[supertrope]

The book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam is about the decline of civil society.

Church membership is down. Labor union membership is down. Parents got crushed in the pandemic with school shutdowns, daycare shutdowns, and formula shortages. It takes two incomes to afford a family's lifestyle. Someone has to take care of the kid. Two people have to do the job of three people.

[randusername]

Second this. Maybe also "The Fourth Turning"

It is cool to live in a place where everyone questions the roles society might impose on them, but it's too extreme lately. The cost of community is inconvenience. The price of individuality is loneliness.

So much of life is brutally inefficient without networks of trust and reciprocity.

[foobar_______]

Agreed. Great summary. Postmodernism and everyone tearing down all systems to their roots is fun... until you have no structure left.

[watwut]

> It takes two incomes to afford a family's lifestyle. Someone has to take care of the kid. Two people have to do the job of three people.

Being stay at home parent is one of the most lonely thing you can do. Yes, the parent who works in office and goes bowling with collagues is less lonely. But the one who is spending whole day with a small kid and no one else is much more lonely .They cant go bowling either, because they need to put kids to sleep. So, they have to try much harder to have any social contact.

[epistasis]

I wonder if what you describe is a consequence of suburbia. In any sort of proper town, there's quick and easy access to parks where you encounter people on the walk to the park, which gives a great sense of community. When you have to pack up the kids in a car you are isolated from community, except through the negative community of bad driving.

The stay at home parents k know are not lonely and go out and engage with other parents and have perhaps a far stronger community than the working parent.

[Aurornis]

Suburbia is the easiest place to take the kids and go find things to do on a walk.

> The stay at home parents k know are not lonely and go out and engage with other parents and have perhaps a far stronger community than the working parent.

Same. As long as you don’t literally stay at home, being a parent with kids is such an easy way to meet more people.

[epistasis]

That is not my experience with California suburbia in any way, it is extremely desolate and lonely compared to any proper town or city I have encountered. But I'm very glad that others are having better experiences!

[kdheiwns]

The comment you're responding to is about a decline in social institutions in general. As someone from a tiny town, when I was growing up, stay at home moms were always outside and talking all day. They'd watch over kids together as well. The loneliness aspect of parenthood is a modern invention.

[bradlys]

YMMV. Plenty of groups out there to meet other parents and become friends with. I know several people who had kids and were SAHP and made lots of friends this way. Mind you, as the kids got older everyone moves around so friendships might not always last but it’s very possible. And you have a very obvious thing to bond over - being a parent.

I work at faang and have no friends from that. I’m surrounded by thousands of people every day I’m at work. Everyone is there to work - not be social or hangout or be friends. People show up to social events to grab food and take it back to their desk.

[Aurornis]

I had a period of behind effectively a stay at home dad and I disagree with this completely.

Being a stay at home parent doesn’t literally mean you have to stay at home. Take the kids and leave the house. Go on adventures. I met so many people randomly during that time.

It was vastly more social than sitting in an office or working from home alone.

[fullstop]

Did you struggle with dirty looks at the park?

I wasn't a SAHP but I'd spend time with my kids at a park nearby and people would give me dirty looks for playing with my kids if my wife wasn't present.

[Aurornis]

Never once.

The internet convinced me it was going to be a problem, but it literally never happened once.

We rotate through parks because the kids love seeing new parks. Nobody has ever given me a dirty look for bringing my kids to the park. It’s a completely normal thing for parents to do.

[vharuck]

I've found people are friendlier with me when I'm with my son. His aura of cuteness probably makes me look less curmudgeonly.

[triceratops]

This sounds made-up.

[fullstop]

I can assure you that it is not.

[hattmall]

Stay at home parenting doesn't literally mean physically staying in the house. There's far more opportunities for socialization for those not burdened by work, kids are portable, they like doing stuff, and there's really not ALL that much to taking care of them.

[triceratops]

> But the one who is spending whole day with a small kid and no one else is much more lonely

So...don't do that? Let the parent who works in the office come home and spend time with the kid, and go out for drinks (or hiking or the gym or whatever) with other friends. Do all the chores beforehand during the day, so that the working parent only has kid duty.

If both are working, both have chores and kid duty after work.

[AnishLaddha]

I imagine this is due to the decline of local civic life. When you're a stay at home parent, and you are a part of some voluntary association, a church, PTA-type organizations, and the neighborhood is filled with other stay at home parents that you can organize play dates with (or hang out with while the kids are at school), life is less lonely.

[fullstop]

This is why "Moms clubs" are a thing. I get that safe spaces are wanted, especially if the mothers needed to nurse, but dads were unwelcome in the chapter near me.

[pixl97]

>Church membership is down.

I mean church people love to think of this as a decline of society but this is more about the destruction of the church itself as an out of date institution that was using itself as a control mechanism and that broke the moment we discovered the world wasn't made on hocus pocus.

The thing is the essence of the church could still maintain a huge amount of social control because people need to socialize.

[slumberlust]

I agree and am very anti-religion across the board. That being said, it certainly had and has a place in modern society. As a form of third space community and as a mechanism by which to provide social pushback where the law is lacking or lagging.