My street that I live on has twelve houses that front it, six on each side. Of those twelve houses, ten have kids, and nine have kids between 1 and 9 years old. It’s a real treat to be able to let the kids out, to share parenting responsibilities, to commiserate with the other parents when necessary, and to really just let the kids be kids. Sometimes there’s ten kids on the swingset in my backyard that is absolutely not designed for ten kids, or they’re riding bikes, or playing with chalk. It’s a real pleasure.
I bought the house 11 years ago. There were no kids. So we’ve kinda built the community. We’ve watched as houses go on sale, people come looking, and we would actually talk to them about our neighborhood.
So it’s kind of like the neighborhood that I grew up in at this point, and I really don’t think it was by accident. And I don’t think that my neighborhood is the only one like this.
Living the dream friend. I want that sense of community so bad. All my life I’ve lived isolated from others and it fucking sucks. My dad would always scold me: “go outside and play, get off the computer, blah blah blah” but like with whom? Glad your kids get to be kids. Cheers
I know, and I try not to take it for granted (although I do sometimes, because I’m just a guy). Until I was 10, I lived in a neighborhood where the houses were close together, the kids played outside, etc. Then we moved to a house on an acre and a half, which was huge in comparison to the like .18 acre property we lived on prior. You could fit five houses from my previous neighborhood on our lot. It was a beautiful home, great for playing outside – with just my brother and I. Not great for making friends in the neighborhood.
I tell the story often, but my wife is from a different place in Jersey than me, we didn’t meet until I was in my late 20s, a few years after my parents split, sold the house, and put that life behind us. One of her close friends got married a few years back, and beforehand, we went and I got to meet her friend’s fiance. We get to talking, and he tells me his last name, and it turns out they lived three houses down from me, but I had never met him because nobody went outside to play.
And it’s not to say we were homebodies. I played sports, I always was doing something, but it was also never less than a car ride away, which is isolating. So I don’t want my kids to live like that. They will walk to school when they’re old enough. They’ll walk downtown. They’ll throw rocks in the brooks that run through town. They’ll hang out under bridges. That’s important stuff to me.
My street that I live on has twelve houses that front it, six on each side. Of those twelve houses, ten have kids, and nine have kids between 1 and 9 years old. It’s a real treat to be able to let the kids out, to share parenting responsibilities, to commiserate with the other parents when necessary, and to really just let the kids be kids. Sometimes there’s ten kids on the swingset in my backyard that is absolutely not designed for ten kids, or they’re riding bikes, or playing with chalk. It’s a real pleasure.
I bought the house 11 years ago. There were no kids. So we’ve kinda built the community. We’ve watched as houses go on sale, people come looking, and we would actually talk to them about our neighborhood.
So it’s kind of like the neighborhood that I grew up in at this point, and I really don’t think it was by accident. And I don’t think that my neighborhood is the only one like this.
Living the dream friend. I want that sense of community so bad. All my life I’ve lived isolated from others and it fucking sucks. My dad would always scold me: “go outside and play, get off the computer, blah blah blah” but like with whom? Glad your kids get to be kids. Cheers
I know, and I try not to take it for granted (although I do sometimes, because I’m just a guy). Until I was 10, I lived in a neighborhood where the houses were close together, the kids played outside, etc. Then we moved to a house on an acre and a half, which was huge in comparison to the like .18 acre property we lived on prior. You could fit five houses from my previous neighborhood on our lot. It was a beautiful home, great for playing outside – with just my brother and I. Not great for making friends in the neighborhood.
I tell the story often, but my wife is from a different place in Jersey than me, we didn’t meet until I was in my late 20s, a few years after my parents split, sold the house, and put that life behind us. One of her close friends got married a few years back, and beforehand, we went and I got to meet her friend’s fiance. We get to talking, and he tells me his last name, and it turns out they lived three houses down from me, but I had never met him because nobody went outside to play.
And it’s not to say we were homebodies. I played sports, I always was doing something, but it was also never less than a car ride away, which is isolating. So I don’t want my kids to live like that. They will walk to school when they’re old enough. They’ll walk downtown. They’ll throw rocks in the brooks that run through town. They’ll hang out under bridges. That’s important stuff to me.