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Eh? There are plenty of other parents and nannies at the park taking their kids out, if you want to talk to someone.
by ericd 5y ago
Eh? There are plenty of other parents and nannies at the park taking their kids out, if you want to talk to someone.
- barry-cotter 5y agoNannies are of a different social class. Most middle class people are much less likely to have real relationships with people who can’t relate to their problems. Same as rich people tend to have rich friends. “Talking to someone” isn’t community. Colleagues provide an ersatz community for people who don’t have a real one in their life. You need a steady cast of characters and ideally repeated, purposeful interaction.
- rjsw 5y ago> Nannies are of a different social class. I don't think that is true in Europe. They are probably a fair bit younger than middle class mothers which could be a barrier to being friends.
- barry-cotter 5y agoIf the people employing nannies didn’t have more money than their employees the relationship wouldn’t exist at all. The only way I’m familiar with middle class young women nannying is as au pairs, in other countries. But there are people who nanny for decades. They are not the same social class as their employers. My own experience of living in Europe is confined to Germany but middle class German girls mostly don’t even work part time jobs in university, never mind taking a year off before university to work as an au pair, in a foreign country. They do not nanny. Spanish friends made it sound like the same was true in Spain too. Students do not have jobs at university.
- ericd 5y agoIf you keep to a routine of going to the park daily and spending a couple hours there playing, you’ll almost certainly start seeing the same people over and over.
- cgriswald 5y agoAs a former homemaker this comes across as tone deaf. From my experience, you might as well have just said, "You can always hang out at a PTA meeting." Being a homemaker can be incredibly isolating. Homemakers need meaningful adult interaction and relationships that are not centered around their children or exclusive to their spouses.
- notch656a 5y ago> Homemakers need meaningful adult interaction and relationships So go out and make them? My 2 year old goes where we are, if that activity isn't kid centered that's too fucking bad and kid is gonna have to deal; I have a life too. It's not like having all conversations centered around work at the office is especially meaningful either.
- fn-mote 5y ago> if that activity isn't kid centered that's too fucking bad and kid is gonna have to deal Hilarious, and maybe it works with a 2yo, but when the kid is 5 it's "everybody else is gonna have to deal" as well. Not that I disagree with the sentiment, though.
- Talanes 5y agoDepends on the kid. I did plenty of quiet waiting on my single mother when I was five, and portable entertainment has gotten a lot more engaging since the mid-90's.
- Sharlin 5y agoThis effect is definitely amplified by suburban lifestyle. Suburbia is not a very good place to be a homemaker.
- vkou 5y agoIt's not a very good place for anything other than having a few hundred square feet of yard that you can choose to work on.