Parenting
Your single parent Buddy System
A reporter from the Baltimore Sun called me this week to ask if I had a “buddy system.”
A buddy system? It made me think of my daughter in preschool, when she was paired up with her three-year-old “buddy” for a nature walk. They were told to hold hands, and not let go.
But how about single parents?
It’s true: we need a Buddy System, too. In Sunday’s Baltimore Sun, Tanika White writes that “In today’s busy world, more people are seeking friends, not lovers, online and through blind dates.”
When I first became a single mom in NYC, I didn’t have any friends in my boat. They were either married or single-without-kids. Mostly, I stayed behind closed doors, editing textbooks from home and playing peek-a-boo with my baby. When I moved back to California to be closer to my family, I was on a mission to find single parent buddies.
At the local playground and swimming pool, I met my two best friends. The Baltimore Sun is right: “as our society has gotten busier, more technology dependent and more insulated,” it’s more challenging to make friends.
Do tell: how have you met single parent friends?
At school? At work? MySpace? Facebook?
P.S. Regarding the “friend-seeking-men” I mention in the Baltimore Sun — who, in my experience, are often are in the thick of their divorce — I’ve had to be super clear that I’m interested in friendship, not romance. The boundaries are not always easy to maintain. Has that happened to you, too?
Photo of my single mom buddy system…
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Tags: Baltimore Sun, blind dates, buddy system, Friends, online, Online Dating, Single Moms, single parent, Single Parents, Support, Tanika White Discussion
One comment for “Your single parent Buddy System”
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Yes, that is me on the cover, in front of my editor's sofa, in a precarious pose... You can get your own copy here:
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A very important issue, especially today. Studies show that most of us have fewer friends, and Less close real friends (as opposed to the net kind) than our parents did. This is usually counted as less than 4-5 for most guys above the age of 30. There’s lots of reasons for this development. One is obviously the media. We do not need to have many friends to keep us entertained, as we needed in times past. Plenty of it is due to again just the faster tempo of life now. Another is the expansion of work into once private spheres with constant cell phone access & email contact becoming ’standard’ over a decade back. We also typically work much more longer hours now (about 100 hours a year or more on average for parents) than we did say back in 1980. [See EPI.org on that score]. The entire economics of the middle class is much more precarious and only getting more so, and people often have little time left after a long day for much more than basic ’survival’ mode issues. Friends get lost in the tidal tow of work & family related stress. But once it was a great way to cope with the stresses of daily life, and still is and can be.
Cheers & Good Luck! ‘VJ’