12th December 2010 , Posted by Yi Lin

Adjustments (Part 2)

This entry continues from my previous post on how to cope with the imminent changes in social dynamics if your friends are expecting.

In this entry, we flip the tables.

If You Are A Parent Or Parent-To-Be:

1. We asked about YOU

When friends greet you “How are you?”, it’s you we’re asking after. Yes, you. Not The Baby. Not your kids. Granted that kids are very much a big part of your life, in the eyes of your friends, you come first, not them. Don’t launch into a tirade about how Baby A just cut his first tooth, or how Kid B is now successfully toilet-trained or how Kid C has finally learnt how to tie his shoelaces. Pause, register the question, really think about how YOU are doing. Sure, it may eventually all tie back to how the kids are behaving or how your last family vacation went. That’s fine. As long as it started off being about you. And that’s okay.

2. Let parenting take the backseat once in awhile

I recently read an entry in a blog, whereby the writer (who is expecting), doesn’t bring attention to her pregnancy unless someone asks first. I thought it was quite gracious of her to recognise that her pregnancy doesn’t have to be the main topic of every social gathering. In any case, more often than not, somebody will enquire after the pregnancy/child/children sooner or later. After all, as friends, we genuinely are concerned and truthfully do care about you and how you are coping with the whole pregnancy/parenthood experience.

3. Take an interest in other people’s lives

Your friends make the effort to keep up with the progress of your pregnancy or your children’s development, so it would be nice to keep tabs on what’s happening in their lives too. It doesn’t even have to go right down to the personal details. It could be just general information out there, such as what movies are showing, new eating places in town or popular holiday destinations. True, maybe you don’t have time to watch movies anymore (which shouldn’t be the case, if you adopt MaybeBaby’s tips on lifestyle changes), or the new restaurants are not exactly family-friendly, or you can’t imagine carting your brood off to Italy anytime within the next 18 years. But parenthood is not an excuse for losing touch of social happenings completely. Avoid conversation-killers such as:

“I’ve no time to watch movies. I don’t know what movies are showing.”

“Travel? Please lah. I can’t even look past my own garden.”

“I just eat whatever mashy stuff my baby eats.”

4. We might walk away – and that’s okay

Sometimes, when conversations steer towards all things motherhood, I’ll excuse myself from the group and find other people to talk to. Parent friends are more then welcome to hold discussions on brands of sterilisers and baby monitors, etc. but that doesn’t mean that I have to stick around to listen to information that is of no interest, relevance or importance at this juncture of life. It’s not so much about feeling left out – it’s about not being able to contribute anything useful to the conversation. Rather than feign interest through silent listening or asking questions for the sake of speaking, I would rather leave the group to their conversation and return later. So if your friend excuses herself from your nappy cream conversation, nothing’s wrong. (But it *would* be nice if you didn’t yak on forever about the rashes on your baby’s bum.)

5. Kill distractions

Despite the heading’s venomous implications, I’m not asking parents to literally kill their kids.

Parents with children who are old enough to be left with a relative, domestic helper, nanny or baby-sitter could consider the option of attending social gatherings sans kids. Being child-free is less distracting and you are able to give your friends your full attention and enjoy yourself fully too. While some functions may not expressly be adults-only events and allow for children to be around, from experience, parents with kids are entirely distracted for 90% of the time – and this makes it difficult for other guests to enjoy their time with you. I personally get irked with friends who break off mid-sentence – be it their’s or mine – to yell at their kid then ask, “Sorry, what we were talking about again?” I know they can’t help it sometimes – if the kid is scaling a parapet or pawing at a waiter carrying hot coffee, the parents have to do something.

And to those parents who swear to the heavens that their baby is trained to sleep anywhere on earth without waking and proudly insist on bringing their little angel to the cinema – you may be comfortable with it, but not everybody else is. There are just some places where babies don’t belong.

6. Be sensitive

I swear that some women absolutely revel in the challenges of motherhood and love to commiserate with one another about all sorts of “horrifying” episodes their babies put them through. And after recounting enough stories for Channel 8 to base an entire Chinese drama series on, they turn to their childless friend (who is probably patiently counting how many grains of rice make up a one piece of sushi) and ask, “After hearing all this, are you sure you still want to have children? *laugh*“

Look, if all that didn’t drive parents to the brink of flying to Brazil and tossing their baby over edge of the Iguazu Falls, what makes them think that it’s going to turn non-parents off wanting children of their own? To make things worse, sometimes it’s not simply a case of whether we “want or don’t want”.

7. Educate us

And by this, we don’t mean telling us about the joys of having children. Or about the intricacies of your breast pump. Or why Brand X strollers are the best.

Tell us when are the best times to call for a chat or drop by for a visit. We honestly don’t know your parenting schedule. Sometimes we want to catch up but we are afraid to call at our own convenience. Cos we don’t know if you’re busy feeding or bathing the baby, or feeding or bathing yourself. We don’t want to call you when your baby’s sick or when you’re sick. Letting us in or guiding us on your schedule would help alot.

With visits, we do understand that there are certain optimal times to drop by, such as after the baby has had his bath, after the baby as been fed, after the baby has woken up from his nap, after the baby… We know that you would love to present your offspring as a cheery, bouncing bundle of joy and sunshine when he is in the best of moods. But in all honesty, we are here to visit you, when YOU are in the best of moods (aha, back to Point 1 again.) It helps if you are not all frazzled and tired out from feeding/bathing/coaxing the baby till its all smiles and gurgles for visitors. When you’re rested and relaxed, it makes for an enjoyable visit for everyone. As for the baby, we’re just honoured to be meeting him for the first time – even if he sleeps right through the introduction.

To end off, I read a news article by Sumiko Tan recently, about how social dynamics change when people get married. She suggested that the responsibility is on the person who changed the status quo – in her case, whoever got married; in our case, whoever got pregnant – to make the first move to keep the friendship going.

On one hand, that may be true – for practical reasons. Whoever got married or pregnant is now ‘busier’ than before and it’s up to them to study their new schedules and carve out some time for friends, and then get in touch with them. But in the grand scheme of things, if everybody just did their part to give and take, and to make some adjustments to their lifestyles, it doesn’t matter who makes the first move to keep the friendship going. As long as it does.

2 Comments

carol

December 16th, 2010 at 12:12 pm    

yeah, definitely agree with the parting shot there. i hv a bunch of 10-plus friends since secondary school days (that’s like 20 years ago!!) and we still keep in touch and meet up with one another every couple of months, the whole gang of us. we have been through thick and thin, and all seasons of life with one another. from singlehood, to courtship, to marriage, childbirth etc, and gatherings have grown to include other-halves, babies, toddlers and maids (for those among us who are no longer single).

the only way we could have stuck by one other through two decades (and counting!) is through the effort of everyone who makes it a point to organise the next gathering spontaneously, open up our homes to host gatherings, take an interest in one another’s personal lives (whether we are singles or married with or without kids), and try our best to be sensitive and inclusive in our conversations and social activities. we certainly don’t keep count as to whose turn it is to organise the next gathering or who should make the first move to keep the friendship going!

Yi Lin

December 20th, 2010 at 2:49 pm    

Thanks Carol. Yups, friends are such an important part of life. It takes alot of effort to keep it that way and not let personal lives overtake friendship.

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