This post isn't about being the perfect family. It's about looking for one. You know, finding a family where the grownups and kids can all be friends together. A one-size-fits-all scenario.

In this amusing essay, author Emily Mendell describes her search for that elusive thing: a family unit where everyone likes each other, so everyone can be BFF and go camping ensemble. Walking off into the sunset holding hands. All 7 or 8 pairs of them.

Finding the perfect family match is surely a tall order for most couple parents. It's hard enough to find couple friends you like. Add tots to the mix and you have the potential for any social gathering to be thwarted by both crying and fighting (kids, usually) and couple critiquing later (grownups, always). How many of us have liked the adults but disliked their tots? Or liked the tots but found the parents or the parenting appallingly off-base?

The chances of a perfect score all around, then? Skimpy indeed. But Mendell did find hers, and describes how much fun it is to be pals as a group. She talks of "the ultimate sign of love: we yell at each other's kids."

I used to roll my eyes at the notion that parents would need to be friends with other parents. But now that I'm a mom I know it's part of the package. You hope you don't lose the other friends you have pre-baby. You hope your childless friends can forgive the interrupted phone calls and pathetic lack of social stamina. But you need parent-friends too. Preferably ones whose kids you can yell at. And perhaps because Crabtot is an only child I've always especially been on the prowl for the family that might, in time, join us for an actually fun dinner. And then, a weekend away. And THEN we would graduate to a proper vacation! Grownups in good company. Kids in good company. Dare to dream!

Crabhubby and I had ready-made families in our past life in New York. Two of my close friends produced children weeks apart from Crabtot. The parents were treasured friends before the babes came. Then we moved to Crabtown, where we hoped for the perfect triad to complement our own. There were misfires. And, too, good times with good people and great potential for full-on family friendship vacation fun, though we didn't stay long enough to make that happen.

And now we're on the move again. We have to start over. Finding the perfect family? Finding someone else to yell at my kid? At this moment, I'll just be glad to find my favorite sweater. I think it went into one of the last boxes I packed. You know, that box where you put a frying pan, thumbtacks, and a sweater for padding into one hasty box marked Miscellaneous.

Anyone found the golden family match? Or do you have a misfire to report?