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[I hope this isn't continuing the subject as part of this thread too long. I'd be happy to carry this on elswhere in a more child-related thread.]
Despite the fact that Tango-Mango and Lilly are two of my favourite people on the planet, when their daughter was born I wasn't really the friend I could have been.
Stoatie, don't be ridiculous. Do you have any idea how important to me it was being able to call you up on a Saturday morning every couple of weeks and see if you wanted to go for a walk with Biskie and the baby (as she was then) in her pushchair to the park? Stopping off for a half or two at the pub garden, then strolling back, and chatting about things, baby/child-related or not (especially not) was a bit of a lifesaver.
On a more general note, getting a baby sitter in so you can both go out is the most important thing to do in maintaining your friendships, I think. Our neighbours were fantastic about this in the first six months or so, once we were confident about leaving her with others for an evening. Another strategy we adopted was taking her to the pub itself when meeting friends, childless or not, assuming we could find one which didn't mind small children (Stoke Newington is quite handy for such things). Yes, you're sometimes restricted to a weird part of the premises (cf Weatherspoons pubs for the most part), but especially when the weather is fine and sitting in the garden is an option, it usually works wonders. Mmost of our friends were either into it or tolerant of us having to deal with vomit, nappies and wailing (which actually isn't that much of being a parent really) and even the expressions of amusement that our daughter could wander around nicking random strangers' mobile phones without them complaining...
If one or other of us wanted (or wants - this still applies) to stay out with the friends to continue carousing, then we took/take turns in returning home to put the infant to bed. It's not a perfect strategy, but it generally makes seeing people quite possible, if the friends are up for it.
Likewise taking her along to events like the FT Unconvention or even readings of books worked out quite well at around age one; hell, we even managed to take her to see a gig at the Royal Festival Hall, and were only unable to take her into the main auditorium because she didn't have a ticket. (NB this was a rock gig, not a quiet sort of show where any interruption would have been intrusive). BTW for those wondering, if she did start crying, it was usually quite easy to slip out to avoid disrupting proceedings for other members of the audience, and sitting near the door was always a preferred option for several reasons.
You soon pick up on what events are baby/infant friendly, and even if you have to miss out on some parts (for example a lecture is not always easy for a child to sit through at age two - by four sometimes she manages a whole 50 minute Residents DVD screening without too much loud nattering - and that can be dealt with by making whispering a game), there's often a space out of a main hall at a big event to go where there's so many people anyway that no-one minds if you have a pushchair and bottles to deal with. It occured to me the other day (at such an event) that F has been to more art openings than she has been to the cinema by age four, and even the most packed-out )and what you would expect to be the most child-hating of) crowds have been fine about conversing and interacting around a folded buggy and a baby-carrier.
I try to take our daughter along to appropriate band activities - not usually our gigs, though she's been to soundchecks - but most years we have summertime open air jams on the marshes. A couple of times she came along and is joining in more and more with making the music at such times. No-one in the group has said they mind, and seem to be quite into her playing along (unless they're just being polite of course), and naturally I asked first if it was OK. As she gets older, we involve the friends with her activities where they might suit all involved. So we had a birthday jam session when she was three for all her friends, other children, and fellow musicians to join in, some of whom found the experience of playing music with a range of children to be not only novel but involving. It wouldn't be for everyone, but we made sure that those who weren't interested in hanging out with a dozen or more excited children, a host of bangable or rattly toy and real instruments and a PA (which included a lot of their parents) had space to slip off to the outside and get the beers in.
What I'm getting at I suppose is that sometimes it is possible to continue with your interests by adapting to taking the child along with you, and if it happens to be something that your friends would care to be involved in then you get to see them that way too. It might take some time for this sort of thing to be possible, and of course not everyone's activities can be made child-suitable. The increasing independence of the child concerned really helps with this, but our experience is that there is life - and friendship with non-parents - after childbirth.
Once again - Stoatie: you put up with a whole load of baby-watching for a few minutes while I popped out to the loo or whatever at various things, so again, your friendship was invaluable to us then and still is. |
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