a masters that she completed just before her 50th birthday, all with a husband who was away with work a lot and 4 kids. They still had loads of friends.

My 80 year old MIL was a single parent until she met my SFIL when DH was 19. She also worked full time and studied part time, got her degree at 42 and raised her 3 kids all by herself. I could happily hang out with her 80 yo besties as they're hilarious.

None of this was unusual. At all. These are the women that paved the way to....sit on social media and moan they're too tired to do anything?!

I think social media is a big problem. People don't talk to each other any more, even on the phone. I'm totally out of my depth with it all, but I'm not interested in it so can't be bothered to learn. Another problem is the so called reality shows on tv - whose reality? With all the cheap pseudo glamour maybe young people feel dissatisfied with what they have and embarrassed if they don't have a 100" tv on the wall and all the trappings of modern celebrity.

The air-brushed pictures of models gave a totally false idea of body perfection and led to a huge rise in eating disorders amongst young children so perhaps seeing all the "stuff" other people have and not being able to have it themselves makes them less likely to ask anyone round for fear of what people might think.

Also there are no real communities anymore. In the 60s and 70s when the old back to backs were demolished and high rises were thrown up (I won't say built) a lot of communities disappeared. It is difficult to have a chat and a brew over the fence with your neighbour when you're 14 floors up. Back then whole families lived in the same area, often within a few streets of each other and everyone knew everyone else (and their business). Another reason is migration. Don't get me wrong I have always believed that the way to help stop a lot of the world's problems is if there is more integration, but unfortunately some cultures don't or won't mix and instead of a great cultural melting pot you end up with people living in segregated groups.

Back in the day 70s and 80s it was rare for working class people to go to university, if you were a bit clever you went to the local poly but most of us either got apprenticeships with a local employer or got an office job or shop work. Nowadays it is unusual if you don't go to uni, leave home to go to another town or city and then get a job in another part of the country - or even in another country altogether.

It is great that people want to better themselves and get good jobs and homes etc but if you are too knackered to enjoy any of it, is it worth it?

My parents had huge parties regularly. Their village also had regular drinks before Sunday lunch, where they all knocked back sherry.

Me and my husband work bloody long hours and with two young kids socialising like in good old days is kinda hard. They haven’t even started school yet, im dreading all my weekends taken by kids parties and playdates

I do think that we are typically working longer hours to cope with the rising cost of living. So that’s a factor.

But I also think the higher expectations on parents to constantly supervise their children is also a contributing factor. And times have changed. It’s not as safe, there’s more traffic on the road etc.

When I was a kid our parents told us to go play outside and we did. However, our parents didn’t come outside and watch us, ride bikes around the neighbourhood with us or supervise us meeting up with other kids in our street. They got on with whatever they needed to do.

As long as I let my parents know that I was leaving the yard to play with neighbourhood kids and let them know where we were going I was free to explore, play., meet other kids. Parents didn’t come with us.

And we made friends on our own terms. We’d invite each other back to our homes to meet our parents, play our toys etc. I can’t remember even asking mum if so and so could come over to play. We just showed up and walked in and said hey mum this is my new friend… If it wasn’t a good time Mum might say nice to meet you, offer a drink then tell us kids to go play outside.

That left parents time to relax, have adult time, hang out with other adults. Or time to get stuff done like housework, gardening etc.

This is very true -exactly the same for my mother and in fact, most of the women I know who are now in their 80s. My mother was married in 1960 while she was still at college - then 2 kids and all done by 23, she had loads of time and boundless energy for us but also she worked, as most women did. She did a science degree at the same time! Dad worked a 11 hour day but his evenings and weekends were always for us. They never wasted time.

We got ourselves to school and back from being very young - there was no such thing as a "school run" or scheduled "activities" after school - it was home, then dinner, then homework then spending evening with your parents and maybe some of friends or neighbours around, playing cricket or games indoors in winter. My parents often had 10 children or teenagers in our house - my neighbourhood friends -and we all did stuff together at our house with my folks. It was not organised. No-one hung around in their bedrooms. My mother and Dad would finish work, come home and pile a load of children in an old Landrover and drive to the sea with a picnic for everyone. This was normal. People often dropped in for dinner or dropped by in the evenings. That was normal.

I hate the "1950s housewife" trope that I see on here as well. 1950s housewives, the generation before my mother's (I've known many) were incredible women.
Community, neighbours, and being social and active & helping people out is what being human is about. It takes effort. It protects you from the inevitable calamities we will face in life. Isolated nuclear families with no real roots and no solid friends and neighbours around them are really vulnerable. As they get older or ill or their relationships collapse, they are on their own.

I socialise lots, see couples and families most weekends or just meet for dinner. It's rare we don't see friends at the weekend..
the kids are constantly out with friends too.
My mum socialised much less. Don't really remember her having friends round in the evening. She did go for coffee on weekdays but then she didn't work.

Same. I value my evenings and need time on my own to read and just relax. Hosting for friends isn't my idea of relaxing.

Agree with your siblings- I see spending the time to have the house spotless for a visit and then clean up after a visit a complete waste of my time; including the actual visit this is easily my day gone. Instead we can go out for coffee or a meal and is 2 hr max.

my grandparents and parents used to socialize a lot and I grew up with people visiting us/ us visiting all the time. Frankly, I hated it mostly. Felt like I never had time for myself and had no rest as either someone was in our house or we were at someone else’s house and I had to be on my best behaviour.

Compared with my parents, I think the following are important

drink driving is no longer tolerated
fewer people getting married, and fewer parties for engagement, christening, 18 / 21, wedding anniversaries etc. a lot socialising when I was young was based around these family events.
Covid taught everyone that socialising is optional
houses and gardens are smaller
there are far more options for eating out.
Opportunities to travel and live abroad are far greater, and people are more mobile.

We live in London and live far from most close friends, it can take over an hour to get between our homes. I think it’s just easier to meet in the city so people have a shorter journey home. My partner and I do enjoy having people over but have noticed it’s rarely reciprocated so don’t bother as much now. A lot of people just don’t have the space and as previously mentioned, we all work a lot more and time is at a premium.
My antenatal group are all local and during mat leave I invited them over a lot for the babies to play together but the invite wasn’t returned due to lack of space or people feeling stressed out. I envisaged lots of dinner parties with our new local friends but in reality we’re all too busy working and nobody has local support networks/family to look after their kids. Slowly our group of mums is becoming an online only friendship, despite us all living so close.

I was born in 1960. There were no play dates. We asked DM if we could go play with one of our friends in our street and generally were told we could. There was no supervision once we’d reached 4 or 5. We’d be playing in our rooms or outside in the street , garden or nearby field. We would play out all day in nice weather and were called in for meals. In summer we went straight out to play till bedtime every night until we got proper homework at around 11 .

My DPs went for meals at neighbours and one or two of them had parties. As a toddler/child I’d be allowed to stay up to say hello to ‘Aunty and Uncle Whoever’, hand round nuts and snacks and then say good night to leave them to their evening. There was no driving to anyone as it was mainly neighbours, parents work mates, and rellies who all lived within walking distance.

The change of working, living and socialising hours and norms are very different and far more pressurised and intense. My DC I think we’re the last generation to grow up playing out, no phones and home computers were only just available around their mid teens. It makes me sad, the amount of pressure on people from such an early age. We were so childish in comparison and our parents were in a far easier position to socialise often.^^

My parents rarely socialised.

My dad was an antisocial bugger and my mum worked in a job where she spent all day with people. I remember the one dinner party they did throw because it was so rare!

When my kids were young I socialised a lot with other new mums and couples but not official dinner parties - more bbqs and bring a dish type evenings. Lots of meeting at mum and baby groups (this is twenty years ago).

Still hate dinner parties. Now divorced I socialise through hobbies.

Our group of friends are always socialising together. We do things like meals out, concerts, pub quiz nights, theatre and holidays together. We are also at each other’s houses often, sometimes just pop in for a chat, sometimes for dinner, bbq in good weather etc.

My parents rarely socialised and didn’t really have friends.