I wonder how parents have time for that. Since I rarely get home from work before 18:30, we ended up finding a kindergarten near where my wife works and we are very lucky that we live in Austria and there is a law that mothers can choose their own hours of working freely until their children are 6. She will choose 5 hours a day and that will be compatible with a kindergarten schedule. But if different legislation or financial needs required us to work 8 hours both, I have no idea how would be manage. I know in the US a lot of women simply stay at home but I guess you need to be significantly rich for that like making 3 or 4 times the minimum wage and it is pretty rare here, even in engineering etc. jobs. The pay difference between a burger flipper and accountant here is about 2x. Besides, our experience is that it made my mother hugely depressed to have nobody to talk to half day and then the child only the other half, and the first year of staying at home before kindergarten is making my wife similarly depressed, the utter lack of communication and socialization and basically feeling like locked into an apartment like locked into a monastery is taking a huge psychological toll. It can be incredibly lonely. For this reason I think helicopter parenting will not be an issue for us because we will be at work, even if we could financially afford not to, the simple truth is you can talk to people at work and talking people at home in the neighborhood is almost impossible.
Any friends in different time zones? Oops, USA probably wouldn’t work because 12:00 in Vienna = 3 AM in San Francisco. You would probably need someone in India or China. Okay, this is probably not a good idea. On the other hand, maybe you could pay someone in India to talk with you.
Other friends who are also moms at home? Former classmates?
This happens? I guess then we must not be very social people. Friend is a matter of definition, there is one non-relative who relatively frequently calls her the phone, for me that is zero but OK as never pick up the phone anyway, and she has about two, I have about three non-relatives who reply to emails or facebook messages although rarely initiate the exchange themselves. I guess these people can be considered friends, but the definition may vary. In my experience, socializing with people at work does not carry over into socializing after work, I think people guard their privacy rather jealously and we too, I remember two occasions in five years non-relatives entering our apartment and it felt awkward for both. For this reason, as socializing with coworkers does not carry over into evenings, and not really having hobbies or meeting people after work, the people mentioned above who can be defined as friends are former classmates, and as we approach 40 that kind of number naturally reduces.
This is why it is very important to not stay home from work. BTW my mothers case was exactly the same in the 1980′s, staying at home and occasionally talking on the phone with 1-2 ex-classmates, so she welcomed when she was offered to open a fast food stand and talk to customers. Socializing at work and being home with the family in the evening and weekends can be a tolerable combination. No idea what would be more than tolerable, I always figured it is more natural to hang with relatives, perhaps kinship based tribes should be reinvented. (Not necessarily about “blood”, but more about having shared role models and so on.)
What? Having friends, or having friends in different time zones?
a) Yes, it does.
b) In general population, I would guess it doesn’t; unless there are specific circumstances, e.g. your relatives moved to a different part of the planet. But here on LessWrong we have an international community, and some people visit meetups in different countries. There are probably only a few who have travelled to a sufficiently distant time zone. But you don’t have to be one of those; only to be a friend with one of those.
Friend is a matter of definition
Sure; if we taboo “friends” it means something like “people whom you trust enough to do together X”. For different values of X you get different sets of people. (X = “have fun together” or X = “start a conspiracy to overthrow the government”)
In my experience, socializing with people at work does not carry over into socializing after work
Similar for me, 2 exceptions in 20 years.
I usually socialize with my neighbors, with people I have or had some hobby in common (such as LessWrong), and sometimes I meet friends of my friends and they become my friends.
Of course with my neighbors the expectations are low: generally just being nice to each other in case someone will need a little help from the other, and to keep communication lines ready in case there will be a shared problem to solve. Saying hello to each other, bringing cookies, sharing a glass of wine once in a few months. With people I found through my hobby I expect to talk about the hobby, and later about other topics; and if the relations are good, maybe even spend some vacation together.
I always figured it is more natural to hang with relatives, perhaps kinship based tribes should be reinvented
I was thinking along similar lines once, but almost everyone from my family lives in a different city than me, so it’s not an option. But generally, “relatives” and “friends” are two different categories; I cannot realistically expect my relatives to have similar hobies as I do. With them, it is a different way of spending time; just being together, being a tribe. With friends, it is talking about hobbies, making hobby-related plans, and later also being a kind of a tribe—though this part is more difficult because “clicking together as friends” is less transitive relation than “being related by blood”. There are many situations where I am friends with X and Y, but X and Y do not like each other. (So I cannot convert “having 2 friends” into “having a tribe with 3 members”.)
I wonder how parents have time for that. Since I rarely get home from work before 18:30, we ended up finding a kindergarten near where my wife works and we are very lucky that we live in Austria and there is a law that mothers can choose their own hours of working freely until their children are 6. She will choose 5 hours a day and that will be compatible with a kindergarten schedule. But if different legislation or financial needs required us to work 8 hours both, I have no idea how would be manage. I know in the US a lot of women simply stay at home but I guess you need to be significantly rich for that like making 3 or 4 times the minimum wage and it is pretty rare here, even in engineering etc. jobs. The pay difference between a burger flipper and accountant here is about 2x. Besides, our experience is that it made my mother hugely depressed to have nobody to talk to half day and then the child only the other half, and the first year of staying at home before kindergarten is making my wife similarly depressed, the utter lack of communication and socialization and basically feeling like locked into an apartment like locked into a monastery is taking a huge psychological toll. It can be incredibly lonely. For this reason I think helicopter parenting will not be an issue for us because we will be at work, even if we could financially afford not to, the simple truth is you can talk to people at work and talking people at home in the neighborhood is almost impossible.
Random ideas:
have friends visit you at home
have a Skype talk with friends
No, the problem of moms staying at home is the same as the problem of unemployed people: their friends or relatives are all at work.
Any friends in different time zones? Oops, USA probably wouldn’t work because 12:00 in Vienna = 3 AM in San Francisco. You would probably need someone in India or China. Okay, this is probably not a good idea. On the other hand, maybe you could pay someone in India to talk with you.
Other friends who are also moms at home? Former classmates?
This happens? I guess then we must not be very social people. Friend is a matter of definition, there is one non-relative who relatively frequently calls her the phone, for me that is zero but OK as never pick up the phone anyway, and she has about two, I have about three non-relatives who reply to emails or facebook messages although rarely initiate the exchange themselves. I guess these people can be considered friends, but the definition may vary. In my experience, socializing with people at work does not carry over into socializing after work, I think people guard their privacy rather jealously and we too, I remember two occasions in five years non-relatives entering our apartment and it felt awkward for both. For this reason, as socializing with coworkers does not carry over into evenings, and not really having hobbies or meeting people after work, the people mentioned above who can be defined as friends are former classmates, and as we approach 40 that kind of number naturally reduces.
This is why it is very important to not stay home from work. BTW my mothers case was exactly the same in the 1980′s, staying at home and occasionally talking on the phone with 1-2 ex-classmates, so she welcomed when she was offered to open a fast food stand and talk to customers. Socializing at work and being home with the family in the evening and weekends can be a tolerable combination. No idea what would be more than tolerable, I always figured it is more natural to hang with relatives, perhaps kinship based tribes should be reinvented. (Not necessarily about “blood”, but more about having shared role models and so on.)
What? Having friends, or having friends in different time zones?
a) Yes, it does.
b) In general population, I would guess it doesn’t; unless there are specific circumstances, e.g. your relatives moved to a different part of the planet. But here on LessWrong we have an international community, and some people visit meetups in different countries. There are probably only a few who have travelled to a sufficiently distant time zone. But you don’t have to be one of those; only to be a friend with one of those.
Sure; if we taboo “friends” it means something like “people whom you trust enough to do together X”. For different values of X you get different sets of people. (X = “have fun together” or X = “start a conspiracy to overthrow the government”)
Similar for me, 2 exceptions in 20 years.
I usually socialize with my neighbors, with people I have or had some hobby in common (such as LessWrong), and sometimes I meet friends of my friends and they become my friends.
Of course with my neighbors the expectations are low: generally just being nice to each other in case someone will need a little help from the other, and to keep communication lines ready in case there will be a shared problem to solve. Saying hello to each other, bringing cookies, sharing a glass of wine once in a few months. With people I found through my hobby I expect to talk about the hobby, and later about other topics; and if the relations are good, maybe even spend some vacation together.
I was thinking along similar lines once, but almost everyone from my family lives in a different city than me, so it’s not an option. But generally, “relatives” and “friends” are two different categories; I cannot realistically expect my relatives to have similar hobies as I do. With them, it is a different way of spending time; just being together, being a tribe. With friends, it is talking about hobbies, making hobby-related plans, and later also being a kind of a tribe—though this part is more difficult because “clicking together as friends” is less transitive relation than “being related by blood”. There are many situations where I am friends with X and Y, but X and Y do not like each other. (So I cannot convert “having 2 friends” into “having a tribe with 3 members”.)
I’ve seen occasional suggestions that extended families are having a renaissance in the UK & US, if that counts.