Bring back hanging out

This is written on the back of the longest recreational break I have had since I left school in the 1960’s. It all began with a week on a canal boat, which was followed by a friend’s 60^th birthday party, then two weddings on the Pacific coast of North America a fortnight apart and, after a further week, a cousin’s 40^th wedding anniversary. There was even a sort of symmetry about it all – two celebrations for oldies flanking two celebrations for the up and coming generation with a subconscious subtext that relates to passing on a baton of some sort. We, of the post war, baby boomer generation may not have resolved the political, economic and social issues of our times but we have been able to watch our children emerge into a social network of family and friends. In a sense they seem to be better at it than we were, certainly more active as this particular community of cousins has established a lively ‘in your Facebook’ relationship.

Why is this important? Here follows a digression rather than a direct answer. Though each of these celebrations involved an event on a particular day, they were each the focus of concerted involvement of family and friends for days before and after the event. Circumstances, principally being on holiday, allowed us to be involved in these pre- and after-shock happenings which ranged from a visit to the manicurist (for some reason blokes didn’t get to do this) through meals, cycle rides, walks to simply hanging out together.

Now hanging out is a term that I associate with teenagers with nothing better to do, so the experience of ‘whole family hanging out’, as conceptualised by American friends was a novelty to me. It needed to be approached with all sorts of British caution and reserve -‘we don’t want to intrude’, ‘they will need family time’ and so on. We were a little slow to allow our friends to know their own minds and to accept their invitation as an invitation.

Why was the experience something of a revelation to me? Perhaps because in recent years I have been far more willing and able to allocate time to a purpose than purpose to a time. By that I mean that the purposes I espoused were largely limited and specific, with some measurable outcome in prospect. This is not to say that I am not aware of the larger purposes in life and that I do not pay lip service to them; however, my behaviour strongly suggests that I prioritise the specific: reading a book, cutting the grass, even writing a blog. This is strange when the outcome I count as most rewarding is that each of our children not only has an established network of friends but that they are firmly established in their community of cousins.

Returning to the question, why is this important? a couple of words that reflect past experience in the pharmaceutical industry come to mind: verification and validation. Verification confirms my identity, that I am who I am and verification has the greatest authority when it is provided by the family from which I come. As a parent it is reassuring to know that your children’s identity will be verified for them long after I am gone by as wide a community as is possible. Verification is important to us all but is often overlooked. Validation on the other hand is more immediately recognised as a need; it affirms our value and can come from any community of friends or family.

Communities are created by building relationships; relationships are built over time and it seems to me that hanging out is all about allocating the purpose of building relationships to a time, whether it be an hour or an afternoon or a week. If this is something we did in our teens, my message to myself is, “Bring back hanging out”.