This is Room #6 in my Social Anxiety At Home series. If you are new around here, you might refer back to the intro post, where you can also find links to the individual rooms as they become live.
While not inside our house, the yard is still a part of our home. We specifically bought this house because it has a big back yard and we wanted our kids and dogs to have lots of room to play. However, we live in Texas, so there are only a few days of the year when it’s actually pleasant enough to spend much time in it, which makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong as a mom because my kids don’t spend endless hours playing outside in the yard we have decked out with a trampoline, basketball hoop, garden, and monkey bars.
How does it play into my social anxiety, you ask? Good question. My husband has always wanted to be the type of family that has other families over for a backyard barbecue. And in theory, I would love it too. He loves to grill and even built a fire pit in the back yard for evenings by the fire. When the kids were very little, we had large gatherings of mostly family over to our house for their birthday the first three years. At that point, our yard was still pretty “new” and shiny. The previous owners had gone all out with landscaping. Trees, bushes, and flowers created a beautiful backdrop for the little cousins to play in the inflatable pool we bought each year. But the kids are bigger now and less satisfied with a tiny kiddy pool. To beat the heat, they will sometimes turn the sprinkler on under the trampoline, but that only holds a few kids at a time.
We also are not very good at keeping our yard, so the trees, bushes, and flowers are not all that picturesque anymore. And then there’s the dead vegetable garden my daughter wanted to plant last year but never remembered to water. And the miles of dog poop we tell the kids to clean up, but conveniently gets forgotten week after week.
Last month I came up with the brilliant idea that we should invite some of the kids’ friends over on the last day of school to have an end of elementary school celebration in our backyard. At the time, it sounded like a great idea. I should have known better. Soon after proposing the idea to the kids, my brain started the what if cycle. What if the parents decide to stay too? What would I say to them? What if they notice what a failure we are at keeping up with yard work? What if the kids get bored because there’s not enough for them to do? What if we can’t figure out what to feed everyone, since two of their friends are vegetarian and two have nut allergies?
Needless to say, the kids were excited about the idea of inviting friends, but I was suddenly dreading it. I gave them the ultimatum that we couldn’t invite anyone unless they had their rooms clean two weeks beforehand and kept them that way. I thought for sure they wouldn’t get it done (their rooms were bad!). I was wrong. They both got their rooms done just in time. So I had to think of something else. I had to find a way to back out of the idea that I had proposed.
I had learned about a nearby restaurant that sits on fourteen acres and boasts of being a gathering place for families. Along with food and beverage and live music (on weekends), they also have a large porch with picnic tables looking out over a giant play area. There are ping pong tables, corn hole, a baseball diamond, soccer field, tire swings, and even a treehouse. Kids can run around while adults sit and talk for as long as they like. I decided this was the perfect solution. The kids can feel free to invite as many people as they want and any family that wants can meet us after school (it’s a half day) for lunch and a “final recess.” The kids can play and the adults can get to know each other so that maybe the families can get together more over the summer. Thankfully, the kids agreed to this idea. Because I was starting to freak out a little at the idea of trying to entertain people in our yard.
My anxiety is what shapes how our family interacts with others. I’m the main reason my kids don’t have friends that hang out at our house. I always thought I wanted to be the house that every kid came to and felt at home. But we don’t have people over very often at all. Because of me and my anxiety. My anxiety is why my kids don’t see their friends on the weekends or in the summer unless I’m also friends with their moms. I have a hard time feeling comfortable with reaching out. My son will ask me to call his friend’s mom and see if he can come over, but that feels very wrong and intrusive to me, so I never will at the last minute. I might do it a week out. But that’s not always easy either.
This wouldn’t be the case if my kids went to the school we are zoned for. But when they started kindergarten, I was working as the librarian at an elementary school across town. So they came with me. None of their friends live down the street or in our neighborhood. They are all a fifteen minute car ride away. I wish my kids could just ride their bikes down the street and hang out with a friend. Then I wouldn’t have to be involved in the interaction at all beyond knowing where they are. As it is, they get to see the friends that I feel comfortable with their parents. Which isn’t that many, sadly.
I remember when I was growing up we had other families that would come and hang out in our back yard to swim and play fairly regularly. The moms were friends, the dads were friends, and all the kids got along great. I know my husband wants those kinds of friends. I do too. But the problem is, the moms I feel comfortable with are not married the dads he’s friends with. And the dads he’s friends with are not married to moms I’m friends with. So inevitably one of us feels awkward. Though he’s much more likely to agree to inviting my friends over than the other way around. I don’t think that was always the case. When the kids were very young, we had his friends over several times and I got along fine with everyone. I was even invited out when he was unavailable. I’m not sure what changed.
Why is it so hard to have couple friends at this stage in our lives? And why is it that when I initially think of having people over I love the idea, but as it gets closer the anxiety takes over?
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