The “No Kid Talk” Rule

This weekend I read a very interesting story. The author talked about a rule that she implemented with friends based on the advice of her 92-year-old grandmother who had birthed a whole passel of kids. Grandma had said that women who get together together should not talk about their kids, avoiding it at all costs. The idea is that, although it’s tempting to sit around and talk about babies and poops and sleep tactics with others who share your concerns (and sometimes pain), it’s too easy to get so swept up in our kids that it’s all we can talk about and all we become.

Her point was not to diminish the important place our children hold in our lives and hearts, but to make sure that we still remember how to talk about other things – books, movies, current events, anything that used to be important to us in our pre-kid lives.

I get what she’s saying, and if your group of girlfriends includes women who don’t have kids, they’d surely also appreciate not having to spend five straight hours of listening to tales of soccer games, school plays, and potty training. On the other hand, I don’t think I can sit and declare an absolute moratorium on kid talk. For one thing, I think one of the toughest parts of parenting in this day and age compared to the community aspect of parenting in our grandparents’ days, is the isolation. We don’t have an entire commune of women to guide us and help us and reassure us when we need it, so being able to sit with your friends and hash out areas of concern – or even just pride – is a valid need for us now. After all, that’s why parenting blogs have exploded in popularity all over the internet, isn’t it?

But that aside, it’s just that my kids truly ARE an important part of my life. When I worked at a recording studio, I talked about music a lot. When I was taking acting classes and attending every audition in Montreal, I talked about acting techniques with other like-minded individuals (and a few tolerant non-acting friends as well). Whatever is a primary focus in your life is bound to be a natural topic of discussion and I’m not sure that there’s much that can be done to stop that without stifling people.

These days if you sat down in a cafe with me, I most certainly would talk about my kids because we’re just very intertwined, especially at their young age. But I’ll also talk to you about my big passion for photography and my lust over every camera in existence. I’ll talk to you about who I think will win American Idol and whether it’s even more rigged this season than people have said in the past. I’ll discuss my favorite shows like Criminal Minds and Lost, I’ll go over all the movies I’m hoping to see, I’ll share my views on the Middle East, and I’ll tell you how in love I am with my current book The Other Boleyn Girl.

Wanting to talk about our kids doesn’t have to make us one-dimensional. I think we should take some of that Grandma’s opinion to heart and not spend an entire visit talking about what are children are up to so that we don’t fall into the “Just Mom” trap. Otherwise, by the time our kids grow up and leave home we might forget who else we truly are. But if we’re going to be well-rounded women, we need to talk about every part of our lives that are important to us.

Including our kids.

What do you think?