Family Dating
Is finding the right friends with kids like looking for true love?
Family Dating
Is finding the right friends with kids like looking for true love?
by Paula Bernstein
March 12, 2010
Kate Haney recently met someone special. They hit it off at the playground and exchanged e-mail addresses. “I thought it went fine,” said Haney, 46, a mother of a five-year-old son in Western Massachusetts. “But nothing ever happened. I e-mailed a couple of times, but she was always too busy. It reminded me of when I was dating. Sniff:Rejected!”
Like Haney, I naively assumed that once I was married with kids, my dating days were over. Married for nearly 10 years, my husband and I are happily settled with our two young daughters. But, we still scan the playground looking for potential love matches.
No, we’re not swingers. We’re simply looking to “hook up” with a fun, easygoing family who has similar interests and parenting styles. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as it sounds. If I click with the wife, it’s almost inevitable that the husband will be a sports-obsessed drip. If we get along with the parents, you can bet their kids enjoy finger-painting – on our walls.
I still cringe when I recall the first – and only – time we got together with a new friend and her family at their place. Our husbands talked politics over dinner and voted the same color, which was a plus. The kids played quietly in the other room – until my younger daughter ran in wailing, “He hit me!” Apparently, my friend’s son had started pummeling my daughter for sport. The parents were blas’, simply saying their son was “going through a rough stage.” We skipped out before dessert.
With no pick-up bars where we can meet like-minded parents, I often wish I could just post a personal ad: Over-educated, creative types seeking same for fun romps in the park and occasional trips. Two daughters (around 4 ½ and 
a plus. Like to travel. Must be able to tolerate our dark sense of humor and enjoy lively discussions about politics and film. Not too much TV or junk food. Parental discipline a must.
When it works, “family dating” is ideal. You get to hang out with your friends while the kids entertain each other. In best-case scenarios, you go steady with a family and maybe even take the plunge and take a vacation together. But, as in romance, chemistry can be elusive. It’s tricky enough for two people to get along. Inject more personalities – not to mention complicated playdate schedules and squabbles over Barbie dolls and fruit leather – and things can get thorny.
Tamsen Fadal, co-author with her husband Matt Titus of Why Hasn’t He Called? and Why Hasn’t He Proposed?, said that families looking to date should proceed with caution. “Just like in dating, you’ve got to have things in common and want the same level of commitment. At least there’s no sex involved, and so that doesn’t complicate things.”
Still, there are awkward moments of uncertainty and self-doubt.
Lauren, 31, and her husband had just moved to rural Georgia with their 2-year-old daughter last fall and were anxious to make friends when they “picked up” another family at a wedding. They invited them over for an “afternoon of babies, beer, and horse-shoes in the backyard” a couple of weeks later. But soon the initial spark had faded.
“They were good on paper: similar age and similar background with similar interests, but we did not click at all. The wife was really intense and the husband was really odd,” said Lauren. “The little conversation I had with the husband was stilted and he seemed perpetually stoned. I found myself doing the whole ‘we should do it again sometime’ thing even though I had no intentions of calling them.”
In Lauren’s case, the feelings were apparently mutual – the other family never asked for a second date either. But what happens when you think you hit it off with a family but they don’t reciprocate? When, maybe, they’re just not that into you?
After my friend’s son hit my daughter, I gave her the “sorry, but we’re busy” line the next time she invited us over. I know how she must have felt – when I asked a friend at school pick-up for the millionth time if her family was free to join us for brunch, she avoided eye contact and gave me the same lame excuse. She never followed up, leaving me to wonder if it was something I said or if my girls’ grubby table manners were to blame.
Share your family dating disaster/triumph. Not long after, I spotted her and her daughter out at brunch at a restaurant with another family. Like a jilted lover seeing an ex out on the town with someone new, I couldn’t help but wonder: “What toys do they have that we don’t?”
Different parenting styles can also put a crimp in burgeoning relationships.
Kathy, 43, a mom of two in Philadelphia, said she and her husband happily “dated” one couple for years – until they visited their friends on Fire Island for a few days last summer. Their friends’ daughter “refused to play with my older son. She consciously excluded him, saying ‘we’re not going to play with Jamie today.’ I pointed it out gently to my friend, but she ignored it. I was their guest and it was awkward.”
Though nothing official was stated, in essence, they broke up.
“How do you tell your friend her daughter is being a complete shit?” asked Kathy. “We ended up cutting the visit a day short. Now we avoid them,” said Kathy, who still feels burned by the experience.
Maggie, 40, a Brooklyn mom to two, said she and her husband bonded over politics, wine and good food with a couple they met in the neighborhood. Initially, the kids all got along and went to the same summer camp. But soon enough, they couldn’t be in the same room without torturing each other.
“Our kids would throw huge fits when we would tell them we were getting together with this family,” said Maggie. “One time I saw my friend’s little girl put a whole handful of snow down my son’s shirt. He pushed her away and she fell into the snow screaming that he had pushed her.”
Rather than break-up, the couples talked things through and miraculously, their relationship survived, despite the fact that their kids are mortal enemies. “We finally acknowledged the truth and decided that if we wanted to continue being friends, we had to have plans without the kids,” explained Maggie. “Now, we just get babysitters when we want to get together.”
There is hope that a compatible family may be out there waiting for you.
“When we went over to their house for our ‘blind date,’ we totally hit it off,” said Lauren. “Since then we have gotten together several times and I’ve introduced them to my other friends. Love match! I feel like we should be on an E-Harmony commercial!”
Meanwhile, my husband and I recently got lucky on mid-winter break. We hooked up with a nice family at a ski resort. While we chatted breezily about books and music with the parents in the lodge, our kids played Monopoly and put on an impromptu dance show. After a few fun days of sledding together, we exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers with plans to meet up back home in New York.
I’m hoping they’ll call, but I’m not waiting by the phone.
Find more:
- Social Anxiety: Does my kid really need playdates?
- Rules of the Game: My crash course in playround etiquette.
- Shy Girl: Why does my daughter need social-skills therapy?
This article was written by Paula Bernstein for Babble.com, the magazine and community for a new generation of parents.
Great article! That whole multiplication of personalities is tough… and when you’re new in town, like that couple who moved to Georgia, it must be a real challenge.
Yeah, I can totally relate to this. I once did a radio essay all about “dating for friends’ and the “dating for families” just adds one more layer to it. I have decided that I’m lucky if I make a friend thru my kids and expecting the husbands/partners to connect is just too much-but a bonus if it does happen. I also think that there’s no harm in admitting – as the woman in your story did- when things aren’t working w/the kids and you just want to be grown up friends. It’s much harder, I think, when your kids adore one another but you don’t want to be friends. That kind of distancing is much trickier!
Delia Lloyd
http://www.realdelia.com
You hit the nail on the head. My husband and I have been dating other couples for years (and calling it that), but we move about every two years, and it seems as if every time we finally have friends, we move.
Someone should start an E-Harmony for families…
Hilarious, spot-on article, Paula. That’s just about exactly the ad we’d place at a couples’ dating service. Here in the little town where we live, the problem most often is awkwardness when we don’t want to hook up w/the parents of kids our kids have latched on to.
such a different world than when I was growing up — when my parents left us in the yard while they went off to party with neighbors—parenting is different without playpens
great article!
It’s a great information for the families. Family dating is a great way to start and develop the social of the family members especially the children. Sometimes there could be some misunderstanding and comparison, but we should do and take it in a positive way not to take it in negative. Enjoy and have fun in this kind of dating activities.
Jesse of vindicarlo.com
I guess I don’t understand why the kids always have to get along. I mean, kids are kids and one day they might be bffs and the next day one bites the ohter one or breaks a favorite toy. I subject my kids to my friends’ kids all the time–sometimes they get along, sometimes they don’t. And when they don’t get along, sometimes it’s because my preschooler is being not-very-nice (which we address).
None of these offenses sounds like something I’d stop seeing a friend over. Seriously, you won’t hang out with someone because her daughter put snow in your son’s shirt and then he pushed her??? it’s called acting like a child! I think both behaviors warrant punishment, but I’d be real suprised to meet a child who never acted up–especially when the parent’s attention was on a new friend instead of the child.
NIce, this makes good sense to me dude.
Jess
http://www.isp-snooping.es.tc
We’ve managed to luck out and found some great friends whose kids play great with our kid since moving cross-country last year. Funny thing is, the initial connection was mom to mom over a hobby/craft in common, then the kids liked each other, then the dads hung out and became fast friends too. One thing that tied us together with both families is that they had just moved cross-country to live here too, and didn’t have family in the immediate area to take up a lot of extra time.
This reminds me of FSH mom’s group and how some of us hang out and others don’t – there are plenty of you ladies that I find cool and would love to know better!
@ Huh, that’s what I thought. It seems like some of these parents are too hesitant to let their kids learn the lessons of how to get along with others…or that sometimes, things aren’t so nice. Sometimes kids hit; sometimes, they are just mean or intentionally leave someone out. By “breaking up” with people you actually enjoy, it seems like it just teaches kids that if things don’t go your way, you should cut and run rather than dealing with the issue. Not to mention the perennial issue of letting your kids run your life.
this is hilarious. I had no idea that I was amoung thousands who family date. I have broken up with parents because the kids didn’t get along.
Hey, I’m a big fan of parental discipline too, but why “tattle” on a kid and make it awkward all around? If you’re respectful and treat kids like reasonable people, they’ll often reciprocate. If a child decides to pointedly and specifically be rude to my child, I have no qualms with politely and respectfully explaining to that child that their behaviour isn’t very nice, and if they wish to have some time to themselves, I’m certain it can be accommodated without them having to be hurtful.
If violent behaviour persists, I’m firm, but respectful about telling the child that I don’t allow others to be violent towards my family members, and perhaps they’d better take some time to themselves to calm down.
I know it’s hard/awkward to “discipline” someone else’s kid, but we’re not talking about doling out punishments, here, just treating kids like they’re people, too. It might not even hurt to ask the child how they are feeling: “wow, it looks like you’re pretty angry at so and so, do you need help using words/better words?”
Bizarre! I’ve been thinking about this all week!
This was too funny! I wonder how many dates have not called us the next day.
i love it … you speak the truth. All families date like this, and finding the right chemistry on all levels is pretty rare, but precious when you find it. The disciplining other kids thing is tricky … i agree in principal with with what people said above — i do think you can politely talk to other kids about their behavior — but when people talk to me kids in a disciplinary context I am capable of having a defensive response.
I think this author’s biggest issue (and a major issue perpetuating all forms of dating) is that the standards are just a little unreasonable. You are never, ever going to find a family with identical interests, personalities, AND parenting styles. I also had to roll my eyes as the majority of the stories in this piece were told by parents who felt it was the OTHER parents children who were being the aggressor and they needed to tattle in order to protect their poor, vulnerable children. Yeah, right. Maybe the issue is that you simply need to lighten up, allow children to fend for themselves from time to time, and get rid of your little checklist?
doesn’t anyone feel that maybe the author is having a difficult time finding her perfect match due to the fact that she seems a touch pretentious (or rather, “over educated”)? and do people that are truly creative types go around referring to themselves as such?
The people putting their web address in their comment are really annoying. Clearly not interested in adding to the conversation, just getting web hits.
Anyway, YES, it is much harder to make friends post-college. I agree with “Huh” about ditching a family when kids are just acting like kids. This is why we have “playdates,” to help kids learn to socialize and work out conflicts. And yes, “Meh,” I think you hit on something with the author describing herself as “over-educated” and “creative.” Be open to enjoying different types of people. Let your kids be kids. It’ll be okay.
As the author of the story, I’ll just say that the “over-educated, creative types” was intended to be funny. I don’t actually go around describing myself that way, nor am I only looking to hang out with fellow “over-educated, creative types.” Undereducated, un-creative types can apply too.
I guess I’m lucky. My kids are older now (almost 14 and 9),but I was friends with parents of my kids best friends first, in almost every instance I can think of. Sometimes its been kind of a simultaneous relationship growth, where I accept the warts of someone I might not otherwise be buddies with because there’s something so joyful to “marrying” two families for regular Sunday night dinners or camping trips, etc. There are also friends I’ve made with parents whose kids did not jibe with my kids, and that’s a lovely thing, too. My children have never (like their mother), tolerated overly challenging or badly behaved kids so thankfully I’ve never had to address this particular situation.
And there are the times when you get two of three of the relationships right — the kids get along, the moms love each other, and the dads, well, thank can survive each other’s company. This happens with some frequently because the moms are more often making the plans. And you have to think, two out of three, that’s pretty good, I will take the team sacrifice for the family. I will go on ski vacations with this family and be stuck in long conversations with a guy that doesn’t interest me that much, but with whom I can eak out some commonality after a couple beers, because the larger family dynamic is more sympatico than not.
And by the way it is worth the search, the process, the high standard because when you find that family that is a perfect fit, it is life-changingly good. The metaphor is a very good fit.
As someone who could have been the friend with the son who hit your daughter, I will say that I have eventually given up hanging out with parents whose kids are more sensitive than my boys. Yes, I tell them not to hit, but it is a lot more relaxing for me if the other parents’ kids are rough and tumble too. I cannot abide parents who expect shaming punishments in response to minor infractions. Kids are kids and some are more sensitive than others from the very beginning. My son used to play with a little girl who pushed him all of the time and he never said anything about it, but whenever he reciprocated or pushed her first she immediately turned on the tears. The other parents never seemed to notice any action by their daughter, but were hyper-vigilant about whatever my son had done to her. Eventually we broke up and while I was initially dismayed, I realized that it was actually a huge relief. I realized that I had not been holding true to my preferred way of parenting in an effort to assuage these other adults and I think that my son was suffering as the result.