Stuck in the Suburbs

I know the title of this post is also the title of a Disney TV movie, but it's the best way to describe how I feel today.  I got to spend two hours today at a birthday party for one of my daughter's friends, and while she had fun, it was excruciating for me.  While I liked the parents of her preschool friends and always had a good time at any parent/child events, I just haven't clicked with the parents of her kindergarten friends (and there's no overlap between her preschool and kindergarten friends).

I guess I'm the one who started with a bad attitude, and it all happened before school started.  We had to spend a morning at school for kindergarten orientation in August, a few days after I hurt my back.  On our way into the school, we encountered a little girl that my daughter knew (but was not friendly with) from preschool and when we got into the classroom, this girl's parents sat down at the same table as we did.  If it wasn't bad enough that my back was killing me and I had to sit in a chair meant for a five year old, this mom made a huge deal about how uncomfortable it was going to be for her husband to sit at the table because he's 6' 2". . . she went on and on about it until I felt like telling her that my husband is only six feet tall, but maybe we could have our husbands whip their penises out to compare length, right there on the low kindergarten table.  I mean, WTF with all the protestations about how tall her husband is, especially since she, in heels, is a good deal shorter than I am in sneakers.  Then, when orientation got underway and she said that she and her (tall) husband had been through it before with their older child, the huge deal she made about her husband sitting at the table made even less sense, as he'd certainly done it before.  So, I didn't make a friend that first day.

That woman actually sat next to me for almost an hour today and we didn't say a word to each other.  I was going to ask her how tall her husband is again, but that seemed snarky so I didn't.  I must have been giving off an evil vibe, though, as every time I glanced in her direction, she picked up her cell phone and ran out of the party room as if she had an important call to make. 

The only parent I had a conversation with during the entire two hours was the birthday girl's mother, who seems nice.  The other parents (moms, mostly) chatted amongst themselves and I kept to myself.  I just couldn't bring myself to make small talk with them.  They don't interest me.  They seemed bland, boring, inocuous, and they seemed to all be wearing some sort of suburban mom uniform -- cotton sweater in a light color, boots with two inch heels, and jeans (which varied only in that some were true Mom Jeans and others were a bit more stylish).  Needless to say, I wasn't wearing the uniform and although I could probably scare up an outfit that looks remotely like it, the chances of my doing that are nil now.

About halfway through the party, I realized that I will likely be running into these pod people for years and years to come, as our town has quite a few elementary schools, so the kids who go to my daughter's school all live within a mile or two of our house.  These are the people in my extended suburban neighborhood. . . and they bore the living crap out of me.  I don't know how to reconcile myself to a future of dealing with these people.  In the short term, the best idea I can come up with is to make my husband ferry my daughter to social events so that she (who is quite gregarious) won't be stigmatized by having a mom who doesn't fit in and doesn't want to be part of the group.  In the long term, I think we have to move.  That will be an interesting conversation with the realtor, once I explain that I want to live in a neighborhood with cool people. . .

So, what happens to all the fun people after they become parents?  I know that, with a job, a long commute, and two little kids, I definitely don't have the time or the opportunity to hang out and have fun like I did before motherhood happened, but I haven't given up the idea of having fun.  I just can't figure out where the fun parents are.  We moved to the suburbs and all hope was apparently lost.  This doesn't bother my husband much because he wasn't a social animal like me, and because he's pretty mainstream so he finds people who like the same things he likes almost everywhere.  For me, living in the suburbs as an adult is pretty much like it was growing up in them as a kid in that I feel contempt for most of my peers, but it's unlike my adolescent experience because at least then I could identify the freaks in the area because we all looked like freaks.  Sadly, that's not the case any more, likely because we all have to keep jobs that prevent us from making any changes to our appearance that can't be hidden during the work week.

What's a suburban mom to do?

Comments

[Christina]

I feel for you. Since being out of work and home I've been spending alot more time with my nieces - going to their activities and such. Some of those other parents are just so blah it's unbelievable. Working in Fairfield county I'd see the Stepford Wife uniform all over the place. The same bobbed haircut, the same puffy vests with a turtleneck underneath, all driving the same Lexus and BMW SUV's. Very scary!