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The death of partying in the USA

derekthompson.org

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Re: The death of partying in the USA

#111

Post by wffurr »

zoomablemind wrote: post #43
luckydata wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the only way it works. It took me MONTHS to get a hold of the number of my son's best friend's parents so that now we can organize maybe an afternoon of play every 4-5 weeks.

I thought a prime time for contacting the parents is right after school when picking up the kid. Everyone is there waiting, so it's just natural to chit chat, esp when the kids are friends.

Except when they ride the bus or are in after school or the parents dash in and out from being double parked.

I have certainly gotten to know some parents at pick up, but there’s a whole bunch I have not met.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#112

Post by jamiek88 »

jppope wrote: post #44
jamiek88 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I physically cringed reading it. The intention is great but if I was his kid those cards would be staying in my backpack. Making a kid stand out like that is risky as fuck for social standing. But this is likely the worst forum in the world to talk about typical social skills.

An honest attempt from a social adult to develop a sense of community is far from cringe. Reasonably speaking, its actions like that which can actually make socialization happen. If the old way wasn't working, so try something else.

My reaction is my reaction. A cringe is involuntary. Your reaction is equally valid and way more mature.

We are talking about school kids here though please remember.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#113

Post by anotherevan »

As an aside, did anyone else see the background start to darken as they scrolled down and lost interest in reading as you knew a "Please oh pretty please subscribe to my newsletter!" overlay was going to slide into view?

I wish I had a ublock filter or a userscript to deal with this…

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#114

Post by asdff »

lr4444lr wrote: post #6

The parental part bears special mention. My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa. I'd like to think it's not that my kids are poorly socialized or misbehave - they've always received glowing reports at school. I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents, and there is also a class list whe…

Parties and kids aren't mutually exclusive. In fact some of my best memories growing up were from the times my parents took me to some house party where all the parents were talking and drinking and having their own adult fun, while us kids were running wild over the property and neighborhood until real late. Adults are excited, kids are excited, it just works, see you next weekend.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#115

Post by iwontberude »

floatingtorch wrote: post #92
roadside_picnic wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for mentioning this! There's this weird, persistent meme that large corporations are buying up all the housing and nobody owns homes anymore, which is fundamentally not supported by the data. There are shifting trends in generational home ownership rates, but these are still just initial trends we're seeing. If you look at the data [0] owner occupied has gone down from the 2000s housing bubble, but in the g…

Yes, it’s surprised me how this meme was everywhere in the comments while the data does not support it. I’d bet it’s splashy headlines in news outlets. Important to correct it so that policy is focused on what’s most effective.

Blackrock sounds scary

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#116

Post by mathiaspoint »

Apreche wrote: post #28

This article isn’t wrong, but it neglects to mention real estate, transportation, and lodging. A party needs a venue, and it needs guests. And the guests need a way to get to and from the venue. If they stay a long time, they need a place to sleep. People these days don’t own real estate. Wealthy people own it all. Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. It’s kind of hard to throw a big party witho…

My sister and her husband throw a pretty great annual Halloween party at the house they rent which is 1-2 hours from the nearest city and a good 15-20 minutes from the nearest town.

I don't think the real estate situation helps but I think there's a deeper social problem driving both of those effects.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#117

Post by asdff »

avhception wrote: post #68
lc9er wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids used to just go outside, find one another, and play. I see that you are attempting to solve the problem with organizing playdates. However, I think that playdates and structured EVERYTHING for kids is a contributing factor to how we got here. I think at some point, we need to acknowledge media sensationalism (traditional and social media varieties) have not only poisoned politics and bolstered conspiracy theory…

When I was a kid, we would always hatch a plan on what to do with the rest of the day while we were still at school. As soon as the bell rang, we hurried home to catch something to eat and then it was off to the woods to build that fortress or whatever. If there was no school, we'd call the house phones of our friends until we had a plan cooked up. And every day without fail we didn't want to go home. So much stuff t…

Kids aren't left to their own devices anymore. They are handed a device. It also doesn't help the cops in a lot of places will arrest the parent for letting the kid out.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#118

Post by asdff »

api wrote: post #17
lr4444lr wrote: post #6

The parental part bears special mention. My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa. I'd like to think it's not that my kids are poorly socialized or misbehave - they've always received glowing reports at school. I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents, and there is also a class list whe…

It was already happening before COVID. All these trends were. That just made it worse. A major issue is the death of independent child play. In a lot of places if a kid — and we are talking up to early teens — is unsupervised police will be called. It’s entirely the result of daytime TV and true crime making people think there are pedophile nuts hiding in every bush when in reality abductions by strangers are incredi…

It depends where in socal of course like anywhere else. In a more urban part like in la there are no busy bodies, you see kids out skateboarding drainage culverts during school hours all the time.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#119

Post by david422 »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #11

My grandma was the head of the local Air Force wives' club. Their house was always stocked like a full bar and at least several people stopped by for a visit just about every day. They knew at least 10 of their neighbors well, and some former neighbors too. Find me community like this anywhere in America these days. Immigrant communities perhaps? Most Americans these days won't interact with their neighbors unless it…

> Most Americans these days won't interact with their neighbors unless it's to complain or they want something transactionally.

My family moved into a small cul-de-sac with 5 houses total. I wanted to introduce myself, so I wrote a short letter with a little about ourselves and our contact info, and then dropped it into each neighbors mailbox. Only 1 neighbor wrote back, and 1 neighbor literally _returned the letter_ to our mailbox. So yea, that's the neighborhood I live in.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#120

Post by zoomablemind »

wffurr wrote: post #111
zoomablemind wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought a prime time for contacting the parents is right after school when picking up the kid. Everyone is there waiting, so it's just natural to chit chat, esp when the kids are friends.

Except when they ride the bus or are in after school or the parents dash in and out from being double parked. I have certainly gotten to know some parents at pick up, but there’s a whole bunch I have not met.

I'd count also those memorable school talent shows/performances and events. Another reach out avenue is volunteering, these have a higher chance to match parents with similar availability at least.
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