as a total tangent- when did the whole "playdates" thing arise? 'cause me and my sibz did definitely not have them, and I assumed it was a later generational thing, but i'm pretty sure tavs is my age or older.

What I could not relate to what the author's decision not to climb with her husband. For me, Josh is the best climbing partner that I've ever had and I'm not willing to give that up! I don't intend to die climbing, with or without my husband.

We climb together mostly. Sometimes he takes her for the weekend so that I can get out and climb and vice versa. It's fair and balanced.

Maybe by means of refusing to climb with her spouse any longer, the author inadvertently took on more of the parental responsibilities. That sets her up for the 'motherhood being incompatible with climbing' scenario. It's self-imposed. But as long as she is happy with her life, that is what matters.

First, is people don't generally socialize with their neighbors as much, so you don't have that level of comfort letting your kids lose to just roam the neighborhood and find activity. Too much "stranger danger" drilled into everyone, parents feel a need to hover.

Second, since parents aren't as social with neighbors, they too crave social interaction with other adults. But since they don't know their neighbors, they have to schedule it in between gymnastics and homework

as a total tangent- when did the whole "playdates" thing arise? 'cause me and my sibz did definitely not have them, and I assumed it was a later generational thing, but i'm pretty sure tavs is my age or older.

i mean, i had three siblings, and we went to church 2-3 times a week, so maybe playdates are for kids who don't have an extra-school structure in place for social stuff? or is it supposed to be in addition? (my husband and i were actually talking about the social void relative to our own childhoods that no church would mean for hypothetical children).

but yeah, playdates- what it is?

If people she polled felt that way, you cannot really argue with it, can you?

Lena said
some sweeping generalizations going on and i've climbed with Chad, Rob, Josh, Jay, and other dads who have either had to bail, had to cut time short, had to schedule climbing around their kids.

[...And statistically-speaking, no question at all, women take the bigger hit...

...It is simply a snapshot of how things are.

There's an article in Climbing...

"...Climbing and motherhood are pretty much incompatible,... if your life's goal ... is to climb as much as possible, you probably shouldn't become a mom..."

Ouch. Harsh.

Now, I'm not a mom...

It pisses me off that you would never see an article like this written by a man .... Why do women allow themselves to get sucked into this stupid guilt game... ?

Anyway, any thoughts?...

Well, her reasons for not climbing with her spouse "so if something happens the kids would have at least one parent left" seemed more than slightly ridiculous to me. But I do know people who for this reason refuse to fly together. Crazy, if you ask me (they do drive together, after all...), but people feel that way sometimes.

However, my husband and I have also made a decision that resulted in us not climbing together most of the time. In the hindsight-- bad decision. But this is how it unfolded:

Imagine that you didn't have the biological Mom taking D. every other weekend and leaving you and Josh free to climb together, and D. was still young-- and had a sibling, compounding all issues of childcare. This is our situation. We do not have family nearly, the kids are not old enough to be left alone overnight, and we cannot afford to hire a baby-sitter for the whole weekend.

In our situation, going climbing together means going climbing with kids. The closest climbing destination is 5.5 hours away. Or rather, it is 5.5 hous away IF you are driving without young kids. Driving with kids adds at least an hour to that time, under the best circumstances.

We DO do it occasionally-- but it is tiring for the kids. They enjoy camping and hiking, but climbing isn't their thing, so they aren't super-excited about the trip to begin with. Getting back home late at night on Sunday, spending 12-13 hours in the car over the weekend... it is something you could do once in a while, in summer, when there are no school schedules to keep in mind, or maybe when there is a long weekend...

So we came up with a "perfect" solution-- Go climbing together once a month or so, and in the meantime, alternate weekends... Fair and equal. Except when you do it that way, the person who is left behind ends up with a double-whammy of work to do, and you spend very little time with your spouse, and have a lot less "family time", both parents and kids, doing something all together...

Can't see how baby would stop you climbing.

I've had great ideas from others on that, e.g. play pen for child while you boulder, single pitch etc..

Where there's a will, there's a way I say.

It is a very weird thing of modern-day parenthood.

No, we didn't have playdates when we were kids either. Anytime we wanted to play, all we had to do is walk outside and there would be someone there. Or at most, go knock on the neighbor's door and ask if the kid who lived there could come out to play.

In these times, the cities are more spread-out, and people move more often, and they aren't home during the day, they get home late after work, pull into their attached garage, and close the door, so the contact with neighbors is not so great. A lot of times people just don't know each other.

So when a child wants to play, especially if he/she wants to play with a specific person-- let's say a classmate-- the chances are the classmate in question lives across town, and the kids can't just get together at a drop of a hat, b/c someone has to drive them there.

And even if the kids live relatively close, the parents have to arrange the day and time for them to meet, taking into account all the other things on the schedule:"Oh, no, Vivi has soccer on Saturday afternoon, and no, Sunday she has Sunday school until 2, and then she has her piano lesson. How about Saturday morning? oh, your daughter has gymnastics then? oh, let's see... can we do it after her gymnastics, but before Vivi's soccer, for couple hours?"

When the two kids finally meet to play, it is called a playdate... sad, isn't it?

ok, so my hypothesis that we didn't do it cause mom got adult time at church 2-3 times a week and we got social interaction seems to be holding.

(snickers) please, let me know how that works out for ya.


just please don't park your wailing kid at the bottom of the route I"m on. Nothing grates more on another Mom's nerves, than the sound of someone else's baby crying. It sets up this instinctive reaction to help, but its someon'e else's baby, so you can't really intervene, but you want to make it stop... ahhh! nothing makes me feel more helpless!

Congratulations if you are expecting; I haven't been logging on recently and wasn't aware!

Well it's what others do and have done and one suggested it to me but I like the kiddie crib idea better ;)

I can't stand wailers either, that's what a dummy's for anyway
Just kidding.

Thanks for the congrats. Sounds like you did a fine job with yours.. but your climbing suffered right?

Anyway, any thoughts? Especially from climbing dads and climbing moms...

Great expectation!

Yes, of course, when the note says "parents coordinate" that means theoretically parents of both genders. However, if you did a poll of the parents in my kids' classroom, or did a poll of parents I work with, and asked them what notes came home from school in the past couple weeks, I can guarantee you that Moms will tell you exactly what those notes said, and describe how they are planning to deal with it, and most Dads would say:"Huh? what note? there is a birthday celebration at school? which project is due? Nobody told me!"


A somewhat comical example from couple of weeks ago.

K. called me on Wednesday, frantic b/c Daniel didn't come home from school. He called the after-care, and Daniel wasn't there, either, so he needed someone (that would be me) to tell him what to do next.

Meanwhile, on the board right above the kitchen table there was a BIG bright-neon-pink sign that said in large black letters: GREENHOUSE CLUB DATES. Yes, that Wednesday was listed right there on that neon-pink sheet.

Did K. know that Daniel was participating in Greenhouse club? Theoretically he should have known.
--When the description of the clubs came home in the fall, he saw it.
--When Daniel signed up for it, there was a discussion which club he wanted to choose, complete with the discussion about the late bus, the time the late bus showed up, etc..
--When the schedule of club meeting dates came home, he saw it, too, theoretically. And then the Schedule went up on a board in a very visible place in the kitchen, so we would all remember it.
--This being a regular event, there have been multiple meetings (always on Wednesdays) before now.
--Moreover, on the very morning of the day he panicked b/c his child was missing, he was right there at the table during breakfast, when I had reminded Daniel that he had a greenhouse club after school, reminded him of the time the late bus left the school, and asked him to check that he still had his home key in his backpack.

Nothing wrong with my husband's brain. he will tell you exactly when he climbed his first 5.12, after how many tries, and what the crux sequence was. He is also very good at trivia games...

People remember things that they find important... concluision?

we just didn't do the activity kaleidoscope, and my mom didn't rip chunks out of her workday to drive us around. and so it's hard for me to imagine how i'll deal with it with my own hypothetical kids, because we didn't do it when i was a kid.

Daniel should climb more 5.12's on Wednesdays?

well now I want cupcakes again.

well now I want cupcakes again.