"family friends"

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

I was wondering, did any of you guys have "family friends" growing up? Did your parents have friends from college who ended up living in the same area and raising their kids in the same area? And as a result, do you feel like you grew up with those kids, almost as if you were cousins? I know I definitely had a pretty good sized network of these "family friends." I get to keep in touch with many of these kids that I grew up with. I know that many of my Asian friends have similar situations of family friends, but my Caucasian friends usually do not. What are your experiences in this area?

[Anonymous]

I remember growing up, my parents would always try to get me to hang out with their friends' kids, but since I moved, I kind of lost contact with most of them. I remember feeling very awkward and shy when our parents told us to go play with each other and expected us to be instant friends. However, I did make some very close friends this way. Since our parents interacted frequently, we got to see each other pretty regularly, which was an advantage.

[Anonymous]

when i was growing up in vietnam, i had "family friends" like those but ever since i moved i lost touch with them. those friends i had were actually my next door neighbors, and since my parents knew their parents pretty well, we got to hang out on a regular basis (like everyday). i don't have any "family friends" here but i can imagine that it'd be too weird simply because i'm older now and when you're older, you tend to be choosier and more selective with who you want to be friends with. or maybe that's just me.

[Anonymous]

Rancho Cucamonga. Not exactly Monterey Park, Diamond Bar, or any other "asian city", but there was a significant Chinese community. I went to Pomona Valley Chinese School where most of my classmates were from Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, or Claremont. I liked to dub our circle as the "asian circulation", because my peers and I would see each other often on Restaurant Row, the local malls, and at piano competitions. We would even play each other at tennis games during high school!
There is a sense of community, because of our shared interest and values that our small Chinese community brought together. Afternoon tea parties are common, where traditional Chinese snacks and hot tea are served, and the children would socialize while the parents talked.
To this day, a lot of us still keep in touch. And if not....... there is always the annual Chinese-American Games (a sort of track and field competition between all the Chinese Schools in Southern California), where the parents would gossip about who's child got in where & the young people would eye the other teams for goodlooking ladies and guys.
-Ames

[Anonymous]

When I was young I used to play with family friends' kids whenver they or we came over to visit, but it never developed into any major friendships or anything. I think my mom more emphasizes my socializing with family members that I might not meet all the time, like the children and grandchildren of her cousins or my grandma's cousins. It's harder to keep track of everyone when it's not ur immediate cousins because there's just so many! :} but i still think it's important to keep in contact with everyone even if just for the fact that they're your family and you should get to know them 😛 [Edit by="ctran on Jun 5, 5:29:12 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

my parents both only had one other sibling other from themselves, and those siblings all live in different areas from us, so growing up, my parents' close friends were like my aunts and uncles, while their kids were like cousins to me. My dad met his close friends during his time in the army, and when they fled to the U.S., they resided together and became almost like brothers. They all had kids around the same time, so i grew up with many "family friends'" kids, seeing them as one of my cousins. When i think back, i'm glad we have so many family friends because we all shared some fun times together.

[Anonymous]

My parents also had family friends growing up. My parents pretty much made all these friends when they were back in college. After moving here, my parents also made new friends but the old ones still invite the family to dinner whenever we are able to travel back to Taiwan.

Maybe different from most families, our family isn't very close to our direct relatives mainly because we are scattered all over the globe. I am sure most of the class have close relative cousins that are good friend with one another. This may be one of the main things that I regret about moving from Taiwan to America.

[Anonymous]

When my parents had close Vietnamese friends, their kids and my siblings and I would always hang out when our parents hang out. It's just nice to have someone your age to entertain you/hang out with. I never became super close with the kids my age (like they never became cousin-like) but they did provide good companionship.

This is totally off subject, but in my family i have cousins and 2nd cousins that are either a lot older like my parents age or younger like babies or my younger siblings age. And it sucks that there's this huge age difference because I'm not super close with those cousins. Like when i go to family functions, sometimes I have to talk to all the adults or go play with the little kids. I mean, neither are bad situtations...but do any of you guys fall into this category?

ok...and back to the subject of family friends. I noticed that someone had said that their Caucasin friends and families do not usually get close and have as many family friends...and I think that's untrue. I see plenty of Caucasin families in which parents are friends, and consequently their kids become really close friends also. Therefore, I don't think that this particular situation is solely race related (like our discussion on shoes).

[Anonymous]

Actually I noticed the opposite, where my caucasian friends all had grandparents and cousins close by or in surrounding cities. But I on the other hand had cousins in Washington, New York, Iowa, Texas, and Taiwan. Definitely spread across the US and the world! But my mom's brothers actually live in northern california, and they brought their kids up together. So some of my cousins went to the same high school and grew up together. I did not have the opportunity to grow up with any family friends. My parents pretty much went their separate ways from their friends in college and in their family. Yet they are still close to some friends by keeping in touch, and we are all still closely knit as an immediate and extended family.

[Anonymous]

umm yah i think that when i was little i hung out a lot with "family friends", but most of them are my mom's either highschool or old job buddies... my dad don't really have friends.... but yah then a lot of them started immigrating and moving to other places, and we came here to california and we didn't really see them as much... since my parents didn't grow up here, once we came, the whole network of "family friends" kinda disappeared. A lot of times we just hang out with family and cousins.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I have lots of family friends, they are usually kids of my mom or dad's co-workers. From my dad's side of work, we lived pretty close and I would meet them whenever someone's having a barbeque or at company picnics. Even though I was the only girl, I kinda had to fit in with the guys or else it'd be too boring during all those get-togethers. Same thing with family friends from my mom's side too. When I went back to China and my mom met up with her old co-workers, our parents pretty much dragged all the children too. Although it was good that I got along with them, it was kinda awkward because there seemed to be some pressure to be friends because our parents were

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