I noticed that, too, but I think we may have run Dio right out of this thread.
Congrats!
Back when most of us were single or childfree, we started a “girls only” bookclub. We’ve been getting together once a month - no men, no children who are not nursing - for sixteen years. Sometimes we get together at other times. There is no pretense that our husbands need to see each other, or that our kids need to play together - although a few times a year we’ll do that. Most, but not all are married with children, some married no kids, and a few are single.
There are about fifteen of us. Some months four will show up, some months fifteen. Sometimes someone won’t show up for a year or two, and then start coming again. Infrequently, we will add someone new.
This is the attitude that makes people wonder how those of us without children can have meaning in our lives. Because when their children move out on their own, suddenly their lives are all about living for work.
Its because we actually do other things (outside of work) that have created that meaning. We don’t live meaningless lives, we worked to find ways to express ourselves meaningfully, through our own personal interests.
Children don’t live forever and there is no guarantee that they will outlive you. If you want a meaningful life, you have to create it from the things that interest you.
So, basically you are saying ‘how dare you say we have no meaning. You guys are the ones with no meaning.’
I believe this is the definition of hypocrisy, no?
I’m also 57 (for at least the next month and a half). As has been discussed elsewhere on SDMB several times, it’s almost impossible to make new friends beyond a certain age. I’m not whingeing about it but just trying to point out that living solely for one’s family has a downside later on.
I disagree with that conclusion. My parents are 67 and just moved to the area. They’ve joined a social club for people who just moved here, my mom signed up for art classes, they became members of the local art gallery, my dad joined a woodworking club, etc. They’ve been here a year and have made a lot of new friends.
I think it takes effort and maybe extending beyond your comfort zone, but it’s certainly not impossible. (I’m not trying to push you into doing either of those things, but just pointing out that new friends and interests can be developed at any age.)
I’m sorry anyone read it that way - it was not what I was trying to convey in any sense. I guess I lost track of what forum I was in, this is the pit which is the place for arguments, and that was not what I wanted to do in this thread.
I felt bad for jabiru feeling like his/her life has no meaning outside of work now that the kids are gone, and was trying to be encouraging about creating meaning with your own interests. That’s the only meaning I have in my life. And there are sometimes days when I feel like life has no meaning other than work, but its only that way because I let it be that way. That’s where jabiru is, IMHO. He/she has to make his/her own life now, and that’s after a lot of years of not being in that practice.
Sorry for expressing MPSIMS thoughts in the wrong forum.
I don’t think that at all. I have single, childless (?childfree) colleagues whose lives I envy. I do NOT wish I’d never had children but I know that if I’d stayed single myself, I’d have managed to retain the friends and interests I had. Instead, I took the line of least resistance when the boys were young and friends/interests fell by the wayside.
My nearly 70-year-old grandmother recently lost her husband. When they were married, she spent every waking moment taking care of him and his health problems. Since his death, she’s resumed oil painting, started going out line dancing, and recently started taking boxing lessons. It is never too late to find yourself again.
Too late, no. Hard to get back into? For some folks, I can see where it’d be hard as hell. I know I haven’t made any new close friends outside work since college.
Yes it’s hard. I’m a very introverted person and find it hard to make friends at 28 years old. But the opportunities are there. It’s just a matter of learning to push beyond my comfort zone. I sympathize with the challenge but I also would hate for someone to feel so discouraged about their future that they feel their life has no meaning. With little steps we can build a life worth living.
Friends? Your friends?.. If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week… …then you could see what it is, friends!
Someone said something to me the other day – “The sole evolved purpose of a human father is to not eat your children.”
Only book that ever made me weep.
(What are Dio and Olives talking about?)
Maus
From googling, Maus. I didn’t know that before I googled though which is a little depressing considering I just read that book in May…
As mentioned above, Maus.
There’s no situation so bad you can’t add the Holocaust and make it even worse.
No, this is abuse. Arguments are down the hall.
We’re going to stop here - 299 posts? We can’t come up with that final push to get it over the lip, into Page Seven? I’m so disappointed. 