A conversation with a friend

I have a good friend.

I have many good friends (well, maybe many is too much of a stretch), but today I am talking about a good friend that I met up with a few days ago. It was the first time I met with a friend properly to chat since my wife gave birth. My friend has two kids, I believe in high school and in junior high.

My friend said a few things that really stuck with me:

First, on saying that there’s a very good elementary school near my house, and it would be cool if my son could go there, she said that if that was really an intention of mine, then he would likely need to go to juku from the age of 2.

I (perhaps obviously) do not want to send my son to juku at the age of 2. I said this. I still have the arrogance to think that just being around a genius like myself would make my son smart enough to do anything, but I admit that this thought of mine may be silly. At the very least it is unrealized and abstract.

Second, she made a philosophical distinction between those who have kids and those who don’t, and how their worldview is different. She talked about the importance of having friends that also don’t have kids, and that I was one of those friends for her for over a decade. She said that in our hour-long conversation, we had not talked about more than kids, and that with people who don’t have kids, that doesn’t happen. You talk about interests and dreams and stuff, and not kids.

At first my only thought was that I only care about my wife and son, fuck everything else, but I see that that is a feeling very specific to my very current situation. Of course I want to continue to be friends with friends that don’t have kids, that is obvious, but I had not thought about the difference at all. I had not thought about myself until two weeks ago. Was I just trying to be polite to ask about people’s kids? I suppose the interest is different from now. It is true that I didn’t really care to see people’s baby photos, but would ask just because it was the nice thing to do. I am definitely on the other side of something now here. I am holding back showing baby photos with all my power. I don’t really think these feelings can be applied to anyone but myself though.

Anyways, lastly, we talked about screens and video games, and how my wife and I were going to do things differently. She said that most parents don’t go into raising their child thinking they’re going to let their iPad do all the heavy lifting, but then it works and you get peace, and all you want sometimes is some peace after being sleep deprived for years. For video games, I pondered when would be a good time to allow them to be played, and also brought up smart phones, and her main point was that nothing should have the kid feel left out at school. If their friends are playing games and have a smart phone, and they don’t, then they could be an outcast. It is better to teach how to use, as opposed to completely cut off. My initial reaction to this goes back to school, as why would I want to have my son in a place where if he doesn’t play Fortnite by age 7, he cannot relate to anyone? It also made me think about how much harder slippery slopes can be, and how leading by example would be a huge pain in the butt.

I consider my friend to be very smart in a non-show off-y way, and while I don’t know how much I agree with what she said, all of it has been something that I have been pondering the last few days since we met.

So there’s that to think about.