Parenting, 5 Months, Stuff They Don't Say

The stuff they tell you is true about kids. Here is the stuff they don't tell you.

You can't eat your dinner.
We were warned that we would need date nights after the baby was born, but I thought it was about romance. That part never really worried me. I knew we would make time for each other, and we do. Well it turns out that the problem is not about romance at all. The issue is that we can't eat our food. Of the hour that we are at the restaurant, 45 minutes of the time is spent walking the baby outside the restaurant. It is very difficult to eat dinner when you are outside the restaurant.

So, you do need a date night, but not for romance. It's so that you can eat your dinner.

There are places you can't go.
There are places that you just can't go with kids. Quiet restaurants are completely out of the question, too embarrassing to have the crying baby or kid throwing a fit. Also, sports bars often don't allow kids. If you have a favorite pub or sports bar and you are about to have a child, say goodbye to it. That's not your place to watch the game anymore. Babies and great beer places don't mix.

Side note, I am becoming more convinced of this every month that passes. The Starbucks "third place" of the next generation is the American pub. First dates used to happen at starbucks, they will start happening at a beer pub. Real estate agents and financial advisers across the country will meet clients in the pub instead of starbucks, even at lunch. The trend is really really strong. It is the young, hip, progressive thinker's place to be right now, and the momentum is hitting critical mass. It is extremely cool to know your favorite brewery right now, and it is becoming uncool to be clueless about beer. This trend will probably give way to a new legal drinking age of 18 as well, but that one may take a while.

Oh yes, the child. The worst part is the social life.
Being a part of a community is hard enough in this day and age. Being a part of a community with a 5 months old child is darn-near-impossible. It is totally fine for making friends, but it's really hard to frequent a location at all. So the community can't really happen. There is not a place in the world right now that I really want to bring our child to regularly.

There is a positive side though. At 4 months, we finally started to see a return on investment. The child can now recognize us as parents, and gets really excited to interact with us. This is rewarding after serving her without much return for 4 months. Believe it or not, it makes us want to have more kids. It gives us hope.

That's what they don't say about parenting at 5 months.

Community Part 4

Action Items for a Better Community
I have a feeling that a lot of people would like to change their communities in some way. Maybe we want to develop new communities because we recently moved, or maybe our communities have changed on us because other people moved, or because we started dating, got married, had a child, got a sickness, a child left the house, or we really want to spend all our time with our new dog.  For whatever reason we feel like our communities need to change, and we don't know how to do that.

Since location is so critical for community, I wonder if  we can start with location first, and then work on the attachments after that.

For finding a location, here are some questions I've been asking.

• Does it attract interesting people because of its qualities? 
• Can you contribute something to the location to enhance it? 
• How close is it to your house?
• Do you know your neighbors? 
• Can you hang out with your neighbors at all? 
• Are there any community events for your town? 
• Is there a local breakfast place, coffee shop, or place where people gather that you can visit? 

Building attachments at your location.

• Have you tried to be vulnerable at all? 
• Do you have a chance to share something that you are passionate about? 
• Is it a place that your family fits in and feels a part of the community?
• Is there some kind of activity that will give the community a sense of achievement?
• Do you admire any of the people in your community?
• Have you ever told someone in the community that you like them as a person? 

I hope these blogs on community have been entertaining to think about! Wish us luck as we keep exploring the communities of Bardstown, Kentucky! 

Community Part 3

Here are a few scenarios related to location, and community. It has been valuable for me to think through these possible scenarios as I think about my current communities.

Friends without a location
A friend gets a job in another city, and now she lives far away from her community. Before she left, she had a different going away party for each location she frequented. The whole community is sad at each location, not because they are no longer friends, but because they feel like the have lost her from the community.

She can no longer share the location with them, so she is no longer a part of the community. She can still chat with her old friends online, travel back to see them inexpensively, even do a video conference with multiple friends at the same time, but she cannot truly be a part of the community any more.

I think this is a big challenge of globalization. Sometimes its hard to realize how important community attachments are, but even if we do realize how important they are, it can be hard to move in and out of communities so frequently.

A location without friends
When I was in middle school, my family had season tickets to the Air Force Academy football games for many years. By many standards this would be the perfect place for a community. I know that hundreds of college football stadiums around the country are great locations that house thousands of small communities. Strangely enough, for my family, it was not a community location at all.

I'm not identifying this as a negative scenario, I'm simply observing that this situation can exist. It is possitble to have a great location for a community, and to visit it frequently, but never have community there.

For us, we really weren't looking for community at the football stadium, just family time. We sat next to different people every week. We didn't tailgate with a regular group. We didn't meet up with anybody consistently before, after, or during the game. It was a great location, and great family bonding time, but was not a location for community for us.

Friends and a location without frequency
Since I've been married, we had a small community of friends in a different city. We used to visit our friends in Gunnison every year or so with a group of people. It was a fantastic group, and we all developed strong attachments with each other.

Again, this was a positive annual gathering, and I am glad we were able to do this while we could. Nothing negative about this. At the same time, it wasn't a community. The frequency simply wasn't enough, and the distance between us was too far. We are close friends, and always will be, but we are not a part of the same community.

More soon. Also, this was my 300th blog post. I'm proud. Cheers!

Community Part 2

A physical location is a prerequisite for community.

My closest communities throughout my life can all be traced back to a location. Growing up, my most common locations were sports fields or church buildings. In middle school my community revolved around the basketball court in our driveway. In high school the locations were a tennis court, basketball court, and church. In college it was a park where we played ultimate frisbee, and classes.

Knowing the location indicates a member's involvement in the community. For example, in middle school, knowing the hardness or softness of the basketball backboard was an indicator of commitment. Knowing the backboard meant that they knew me, and my friends too, and they were a part of the community. The same was true at church. People in the community knew where to park for which service, which door was likely to be unlocked, and the closest bathroom at any given time. If a person was unfamiliar with the location, it indicated that they were not a part of the community.

Today I have many friends worldwide, but all communities that I've been a part of shared a location. Friends may exist that are not a part of my community, and we may be very close. But unless we hang out at a consistent location, it's hardly a community.

Therefore, communities are not virtual, they are physical. I believe this is true for Facebook, fantasy football, fantasy online gaming, and many others. They can never be a community by themselves. Also inferred in this line of thinking is that even if a group of people likes each other, is committed to each other, and has things in common, they are not a real community without a common physical location.

Next, we are off to ideas of globalization, and the practical challenges of building community. More soon.

Community Part 1

I'm starting to believe that a location for a community is a prerequisite to having a community at all.

When we lived in Colorado, our community was all spread out. We lived 20 minutes away from where we went to church, and 30 minutes away from where I coached basketball, and our friends were usually at least 25 minutes away from us at any given time.

Many times while living in Colorado, I imagined a perfect world where all of our friends lived in the same neighborhood and worked in the same square mile. We all shared lawn mowers and  power tools, and we grilled and had drinks together every night of the week. I still fantasize about that sometimes.

Since we moved to Bardstown, we unfortunately have the same challenge we did in Colorado; our friends are scattered all over. Some are in Bardstown, some are 25 minutes away at the winery, some are over an hour away in Indiana. Being involved in a community is not so easy when the community lives and gathers all over the place.

I'm thinking a lot about this, and I've been writing a lot about it. I have 3 or 4 blogs to publish with all kinds theories, judgmental statements, and stereotypes just for you. Well, hopefully it won't be too bad, but I will try to keep it exciting!