Do your parents have friends? What kind?

October 29, 2018 9:19 AM

This is sort of chatfilter but I'm asking because I'm worried about my parents and their possible lack of physical community as they advance in age. Do your parents have friendships? What do those look like? Are they friends with other couples, and of a similar age? Do they run in separate social circles to each other? If they don't maintain friendships, do they stay connected with the world in other ways?

My parents, who are in their mid-to-late 60s, have never really had a massive social life. (This is in contrast to my grandparents, who maintained serious social ties and close friendships with a tight group of other couples up until their deaths.) My dad has a small group of guys that he hangs out with about once a month, but my mom does not socialise outside of the house, maintaining most of her friendships online. My dad still works, my mom operates a business from their small farm.

So they do maintain ties with people, but I'm worried that as they age, a lack of physical contact with other people will start making life difficult for them. But maybe this is on the spectrum of normal? They are not remotely religious, so getting involved in a faith community is not either of their bags. I'm across an ocean from them and keenly feeling the distance right now. I should probably stop making this my problem, right? What's normal or healthy for friendships as you age?

posted by catch as catch can to Human Relations (22 answers total)

My parents are in their 70s. They write occasional emails with people from the state they used to live in. They are friendly, but not friends, with their condo building staff and waiters at their favorite restaurants and their cleaning woman and their employees.

It's about as much friendship as they ever had when I was growing up, and I think they'd both be miserable trying to join community groups or something like that. I don't consider it my business to nudge them to make friends. (partly because that would make me a hypocrite.)

Giant caveat here though, is that they can afford to hire and pay well for whatever help they need, that a local community might fill for someone else. Some elderly relatives on another side of the family rely heavily on the kindness of neighbors, and they would be in difficult straits without those community ties.
posted by Stacey at 9:29 AM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

You don't feel different about friendships in your 60s than you did in your 40s. Things in your life change over time (ie you're not going to be friends with the parents of your kids' friends) but your comfort level with and need for sociability is exactly the same as it always was.
My advice: get the phone number for your parents' neighbors in case of an emergency, and then trust your parents to develop or maintain the friendships they need and want.
posted by nantucket at 9:38 AM on October 29, 2018 [8 favorites]

My grandmother, who is 96, does not have many of her friends still living, but she is in multiple-times-daily contact with her sister (they sometimes live a block apart and sometimes not, depending on the season) and spends summers in a retirement community in Florida where she has activity partners, neighbors she is friendly with (and who check up on her) and organized group activities so she can have some low-intensity social contact. I think it is incredibly good for her.

My parents are still living where I grew up and my mom has many local friends, although I do wonder if they'll start to move away/retire down south/pass on and how she'll handle that. They're both still working, though, and that's a big chunk of their social time - mom's a therapist and dad does a variety of things, all people-centric (substitute teaching, driving for Uber of all things.) Dad doesn't have many close friends of his own, but gets along genially with all my mom's friends' husbands. He's an extrovert and seems pretty happy with large numbers of casual acquaintances.

As for online friendships, one of the communities I ran a while back had a plurality of members who were more or less homebound for a number of reasons (age or disability, mostly) and they had active, thriving social lives online. I can't swear to all of their happiness but they were certainly valued members of the community and seemed content.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:43 AM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would imagine that their pattern of making and maintaining friendships( a sense of a personal community) will not change. I think the observation re finances is important--while money can not buy friends it can buy services. I am in my late seventies and have always had close friendships (which I now maintain in two countries as my time is split). However, While I clearly depend on friends for support and stimulation I am fortunate enough to not be dependent on them for supportive services or assistance ( except the occasional favour). However, they are invaluable for the experiences, advice (when requested), knowledge of resources and most important--the shared intimacy, activities and humour.
posted by rmhsinc at 9:47 AM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is not something you can fix for your parents especially if you are living so far away. People of any age go through periods where we may be more or less social. After my dad died I was really worried about my mom finding community and I even researched groups in her town - she didn't take me up on it and I got even more worried, only to find that she did find her groups in her own time. Focus on your own relationship with your parents, unless they are telling you that they need more social life and are asking for your help.
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 9:47 AM on October 29, 2018

My parents are 71. Their only friends are people they went to high school with, whom they see once a month or so. I find it bizarre, but they have each other and my mom has sisters, and they weren't any more social when I was a kid I don't think, so whatever.
posted by metasarah at 9:58 AM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Into their sixties, my parents mostly hung out together (and traveled a lot). They had close family ties and connections with old friends and would make annual visits back to the state where they grew up to see everyone. Here in town, they spent a lot of time with my brother's kids and with me.

Dad went to one of the military academies and most of his friends here locally were fellow graduates -- he started a breakfast group for them and he'd see some of his closer academy friends more often, usually for lunch. Those retired military guys love lunch! My mom was always friendly with neighbors and had lots of friends who lived in distant places that she'd known from years before or more recently from their frequent road trips. Lots of Christmas card friends. Monthly group lunches with the neighbor ladies. My folks stopped going to church years ago, but they were never anything closer than neighborly with more than a few of the church couples, and we'd lost touch with most of them geographically anyway.

After my dad died five years ago, my mom solidified a circle of friends. She kept the distant friends, but she made more friends in town -- a good neighbor, and the wife of one of my dad's academy classmates, and this awesome ex-judge she met while waiting at the mechanic. She'll see each one about once a month and they spend hours and hours talking. It's pretty great. Several of my dad's friends and their wives check in on her regularly (which is awesome -- the academy culture is very tight knit).

Mostly now she spends a ton of time with her kids and grandkids. My brother and I are both disabled now so she helps us out a lot, and we all live here in town. She's pretty independent and happy spending time with herself, though, and she loves traveling solo. She's established a pretty great balance for herself in my dad's absence.
posted by mochapickle at 10:08 AM on October 29, 2018

One change that's happened as my parents have gotten older is that they have gotten tired of socializing that takes work, e.g. hosting dinner parties, helping friends with household projects, book club. They'll go out to dinner with people when budget allows. What that leaves them with is meeting up for coffee in casual groups or attending the town meeting or local wine tasting. That seems to work well for casual contact but not deep relationships.
posted by xo at 10:22 AM on October 29, 2018

My parents each have their own friends and they have couple friends and they have all sorts of overlap, they are so disgustingly healthy it makes me sick.
posted by Cosine at 10:27 AM on October 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

My mother passed recently. She had a large number of friends. She was a regular at a local coffee shop, there every morning for her cappuccino & made a lot of friends there over the 30+ year she lived in her smallish community (30K people). She had friends her own age from weekly card games & younger friends she'd made from waitresses she befriended at the coffee shop that worked there before school in the morning that she literally was a fill in Grandmother for going to the weddings, baby showers etc. And all sorts in between. Her funeral was very well attended.

My mother how ever was a social person that worked at friendships & liked having lots of friends. Not everyone wants or needs a lot of friends. If your parents have never had a huge social life, the lack of one now is probably by choice. The best way for them is to attend somewhere regularly. Which is pretty much how a faith based group works for friend making, you go every Sunday or whatever & see the same people over & over. Maybe encourage them to go to some sort of hobby meet up, or classes even.
posted by wwax at 10:33 AM on October 29, 2018

My mom (70) is currently dying from a very aggressive and fast-moving form of cancer. She’s an extrovert and has/had a large and dynamic group of friends from work/hobbies/church/her past. When she was diagnosed earlier this year, she told my sister and I that maintaining her social networks was a top priority as she got closer to dying. She’s a narcissist and so I don’t understand a lot of her relationships with people but I’m absolutely certain that the happiness she got from those friendships helped initially to prolong her life. Now that her mind is going we’ve had to move her away from the city she lived in and restrict her phone access. The cancer has progressed enough that I don’t know the full effect of losing her social networks, but I know that having friends visiting/calling/texting all the time provided a kind of succor that her family couldn’t.
posted by not_the_water at 10:38 AM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

My family sounds so much like yours I actually wondered for a moment if you were my sister, until you got to the bit about the farm and the online friends!

That said -- I'm not terribly worried, and I think I'd just make sure that your parents are both basically happy. My mother hangs out with her boyfriend (who is a toolbag, but whatever) and has a few casual friends, but generally doesn't approve of 99% of the human race, so making friends has always been, er, difficult. (Her mother was the super-sociable one in the family!) She doesn't seem particularly lonely, although she was deeply unhappy when I moved across country. She seems pretty perky now, though, and I think is just a bit of a loner, even if she wasn't Judgey McJudgerson. My dad is similar -- he's got his golf buddies and the bartender at his usual spot, and is clearly blissfully happy in his life. As others have said, I reckon they know what they like, and they're both basically happy with their low numbers of friends and quiet lives.

Also as others have said -- I'm very lucky in that both of my parents are very well off, so I'm not worried about them needing community support for anything, really. I think I'd be a little more concerned if they couldn't afford to hire people for simple repairs or, later, healthcare or transportation, but as it is, they can pay for such things.

I have lots of feelings about how my parents interact with the world that are beyond the scope of this question, but I guess I just want to reassure you -- this is okay. As long as your parents are okay, having a small social circle won't inherently hurt them.
posted by kalimac at 10:57 AM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

My parents, in their late 60s, have a few groups of pretty close friends that were mostly formed when they were first having kids, around 40 years ago, and they were all friends from where my dad or mom worked at the time. When we were all younger, we'd go on winter trips together, so they've bonded over family events in years past. Now they have outtings with these friends one or more times per month, it seems, and usually celebrate birthdays every year.

My parents have also made some friends through their church, but those seem to be less strong bonds than the long-term family group, but maybe that's a perception bias on my behalf, as I understand their friendships through what they tell me, which is more often about outtings and events with the family friends I also know well.

They are also on good terms with some of their long-term neighbors, and will look after each-other's houses when they go away for any period of time.

My parents-in-law moved a lot, so they don't have a local friend-base, but they know their neighbors well enough that people comment to me or my wife when we're checking in on the house and they're out of town to make sure all is OK. Still, they have a pretty good number of friends and family members who have come to visit, and they have social hobby groups in the area.


I should probably stop making this my problem, right?

Generally, I'd say yes. I agree with nantucket's advice: get the phone number for your parents' neighbors in case of an emergency, and then trust your parents to develop or maintain the friendships they need and want.

Beyond that, you could nudge them to getting active with local groups or at least go out to social events, if you think they're getting a bit too solitary. If they have free or idle time, ask them if they'd thought of joining any social clubs, or taking classes. My parents go to local theatrical productions with their family friends, which I think is even more social than going to a movie, even if you're only going as a couple.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:01 AM on October 29, 2018

My parents, who are in their 70s, have a wide circle of friends and a very busy calendar.

Your parents, on the other hand, sound like me and my wife.
posted by JamesBay at 12:08 PM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

My parents had extremely large social networks. They were immigrants and didn't have any family here so they made close friends with people who are now in effect our extended family. When my father passed away 20 years ago it meant that my mother had a large support network of people she could turn to for emotional support. And that they'd be able to reminisce about their 20-30 years of shared history together.

My mom is in her 80s now and she still maintains her networks of friends and also spends a lot of time volunteering for social organizations, and in this way she makes new friends. Because many of her friends are of similar ages there isn't a week that goes by where she doesn't receive a call that someone has passed away. Even still, having all of these friends is a definite boon for my mom because it gets her out of the house and helps keep her active and sharp. I'm not sure what would happen to her if she was at home all day but I doubt it would be anything good.

In comparison to my parents, my wife and I are shut-ins (me: busy career, wife: just started grad school, both: small kids) although we still have busier social lives than the people we hang out with.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:23 PM on October 29, 2018

My mom, who is in her 70s, always claims to have no friends and then also that she has to run because she's hosting a dinner party. Her friends include people from all periods of her life: former co-workers and students, childhood friends of hers, the parents of my friends, relatives, former neighbors, and former babysitters of mine. Her having lived in the same city for ~40 years has really helped her maintain friendships, I think. She also has 9 grandchildren who live within a ~3 hour travel distance so they are also a pretty big part of her social life.
posted by phoenixy at 12:44 PM on October 29, 2018

My parents, both around 80, have a huge social network based around their church. They're still in touch with school friends. They visit all the kids except us ('cos we live on the other side of the world). They know their neighbours. Dad golfs three days a week, often in a community random fours games where you're expected to play with different folks as much as possible. They know the folks at the timeshare they go to every year. They have dinner with my Aunt a couple of times a month, and spent a week at the timeshare with her.

I really don't know how they fit it all in, tbh. They tried social media once and quit after a day: no time, and too weird.
posted by scruss at 12:47 PM on October 29, 2018

Unless you think there is some depression at play here, your parents are probably getting the level of social connection that works for them - your mother virtually and your father at work. When your father retires there may be a window to encourage them to develop some new options. In the meanwhile, even if the situation is suboptimal, there really isn't anything you can do.

Except -
You mention that you, yourself, are feeling the distance. It might be worth thinking about what you do to address that - how often do you connect? can you generate more points of common interest to talk about with them? can you include them more in your life in ways that don't feel intrusive to you? See what you can to do to shift from worry to action and connection.
posted by metahawk at 1:05 PM on October 29, 2018

I should probably stop making this my problem, right?
Yes. I speak from long experience.

What's normal or healthy for friendships as you age?
The same things that make them normal and healthy at any age. Sounds glib, but it's true. As long as they aren't being scammed in some way, if they enjoy and find fulfillment in the way they conduct their social lives, it's fine. But even if they are desperately lonely but are resistant to changing their habits to be more social, unfortunately you have to just accept that. It's not within your responsibility or capability to change them (See above, times ten).

Anecdata, as requested: My mom is in her early 70s, used to be quite social but has not made many new friends since moving away from the town I grew up in. Lately, after having sold her house and moved into a smaller condo she has more disposable income so she's been on a few trips with friends (mostly old high school pals), which she enjoys a lot. She used to say she was really lonely (here's where that 'long experience' comes in to play) but then a couple years ago she made friends with a neighbor and they call or text every day, so I don't have to worry that she'll get hurt or need help and no one will notice. Her sister lives in the same town and they spend time together about once a month. I live many hours away by car so I visit every month or so, and we text maybe once a week.
posted by ananci at 2:50 PM on October 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

My parents have roughly the same amount of friends as they’ve always had. My dad, in his 80s, is a recluse; he has a cousin or two he calls a few times a year, and he is friendly with neighbors and people at the grocery store, but I wouldn’t call them “friends.” It is an immensely unhealthy way to live, but he has lifelong untreated mental illness issues. My mom, in her 60s, is an extrovert, and becomes fast friends with really anyone within arm’s reach—her personal trainer, a coworker she’s known for 20 years, people from church. She has an especially close bond with my brother (her son). I am grateful that my mom has stuck by my dad’s side, otherwise he’d be totally alone. FWIW it sounds like your folk’s lifestyle is in the range of normal/healthy.
posted by shalom at 3:44 PM on October 29, 2018

Interesting question. I am in my 50s and thought of it as I imagine my kids, in their early 20s would answer about me. My kids tease me that I could talk to anyone, and do. They still talk about the time I had a 5 minute conversation with the toll taker on the Garden State Parkway.

I think there are many levels of friends and friendships. I also think socializing is a different category from friends or friendship. My circle of friends is wide. I go to a concert at Madison Square Garden and I will run into probably 3 or 4 people I stop to say hello to. That is another thing my kids are always amazed by. How do you know that guy? they are always asking me.

I have friends with whom I socialize, I have holiday card friends, and I have a small group of friends from several points in my life that I don't talk to a lot, but I KNOW I can count on in a pinch or I could confide in them and it would be like we have been in close touch for the last 30 years. I have friends with whom I went to nursery school some 50+ years ago.

There are also people with whom I have a shared experience or a shared life situation that I will always have a bond. I only talk to a few of my fraternity brothers, but I can tell you that the 15 other pledges that went through hell week with me (and lived with that damn goat) will always have my back as I will have theirs. Maybe a better example are the two guys who got arrested (detained is probably a better word) with me at a Grateful Dead concert in Hampton, VA. but I digress.

My mother's husband, a great man, died about two years ago. She spent the few years before that really caring for him so her social life was pretty slim. She is in an assisted living place now. She went out when I was young and she was still married to my father, as couples every Saturday night. She had a book club and a tennis group and work friends. Very social and very active. Now, she sits at home reading books, lots of books and listening to the TV way too loudly. I specifically asked her about it. Was she lonely. She said she misses her husband terribly, but is very content to read, watch tv and play solitaire on her computer. She has breakfast every day with one set of people and her lunch table has another. She sees them every day and was so happy she could introduce me and my brothers to them, but that is the extent of what she wants.

I tell all this because I don't think my kids know of all my friends or how I interact with them all. Maybe you do know, but there is the chance that while it may appear that your parents do not have close friends they see often, maybe they exchange letters with people or meet people for breakfast or have relationships that meet their needs. Maybe they are lonely. Regardless, I am pretty sure that there is nothing you can say or do to get them to change at this point.

Rather than worry about it, ask them. Ask them if they are lonely or want more in person interactions. If they are and they do, then help them. If they say they are happy, take them at their word. We all have our own preferences when it comes to people.
posted by AugustWest at 5:50 PM on October 29, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks for weighing in, everyone! I knew my anxiety brain was taking over even as I wrote this, but nonetheless, it was very interesting to hear how your parents all do social ties.
posted by catch as catch can at 10:09 AM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]