If you are a parent in the South Bay and you want to know how to be an outcast, it’s very simple: Don’t put your kids in any extracurricular activities.

Not that I would ever commit social suicide among the parents’ circles.

Like all the other parents in this microcosm – and I mean, all the other parents – we put our two young kids in as many weekly activities as we could possibly handle chauffering them.

At this time, it’s a manageable two for our 7-year-old Morgan (one soccer practice and match and a ukelele lesson per week) and one for our 4-year-old Jackson (Taekwondo, which he wavers between hating and loving, depending on what kind of day he’s had at preschool).

But if you choose not to put your kids in activities – be they soccer, gymnastics, ceramics, piano, robotics, baseball, the list of options go on and on – first you would be met with an incredulous stare from fellow parents as if you were an alien.

Then, they would gently, quietly and slowly step away from you, because, well, how could they relate to a parent that’s basically not even their own species?

What kind of parent are you to not leave work – you know, that thing that enables you to bring home the bacon and allows the very survival of your household to subsist – early enough to schlep your kids to some activity or two that they may or may not like? Seriously, what kind of parent does not do that?

It’s only a matter of seconds when other parents cannot find a single topic of conversation to have with you anymore once they find out (gasp!) that you don’t enroll your progeny in anything after school or jam-pack your weekends with activities based on half-hour intervals between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

It’s as if adults had nothing to say to other adults prior to having children of their own. Chatting about our children and their activities has become such a go-to crutch of a talking point among parents that we almost cannot fathom discussing more interesting topics with our fellow 30- and 40-something year-olds.

What hilarity that took place on last night’s “Daily Show with Jon Stewart” cannot possibly hold a candle to Timmy’s little league game highlights. One’s interesting developments at work cannot be more interesting than how little Emma’s violin lessons are going and her upcoming open stage performance that everyone is oh so excited about.

Parents are brought together by the very fact of having children. Yes, for many the children are the center of their lives – they and their activities get most of our disposable income, free time and attention.

But if they happen not to, surely parents can act like adults and hold conversations and develop friendships with other parents, even if they do not have in common children with extracurricular activities.

Remember that good ol’ time when we were happy to talk about ourselves and ask about each other’s interests instead of what Johnny is doing in AYSO or how Suzy earned her gymnastics trophy?

Which every single team player got, by the way, but that’s a whole other issue involving winning and (not) losing in children’s team sports.

Let’s bring ourselves back to that time, that’s all I’m saying. And, now, I’m off to take my son to Taekwondo.