The reasons why socialising gets a little more complicated with small children

Modified after Christine Skoutelas

Keep in mind we’re not upset about these things; we are not complaining about our choice to raise our little ones. Basically, when it comes to friendships, parents of young children are forced to hunker down and encase themselves in a protective cocoon in order to preserve their energy, like some spore that can withstand the harshest of elements.

1. The children’s schedule is more important than one would think. Turns out children need to eat, drink, move, sleep and poop. Every day of the year. And, for the most part, it really DOES make a difference when, where and how these events occur. This means that the noon lunch dates, 4 p.m. coffee dates or dinners out at any time are really, really hard to swing. Yes, sometimes we can do it, but when we do, we are pushing it, so we tend to save up these moments for holidays, vacations or other special occasions. Even if it works out OK, and we/our child make it look easy, it leaves us exhausted because it basically gives us a heart attack worrying about whether or not our selfish choice will result in having to calm our child who is screaming like mad and/or having to clean urine or feces off in public.

2. Children put their parents on a schedule of their own. Parents usually blame schedules solely on their children, but the truth is, we now have a schedule, too. Before we get to work, we are already several hours into our day. When the children nap, we clean the kitchen or the bathroom or fold the laundry. Once the children go to sleep, we may or may not get to any of the items on our to-do list, bills, home improvement projects, workouts, or any of the other things normal people do on a day-to-day basis (that are virtually impossible to do while the children are awake), before we basically collapse in a useless heap on the couch. Yes, we know it’s only 8:30 p.m. And, yes, we’re TOAST. If we do see you outside of our typical schedule, particularly in the evening hours, take it as a huge compliment. We’re still getting up at the ungodly hour we always do the next morning, and are unable to make up that extra energy we are expending for the next 18 years or so.

3. We like hanging out with our children. And if we work outside the home, we feel like our time with them is very limited. Going out to dinner could mean not seeing our child all day; going away for the weekend could mean not seeing our child for 80 percent of the week (that we are not working and they are awake). Seemingly boring activities, like stacking cups, singing the ABCs, pushing a little one on a swing or even simply eating a meal with the children, have turned into some of our favourite moments. Even if you see our child act like a total terrorist, crying every five minutes or bouncing off the walls like a human pinball, there are more instances than you can imagine that result in us smiling the biggest smiles, laughing the loudest laughs or otherwise NOT being annoyed with our own offspring. This can be hard to imagine, I know.

4. “Just bring the children” is an option. But it is one that sucks. Even though we thoroughly enjoy our time at home, we want to see you, too. We really do. Even so, we often decline invitations to your fun events, not because they don’t sound like a blast in general, but because we know, for us, they just won’t be fun. This is not because YOU aren’t fun. You are a riot. (Do you hear us? We really do think this, even if we neglect to express this enough.) We just can’t focus on you very well when we have to simultaneously keep an eye on our children, making sure they don’t choke, drown in a randomly placed vat of water or get a head injury bumping into the pointy corner of a table. We spend a lot more time and energy worrying about keeping our brood alive than you might imagine. A lot of times we host events you don’t get invited to. Again, this isn’t because YOU aren’t fun — it’s because our events aren’t fun, at least not for most adults. They are loud, obnoxious and strategically located where there are wide open spaces or playscapes that allow toddlers to run and bounce off padded surfaces and screaming like banshees.

5. Seemingly benign household chores suddenly seem to consume our lives. Things we used to think were nothing now seem to take over everything. Washing, drying, scrubbing, cooking. I still haven’t figured out how one or two tiny little humans result in thirty-five times the number of dishes, laundry loads and crumbs on the floor, but they do. Chores that we used to be able to put off until we felt like doing them now Must. Be. Done. Immediately. If they wait, we fear our house might implode, much like a black hole, from the massive amount of grime and toys and dirty dishes concentrated in one place. To top it off, feeding and housing small children results in such an exponential increase in clutter and dirt.

6. Children go to sleep pretty early. Which means we have to leave events even earlier, or we miss attending them altogether. It’s easy to look at our children and say, “Oh, they don’t even look tired!” — and you’d be right. That’s why we’re leaving NOW, before they have a total meltdown and lose it. We can preemptively sense these things, like some animals can sense earthquakes before they register on any seismograph.

7. Leisure time is so limited that we tend to spend it on ourselves (often by ourselves). Getting a manicure or a haircut or a taking a trip to the gym requires creative scheduling, and everything else in our life to go according to plan — our spouse’s engagements, our children’s health, work obligations. A lot of our hobbies end up being things we can do at any hour of the day, on our own time, by ourselves: jogging, reading, writing or activities that can be done just as well at 3 a.m. or 3 p.m. The demands of the social calendar scare us. If we’re going to fit in time to actually see another human being, it’s usually someone who can give us the most bang for our buck: a workout buddy or someone to chat with during a playdate, or, rarely, a meet-up with a pal who can completely de-stress us, who is totally on board with our entire excursion being completed within a 30- to 45-minute window. We do not have the time or energy for idle lingering.

8. Sometimes we just need to idly linger. OK, this might seem like I’m refuting my last point, but I’m really not. We’re spending so much energy carrying, wiping, toting, cleaning, chasing after, listening to, reasoning with, teaching and doing, that sometimes we need to just sit, in a quiet space, for 10 or 30 or 120 minutes in a row, for our own sanity, and for the safety of those around us. There is no sleeping in or afternoon napping or resting on the weekend, so these moments are critical to help our bodies and minds recover and recharge for the remainder of our day or week.