To be surprised by the amount of people on here who have no family and no friends to rely on

[fossilgap]

It always strikes me as odd that a couple only have each other and nobody else to call on , and this has been the same for years on here, it’s not a new thing.
Of course with the family, this could be by choice, but surely everybody has a mate or two left unless you live in total isolation

Judgmental much? Maybe they come from a dysfunctional upbringing with mental health impact? Maybe they are neurodiverse and are enjoying social interactions?

There was no one to help me when I left a very violent man.

Parents saw their job as done at 18.

No other family.

Friendships superficial.

What a parochial attitude@fossilgap is your scope of understanding really that narrow?
Typical of someone who fails to grow up and always have to rely on others, I expect.

I think it can happen and you can't always prevent it. But I think it's something many people have to consciously work on to develop. We don't have any local family and no close friends locally so when we moved here and started a family, we made an effort to be involved in the community, get to know some parents from local activities and school. We had a group of school parent friends by the time DD2 was in school, and we helped each other out with last minute childcare, that kind of thing. I have ended up knowing a lot more people locally and also have someone to babysit and cat feed, etc, so I really think it does pay off. I have my own close friends as well but they are not all local so they can't help with a lot of practicalities.

There was no vitriol in her response. Of course there are exceptions, bit most people do have time to make friends if they try.
I'd also question how you define "real". Different people are easier or harder to get to know. I'm not even sure I spent that long with DH before we moved on together 🤣

Surely it depends on the type of emergency you need people for? For most of the time DD was in primary school, my working hours meant she went to breakfast club, then after school club for an hour, so I didn't get to know anyone other than her best friend's mum who I did ask to look after DD in an emergency once. Other than that, I didn't have other parents' contact details, or didn't know them well enough to ask (i had some phone numbers from party RSVPs but would have been irresponsible of me to send DD to a virtual stranger's house for several hours when I didn't really know what they looked like and barely knew their name just cos she was friends with their kid). Most of my other friends who I might have trusted had full time jobs themselves or kids at schools miles away from me etc. So it's not always a case of being socially isolated, but of just not knowing people who are in a position to help....

I know people mean well when they suggest to join the church or a club but I feel way too young for these things.
I’m only in my early 30s. I don’t want to attend a pottery class for example. I feel like alot of classes in my area are geared towards pensioners who have a couple of spare hours on a weekday morning. I guess if you’re somewhere like London then there will be tons to do in the evening but I can’t find anything local to me.

I have no friends Ur family, my partner has a brother we haven't seen for years. We pay for help if we need it.

I think being an only child, and especially if your partner is also an only child, contributes massively to loneliness / not having a support network when you are an adult. I know not all siblings get on or live close together, but as an only child you have no chance either way. Then if you have kids, they don't have cousins or aunties and uncles and the whole cycle of loneliness continues.

I don't live in the town I grew up in, so closest family is an hour away. They'll travel up to help if it's something bigger or planned, but it's just not practical for them to come for school pick up or add-hoc babysitting. They would happily drive through in qn emergency, but most emergencies can't wait an hour for them to get here, so I need to deal with the immediate issues by myself.

I do have a couple of friends who would want to help if needed, but they have jobs and kids of their own, so the chances of them being free and able to help at the time I need is pretty small.

But even if you don't do the "normal" pick up or drop off, does your DC never go to parties or playdates (or you host these)? Do you never go to school events? Do the DC not go to out of school activities? Or meet other children (and their parents) in the park? Not meet any other children at nursery/pre-school/childminder either? Not have any children locally (don't need to be in the same year group)? I get that Reception parents might feel they don't know others, but once your child has been in the school for more than a year or so?

That is something I have thought a lot about. If I need emotional support in the future for example, I can at least pay for a counsellor. Likewise I will pay for a solicitor to sort out my end of life admin. I am only late 30s, but I think a lot about the end of my life and ultimate death and how I will get through the challenges of it on my own.

Hadnt much support when kids young if an emergency. Neighbour watched kids. Two friends dont drive. My parents elder. Thank god dont need it now as kids older ha

I don't have any immediate family and the family I do have are 250 miles away. I also don't have many friends.. I have two, who I also work with so if I need last minute childcare or anything we're all at work with each other. We don't have anyone to rely on except ourselves.

I had a birthday party for my son in reception - only about 3 children from his class turned up (all invited). We weren't invited to any other parties until year 1 when one other child had a party.

No one has ever invited him to a playdate proactively. He wrote notes to 5 of his friends giving them my number for play dates. One replied - she and her son are lovely but have a lot of extended family support so aren't really part of my support network per se.

My son's teacher tells me he is a polite and popular member of the class and when I see him with his classmates all seems well. So I don't think it's him.

Just a really unfriendly school

Some careers require you to move a lot, so your family might be far and your friends network wrecked with every move. People might have friends and family but not local.

I don’t. My Father died young, my Mother was and still is very violent. I was relentlessly bullied in school and work for a physical disability which makes it hard to let my wall down. I have had brilliant friends over the years but as I didn’t have kids/husband/party lifestyle (take your pick) they either cut me off or drifted off. I hate it and it’s made me very aloof as there’s only so much rejection you can take. I think there’s often a web of reasons when you end up quite alone. Although I think some people are just introverted and it suits them.

Not as easy…i have two friends i would trust to leave my dc with, both about 45mins drive (more if rush hour). Both also work etc so any emergency help rarely available. Both with young kids so not like they can drop everything and not collect their kids from school because i am in the situation and need help collecting mine…so basically cant really count on any, not booked well in advance, help.
dh and i know a lot of other people but we are not close enough to let them stay with kids. Idk in what emergency situation i would have to be to call them for help. Not that i know they would be able to help.

family on both sides abroad. How else shall we build a village around us?

its really surprising people think this is easy to do and that there is a lot of families without any help.

We've literally no one other than each other. DS never came "home" after going to Uni and now lives in a city the other side of the country. We see quite a bit of him, but he's not "here" to support us. My brother and OH's sister both moved away decades ago and live in different towns 2 or 3 hours away. None of our school friends are still living in our area anymore - they either moved away to Uni or just moved away, a few of them have been abroad for decades. We have stayed in our home town, but basically no one else has! It's a run down Northern town, with no industry/job prospects, hence the "brain drain" away. We made some passing friendships when DS was at primary school, but it wasn't a "feeder" so his class all went to 7 or 8 different schools so he lost contact with all his primary school friends, and so we lost contact with their parents. At his secondary school, his school friends came from all over the county, so most of his friends were in different towns, which made making friends with parents difficult with them not being local.

So, I can easily see how people end up without friends nor relatives they can rely on. It's happened to us really.

We have a few neighbours who we are "friendly" with, but little more than random chats over the garden fence or the street outside, so they'd not notice if we "disappeared" so we'd not expect them to come knocking if something happened to us in the house.

In 9 years I've had grandparents babysit 3 times - once when I was giving birth to second child. They don't live nearby, my mum now not in good health. I'm now a carer for my mum, whilst working full time. It's been very hard!

I do have people I can ask for help now, but I didn't at first. DH & I both worked full time and commuted out of the area we lived in. I have gone out of my way to offer help. Most of the time when I have annual leave, I'm looking after other peoples kids to and they will return the favour. I will always offer lifts to parties and playdates on the weekends as i need to be able to ask for a favour on return. We use holiday clubs lots as we obviously don't have enough leave to cover all the school holidays too.

I can tell you it's exhausting to not have that support and you have to be really proactive to build up a support network. I can see why people end up in that situation.

I also think people who have family who help out tend to be the least understanding/ aware of how hard it is and in my experience will ask for help, but rarely offer help. They just haven't lived it.

I’m always surprised by the people who claim to have no support, who can’t drive, who have multiple disabled children or ND children, who have mental health conditions, who have fuck all money, who have loads of money, whose partners and husbands are utterly selfish cunts and which the broken women posting claim to be ‘fine with’, because these awful men are apparently ‘fantastic fathers’…

Nothing here reflects the world in which I live.

I do find that some people don't understand that if you want to find a support network, you have to put some effort in. No you might not have hours and hours to dedicate to forming numerous close personal friendships. But you don't need that to ask for an occasional favour (and being prepared to offer the same).

I do remember a thread where a mum complained she has nobody to ask in such situations and all other parents at school gates are total cows, impossible to get to know them.
People asked her to elaborate, are others ignoring her? If you go talk to them, will they actually pretend they don't hear you, or are they simply not that friendly?
OP: oh I don't know, I've never tried.

It’s easier to sound off/seek help on an anonymous forum, even if the answers might not be what you want to hear, I had a colleague at work that I could always talk to but since leaving it would be just my older sibling, no one else

I had a complicated family life. Removed and put in care. Then was abused by my adopted family in heinous ways. I left home at 17.

I think because I grew up without my siblings. We were separated in care, I became determined to make my own family wherever I lived.

As a child I moved from one end of the country to the other at 12. Now I've moved back to where I was born.

My ds is adopted and has complex special needs. I never had help when he was younger because it wasn't feasible for others to care for him.

What did help me though is the mom friends I made. They mean the world to me.

One of my best friends is also a single mom with four kids who have complex special needs. We can't offer practical support most of the time but we are cheerleaders for each other.

I honestly don't know what I would do without them.

Both myself and DP have large families. We live close to several family members but as everyone works and has children themselves we wouldn't have anyone who could provide anything more than ad hoc / emergency support?

So for example If one DC was ill for a week I'd have no-one I could ask ask to do pick ups and drop off for a whole week? (but I'd be much better placed to cobble together some rota of help I guess?)