when you were a kid

[low-key]

did you ever go to anyome sles esles house. Or not not. nope my dad hateded people and so do i

 

[mylilnikita]

You feeling ok low key?

 

[Kittyblue]

You mean like the whole family go to visit? When my parents were together they had one set of friends they'd get together with when I was a kid. They didn't have any kids so it was pretty boring.

 

[low-key]

You feeling ok low key?

jusy having thanks giving with another family, im fine thanks for asking

 

[ronandannette]

Yep. Visiting (either going to someone else's house or them coming to ours) was the main form of socializing where I was raised, especially in the winter when the evenings were long and there was less work to do around the farms.

It would happen several evenings a week and more often during the day anybody driving by anybody else's place would stop in for coffee. All of this was without formal invitation - that was unheard of. In my current lifestyle I would never dream of going to someone's house without an invitation and I die a little on those rare occasions anybody just pops in on us.

 

[E&Cmom]

Yes, we had several family friends we would visit.

 

[antmaril]

Oh yes - every Sunday afternoon growing up. We would either visit one of my aunt/uncle’s or they would visit us. My father had seven siblings.

 

[Meriweather]

yes....my parents had a lot of friends. We went to their homes and they came to ours.
My mother's brother and sister lived fairly close, so all holidays and lots of summer weekends were spent with them.

 

[holden]

We went to lots of other people’s houses. One of my parents’ friends had a pet alligator in her bathtub. I can remember another who had an indoor pool. Lots of parties, bbqs, socializing in my childhood.

 

[Frozen Canuck]

Yep. Visiting (either going to someone else's house or them coming to ours) was the main form of socializing where I was raised, especially in the winter when the evenings were long and there was less work to do around the farms.

We did this too...every Friday and Saturday night, the parents would get together at one family's home or another. The kids would play together, the parents would chat or play cards, snacks would be served, and oftentimes things rolled into the early morning hours with the kids passed out on the couches. I greatly miss those days. Our family/friend dynamic is no longer set up like that anymore.

That was the general family socializing we did, however if you are talking any kind of get together including sleepovers...

I grew up on a farm outside of a small city that was surrounded by farms for miles in every direction. Farm kids who lived within a half hour radius of the city were all bussed to school in the city--a special school just for the farm kids, since they didn't have a specific city area school to attend. Anyway, that could pose some interesting problems when your best friend lived half an hour drive on one side of the city and you lived half an hour the other direction. It was SUPER COMMON for kids to arrange sleepovers, where you would pack your weekender bag Friday morning, take your bus to school, but then after school, hop on your friend's school bus and go to their place for the ENTIRE WEEKEND. On Monday morning, you would get on their bus (their parent would make your packed lunch), go to school, then take your bus home again Monday evening. Lots of times, parents wouldn't even know the people that their kids were going to stay with, and we were doing this from mid-elementary school onward. Sometimes the whole thing was arranged with a note back and forth between parents in our lunch boxes, sometimes with a quick phone call, because back in those days, being more than 20 minutes from somewhere was long distance calling charges. Occasionally, I would come home and ask if I could go to a friend's place and it might be someone that my parents didn't know personally, but my dad might say, "Is that the Smiths that have the dairy farm south of town?" Oftentimes, my parents wouldn't even know what farm I was staying at, just a general nearby town location like "The Smiths from Farmville" or vice versa for kids that I brought home to our house.

Looking back now, it seems INSANE to me that we did this, but I guess it was a different era. I mean, we had phonebooks so you could look the family up and try to call them if something came up, but superficial details like phone numbers or land location numbers or whatever weren't really part of the equation.

As a sort of an off-shoot to this, one time I had a friend staying over at my place for the weekend. It was a person we knew well and she had been to our home multiple times, but this one time, she got homesick. My mom tried to phone her family (era of only landlines) to arrange to take her home. My mom called and called and called, but nobody ever answered until late Sunday. It turns out that the whole family decided to go on a trip to visit family, left their daughter at our place, did not notify my mom that they were going anywhere, and didn't leave a phone number they could be reached at!!! Normally, my mom would just roll with all of this stuff, but she was NOT HAPPY and was like, "What if something bad had happened???" This was unique in that most farmers don't leave home, so you always know how to track them down. This person's parents both had non-farm jobs.

 

[kdonnel]

I don't remember going to others houses often.

My house though was the hang out house. My daughter has always brought her friends over and they were always welcome. There were times we had 20 or more kids at our house.

It didn't stop until a couple years into college and then I think it really only stopped because Covid changed what people did.

We had 5-6 extra "kids" who lived in our house the summer between her freshman year and sophomore year of college. It was great getting to know them and interacting with everyone.

 

[luvnwdwgal]

My dad had 5 sisters and 1 brother who all lived fairly close and we would go visit them on the weekends and play with our cousins. When I was 6 we moved next door to my mom’s best friend too. In fact the four of them all met at the same time and just paired off.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

My parents played cards every week with a set of friends and they'd rotate houses. Sometimes we'd go and play with the other kids. Before my grandparents moved to the beach, after dinner every night my Mom would walk us to their house for a few hours. My aunt was usually there with my cousins, too. And we lived on a little street, so we were always in and out of each other's houses to play or borrow stuff for our Moms or whatever.

 

[superme80]

My grandparents socialized way more than my parents. We did have friends we saw regularly. but nothing weekly. Holidays were always for family. We alternated holidays so we got to see both sides of the family at least once a year.

 

[RogueX]

We went for part of the day to my aunts house where my mom's side of the family gathered. The food was gross, it was gourmet and as a kid, that was just not appealing. But the memory that sticks out the most was my evil grandmother telling me and my sisters that if we didn't eat what she gave us on our plates, we'd end up in the mince meat pie. When questioned about what that meant, her remark was that the meat was that of naughty children. I think she was only half joking knowing how she was.

 

[disykat]

Yep, holidays, my parent's monthly Bible study group, social gatherings - often "come for dessert" only, or a small platter of simple appetizers. The expectation for evening gatherings was that people had already eaten a meal. The parent's would be in the living room and kids would end up in a secondary living space, the bedrooms, or outside - depending on the house.

Now it seems like you can't have people over without the expectation of serving a meal. That makes it so complicated that now we mostly just do it on holidays. I miss the "we're having pie, why don't you stop over for a little while?" kind of gatherings.

 

[slo]

All the time - some of my best memories are from someone else’s house.

One of my favorite pictures of me and what I always considered a cousin at his family’s house. We were about 4 or 5 years old and in the 70s. His older sister must have married us 100 times - LOL! The good ol’ days before sitting in front of a screen all the time.

 

[Toolulu22]

We went to lots of other people’s houses. One of my parents’ friends had a pet alligator in her bathtub. I can remember another who had an indoor pool. Lots of parties, bbqs, socializing in my childhood.

This was my childhood, minus the alligator!

 

[anniemae]

as a kid, we always had people over. Relatives lived in the same neighborhood so they often came over for dinner. My friends seemed to hang out at our house too so I didn't go to other peoples houses too much, but sometimes friends would have me over. I am a total introvert so I don't like people over to my house. LOL!

 

[SandyinMonterey]

As a kid we would usually travel to grandparents for Thanksgiving. 350 plus miles one way. My parents were from the same small town in PA. My father was from a very large family. They would have Thanksgiving at the local fire hall. We'd also have to go to my mother's parents. Much smaller event there. I was through with turkey when it was all over.