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Being an older parent means finding new friends- but does it mean dumping the old ones? 
Sometimes I’m the one being dumped. Some of my friends from years past don’t get this parenthood thing in my forties.
The truth is, I did loose a few friends when I became a parent for the first time in my 40’s. The other night I even found out that close acquaintances weren’t even that close anymore. K and I went to an art show and got completely rejected. (I wrote about it on the fost-adopt blog). A few ex-peers didn’t understand, or want to understand what I was doing and why. You are parents? Now? Why for heavens sake? And you adopted?
I imagined as their backs turned, they rolled their eyes, picked up another glass of wine and mingled with the whom-ever in vogue local sculptor. Actually, I’m glad I’m not in that group anymore – where is the substance?
Before all the artists write me nasty comments, I’m still an artist at heart. I’m not talking about art here. Art is meaningful, soulful and life affirming – I’m responding to my perception of a few of the people I don’t relate to any longer. Just a few of the artists I encountered the other night. They seem obsessed, one dimensional, self centered.
At least that’s what I say in my own head now that I was snubbed.
K and I go swimming most Friday’s in our local pool. They offer a 2 for 1 entrance fee for toddlers and their moms. K loves it as she gets to play in the water with lots of other kids. She can make as much noise as she wants and can splash to her hearts delight. I make conversation with the fifteen or so other moms in their twenties. Occasionally I find a mom in her thirties and I grab on to find meaningful conversation. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. I guess that’s true not matter what the age. Sometimes you click with other moms, sometimes not.
Perhaps I’m being overly dramatic, but when the parents in your child’s play group are decades younger than you, what to do? Do you try to relate to the kids who have kids? Or stay friends with the older generation (my generation!) whose major upset is adjusting to empty-nest syndrome?
Hubby and I have had lots of friends over the years. Older, younger, it hasn’t seemed to matter so much before. We’ve hung out and had fun with people of all age groups. But what we all had in common was that we were all childless. It was the bond of being carefree and footloose and able to travel and stay out late and go to happy hour after work, that kept our friendships going. Today there is little left to talk about. Except politics… (and who wants to go there…?)
Now, my friends in their forties and fifties. They are again, or still, footloose and carefree and staying out late. (Late meaning anything past an eight o’clock bedtime.) Our younger friends, sans children, want to stay out way too late for us, or want to take us to Las Vegas on vacation. Or are career obsessed. Humm. I was there once myself. I understand, but I don’t miss it one iota.
But you know what? The true friends, are the ones who’ve stuck around through thick and thin, children or not. They often don’t live so close. Occasionally they have moved to a different Continent.
They are the ones who you can talk to, just once in a while and pick up right where you left off without a thought to distance or time. We support and love each other – regardless of children, marriage, divorce.
We have one set of friends that are our neighbors. We never go out together, only occasionally get together, yet we’ve travelled to far off locals with them and we’ve been friends for twenty years. We love them. They love us. Children are part of life, the ebb and flow. Some years we talk more, other years we talk less. But they are still friends. Age doesn’t even come into play.
These are the type of friends that hubby and I have seen through moves, family crises, parents deaths, marriage, divorce. They’ve seen us though similar life changes. (Sans divorce). These are the friends that matter.
This doesn’t mean that I’m blowing off the other group of friends entirely. The ones I used to hang with. I just mean our relationship has changed over the years. We used to talk career, art, travel. I still talk about those things, but in a different context.
The friends that can move with me, change the context of our friendship and the conversation,I guess that is what really matters in having friends. Even when the relationship changes, you are still there for each other.
Remember the old adage – Make new friends, keep the old. One is silver, the other is gold.
We used to recite this in Girl scouts, and I never really understood it until recently. I think I’ll do just that – make new friends and keep the old.
