Found your Urban Tribe?

[tthree]

I am curious if those with kids on this forum have been able to find their "Urban Tribe".  This is something we have struggled with.  I find our "old" friends from high school/university (while awesome) have chosen a different path in life.  Most of them are so busy it's impossible to plan anything with them.  I did manage to make a few friends through my eldest's activities/pre-school, but all of these people have since moved out of the city/province.

We bought a house in the heart of city, close to schools, amenities, parks, and paths.  Despite there being a high turnover of ownership on our street in the past five years, it has not attracted young families.  It appears our contemporaries are only interested in new builds in cookie-cutter sub-divisions.

If you have found families with similar interests I would like to know how:)

[mm1970]

Yes.  We live in the city (not a big city), with generally 1/2 smaller older homes (20's and 40's) and half larger homes (either add-ons to the old homes, or ones built in the 60s and 70s "infill").

There are a number of families on our street that we have met.  Our kids go to school together, we get together for potlucks in the park every Sunday (that's a wider group that includes empty-nesters and parents with teens).  It took a good 7-9 years to find this tribe though.

[milliemchi]

Partly.  We have a few friends with same-age children that we met in parks when our daughter was little, that are good friends, but I wish we had more.

On another note... We actually meet quite a number of people. We try to make friends with neighborhood families, and we do. But, at least a couple have told me weekends are when they run errands, so they have no time for socializing on weekends. This is mind-boggling to me. Weekdays are consumed with school/homework/extra-curriculars. If not weekend, then when? I do believe them, I don't think they're snubbing us, but don't understand that lifestyle.  Our weekends are wide open, specifically for this purpose.  Shopping/cooking is done on weeknights. Or on the internet.  So is banking. Errands are run by one person, so the other can go places with the kids. Our flexible work schedules help, but at least one of the other families has a stay-at-home mom, so... what gives? Has anybody else run into people with such lifestyle?

[tthree]

I would think that if you’re living somewhere that you would generally expect people with your values and interests to live, it’s just a matter of time.

I thought the same thing.....but I am starting to lose hope.  For example, last month we get new neighbours two doors down.  I was so excited because I spot a STROLLER outside.  The kids and I went over and brought them "welcome gifts": homemade granola and cherry tomatoes from our garden.  Needless to say it wasn't a warm welcome, and that's the last I've seen of them (even in passing).  DH tells me there are two types of people, "those who go outside and those who don't".

[tthree]

There are a number of families on our street that we have met.  Our kids go to school together, we get together for potlucks in the park every Sunday (that's a wider group that includes empty-nesters and parents with teens).  It took a good 7-9 years to find this tribe though.

This sounds fabulous!  Maybe in a few years this will be us.

[tthree]

Has anybody else run into people with such lifestyle?

All. The. Time.  This is part of my beef.  My DH works every Saturday, so the kids and I just do some chores around the house, go to the park, museum, etc.  I hate asking anyone to do anything because they are BUSY.  A couple of years ago I put out an open Saturday bike meet-up on a local moms board, although people thought it "sounded good" nothing ever transpired.  Maybe I should try again.

[N]

I do have a Tribe- but its almost 100% other homeschooling families. And we see them mostly during weekdays.
I have a few friends who have kids who are in school, but schedules are so imcompatible.

Personally, our weekends are usually pretty open. I do find that most of our friends are busy on weekends. And most of us have small apartments, so its not terribly convenient to host a group.

My husband is way less social than I am, and doesnt really want to have other families over on the weekends. I will make plans to meet other families AT an event or something, sometimes.

[TVRodriguez]

It's tough.  There are two families that we socialize with pretty regularly at each others' homes, which is my favorite way to socialize.  I credit my oldest son with introducing us to them, since he is friends with both older boys in those families.  They were friends in montessori, and now all three families' kids go to different schools but we often visit each other homes on weekends or attend events together.  I went to many many many many birthday parties and playdate attempts before we forged these friendships.  Our oldest is now 8, and it took a while--since he was 4 or 5, I think.  There have been others also, but they sadly moved away.

There is a family up the block, with kids the same ages as my older two kids, and I have tried to forge that link, but it just is a no-go.  I don't like everybody, and not everyone likes me.  The mom just doesn't really click with me, I think.  Not sure why, but oh well.  She is a SAHM, and I work full-time, and she used to make comments quite often about that.  Not derogatory remarks, but still.

There's another family our age around the corner, and we all get along well, but we just don't seem to have the same schedule.  They want to get together Friday evenings at the park after school, when we are still at work or want to unwind at home.  We invite them for Saturday pool time at our house, and they're busy with sports or extended family or other things.  We like each other, but it just hasn't worked.  Partly, again, with that one, the mom and I just don't gel completely.  I get along better with the dad/husband, which is not always great, I find.  It seems to work better for us when the other mom and I are friends.

DH is way less social--he doesn't do birthday parties, he doesn't go to many events, he dislikes coordinating with other people; he prefers to tinker at home.  This was an issue when we had no kids--most other couples wanted to "go out to dinner," which we didn't do.  I feel grateful to the friends that we have for accepting and appreciating DH as he is.

Oh, and I have another group of mom friends who I met in prenatal yoga.  We all had girls at the same time, and we spent our maternity leaves together walking around the zoo or the park or going to breastfeeding support group meetings.  We've known each other now for about 7 years, and we do hang out on occasion, just not quite as often.  And it's mostly the moms who meet; the dads are not friends (all hetero couples or single moms).

[Gone Fishing]

We live in a rural area (I guess that means we are looking for our "rural tribe") and most folks have family close by, do a lot of their socializing at church, and/or friends that they have literally known their entire lives.  It is a hard network to break into.  Having fancier educations and jobs than most of them doesn't help either. Most of our friends are also transplants, but don't have children or children our age which makes socializing a little more difficult. Not horrible, but certainly not as tribal as I would like.  We still make many road trips to visit various old friends that "match" our family better than anyone we have met locally.   

[milliemchi]

There is also an issue with dropped friendships, that I can't figure out. When we start out a friendship with a new family, I get it that schedules or lifestyles or personalities don't align and it never really takes off. That's easy to understand. I also get that a lot of people have all the friends they can fit into their lives and are not looking for new ones. That's the nature of busy lives.

What confuses me is the cases when it seems to go well, and then the friendship disappears down a rabbit hole, and I can't figure out why. For example, I had several playdates with a family where my neurotypical daughter got along well with their autistic son (there are also two younger siblings matched in age). This went on for a few months, then we hosted at our home, their son was a bit weird and wouldn't play with my daughter, we took it in stride, it was OK, everybody has their days, my daughter kept herself busy with a book. It was fine. You would think after us being willing to accept their son with his wierd idiosyncrasies, they would be eager to get together again, but no. We never had another playdate. We would exchange texts, "how was your day", "did you go to this local event", etc., and when I mention getting together at a local playground next weekend - silence. Not "we're busy these days, let's talk again in a few weeks", which is also a blow-off, but not even that. Just silence. I don't get it.

[milliemchi]

Has anybody else run into people with such lifestyle?

All. The. Time.  This is part of my beef.  My DH works every Saturday, so the kids and I just do some chores around the house, go to the park, museum, etc.  I hate asking anyone to do anything because they are BUSY.  A couple of years ago I put out an open Saturday bike meet-up on a local moms board, although people thought it "sounded good" nothing ever transpired.  Maybe I should try again.

So, tthree, do they say what they're busy with? When people tell me they have birthday parties and soccer practice, and church on Sunday, and dinner at Grandma's, I understand.  These people chose to organize their life this way, and we don't fit into that, and that's OK. But when I'm told it's chores and errands all weekend, every weekend, then I feel bad for them, and I almost want to help them re-organize their lives with some techniques we're using so that they could, actually, you know, have a life.  Then I remember it's not my problem to solve. But it's sad to stand by and watch. Especially when you talk to them, and they seem friendly, and open, and generally nice people that would like some company (which is not all of them).

[tthree]

So, tthree, do they say what they're busy with? When people tell me they have birthday parties and soccer practice, and church on Sunday, and dinner at Grandma's, I understand.  These people chose to organize their life this way, and we don't fit into that, and that's OK. But when I'm told it's chores and errands all weekend, every weekend, then I feel bad for them, and I almost want to help them re-organize their lives with some techniques we're using so that they could, actually, you know, have a life. 

In my experience it's a bit of both: over scheduling other activities and poor planning.  I don't understanding the "erranding" thing either......from what I gather it's a lot of trips around town for shit you probably don't need.  Besides groceries we don't "errand" on a regular basis.  If I want to make a special trip to some place like Bulk Barn or Costco, I suck it up and go on Friday night, so Saturday and Sunday are generally free.

[mm1970]

I find dropped friendships and busy-ness go together too.  We had couple friends that we met in the late 90's through work.  I worked with the husband.  My husband was in grad school, his girlfriend was in pharm school in another state.  We started playing volleyball every week with a larger group.  We met the girlfriend when she'd come visit (a few times a year).  Then she graduated and moved here.  Then with volleyball the numbers dwindled (grad students who moved away) and we were down to 4 to 8 people.  So we would play on Saturday and then take turns having dinner at each other's house every single week.

Years went on and we were down to 5 people.  Still doing it.  Then my friend got pregnant. Played until 5 months.  Then they had the baby.  No more volleyball, but still dinners once a month.  Then I had a baby.  Then it was every other month.  Then they had another baby, and it was 4x a year.  Then both their kids got into 2 sports each. Literally it's once a year now.  We started trying to find a night last October, and the first available date was New Year's Eve.  No joke.  We even like to do the same things, but out of phase.  Last year we camped nearby for the 2 nights before school started (Sun-Mon), but they were out of the country.  This year they went camping those same nights at the same place, but we were busy.  Their older child is in traveling sports and they said "when will you let your kid play sports?"  What do you men LET him?  When he wants to?  As long as it's not too many times per week.

It makes me sad, but they've got friends with sports, and school, and in their housing complex, and we have the same.  I guess once a year will have to do it!  I have other friends from past jobs and we've lost touch.  Then it gets hard.  So I have MDB from one company, and KJ and BM and KG from another company.  I have baby friends from my older son and from my younger son.  I have great friends in the hood and at the school.  I have a quilting group.  That's a lot of relationships to maintain.  And some of them are hard!  For my quilting group, I meet them once a month, roughly.  I have enjoyed that, but more recently they've gotten more "active", and this year they've volunteered the group for a couple of different activities for charity.  Um, I'm sorry, but no.  Unlike half of you, I am  not retired AND I have two children.  Just, no.  It's a delicate balance because I love the group but not enough to be volunteered for extra work.

[screwit]

Sigh. Every time I think I've found it, my tribe moves on.

I'm a permanent expat who used to be an academic scientist. Postdocs come and go - you never have a friend longer than 2 years before they're up and leaving the country. Expats come and go - these days I will not become friends with anyone who has been here less than 5 years and/or plans on leaving within the next 5 years. It just causes too much pain and loss when they up and move.

We're slowly developing a little bit of a tribe through the kindergarten crowd, but I know this will shatter when school starts and the kids spread around the city and I'm loathe to invest too much into it. The locals can be difficult to make close friends with - it's formal culture when it comes to friendships. You don't just drop around, you formally invite people weeks in advance and must have everything pristine and a homemade cake on offer.

I've realised recently that while I'm an extrovert, I prefer to be in crowds within my own space. Going out to other peoples places or events is just not that enjoyable to me but I love hosting. So I've started focusing on that. I invite people over for dinners, I invite them to stay longer when they're picking up their kid. I love cooking and having people with me in the kitchen, so I ask them to come and talk to me while I keep preparing things and then they are encourged to stay for a meal. It's starting to work. I think I'm starting to build a tribe on my own.

[milliemchi]

I find dropped friendships and busy-ness go together too.

Yeah, we have people we used to see regularly, and now not so much, and both parties contribute to that, but those are not necessarily lost friendships. For my friends where it happened, I still have full expectation that they will return my occasional phone calls, or that they might help out if I need a favor, or the other way around, etc., even though we don't socialize as much now for whatever reason. We are still friends.

I was referring more to people who simply decide to never return phone calls/texts/emails any more. We are definitely not friends at that point. Interestingly, I find this to be more of an American thing (I'm from Europe), so maybe this is more acceptable here. Is this just what people do? (And, no, I don't think it's us, it's definitely the occasional them.)

[pompera_firpa]

We found ours, purposefully, by going to the local park at around the same time every day and making a point of having brief conversations with other parents. If the conversation goes past the five minute mark, or if we end up having more than one conversation, we introduce ourselves and make a note of the names. 

After having casual, low-stress contact with the same people on a regular basis for several months, we launched a local Facebook group and invited everyone on board. Now it's a regular thing for us to exchange babysitting, pass down toys and clothes, borrow tools, and have the occasional party and potluck. 

[hunniebun]

I don't think it is a location issue because I live in the 'burbs (ish) and am only now just finding a kind-of-tribe.  Our street is mostly retired seniors who have grandkids that my kids play with and the two families on my street have their kids in private christian schools are don't want their pure children mixing with public school riffraff!  I think in general it is difficult to form that community feeling that I grew up with where kids just played in the street and parents hung out informally.   We have mostly been successful in meeting other parents through our kids activities (mostly hockey) and those have formed into friends that are slowly evolving.   It is process, but keep trying.  Whenever I meet someone new and interesting I feel like I am courting them...I want to be friends, but don't want to scare them off!!! LOL!

[jaye_p]

tthree,

It sounds like your kids haven't started formal education yet?  I found our tribe once my son started kindergarten and we started befriending his friends' parents.  We now have a regular Friday night potluck at our house with up to 6 other families.  When everyone is there, we have 19 adults and 22 kids between the ages of 5 and 12, plus up to four dogs (and our terrified cat, poor thing).  It gets pretty crazy!  And fun.  But it took us a few years to get there.