Currently Reading:
DC: The Flash, Challenge of the Super Sons, Nightwing
Image: Lazarus: Risen, The Old Guard, Black Magick
Boom: Mighty Morphin', Power Rangers
I can understand your issue but the first 5 years of Jon's life don't give him much chance to develop his own character. By skipping forward several years, the writers can work with more interesting aspects of Jon's life such as his first discovery of his powers and learning that his father is Superman. And at least it happened naturally within the DCU and wasn't the result of an overused plot device such as artificial aging.
Jon was shown having made multiple friends at his old schools in California and Hamilton County. Plus he was friends with Georgia Bakshi when he attended the West-Reeve School in Super Sons. Not all of those staples need to be there in Jon's childhood otherwise his story would just be a carbon copy of Clark's which would be derivative. Kathy seemed to be his Lana Lang at least based on subtle indications.
Those are important milestones in one's life but getting bogged down in all these details is not essential for Jon's character. Otherwise his progression becomes a series of check lists rather than the emotional experience of growing up that was the core of Jon's arc under Tomasi and Gleason.
Jon didn’t happen naturally though. He came about in an event, came over to Earth 0, then his dad merged with New 52 Superman and Jon’s entire history got rewritten. Not that I disagree that the accelerated aging sucks, still don’t like it, but Jon is a very convoluted character if you actually look at his publication history.
I wasn't asking for the exact same cast (except with different names) as Clark had in school. I was asking to see him have friendships develop (which means multiple story arc uses) outside of Kathy and Damian. Georgia might have fit that role- if we weren't now getting Jon aged up and apparently away from a normal life.
To me the milestones are important because they are crucial points in a character's development. They aren't a check list, but rather a list of things that happened off panel that I'd have preferred to see as part of an organic story.
It's the same way as I think much of the Lois/Clark romance since Crisis has been off-panel. They had a few dates in-story before the proposal with much of their relationship developing in that void between Man of Steel #2 (1986) and Superman #1 (1986). The New 52 had the same wrid gap between Morrison's stuff and the 5-years-later 2011 Superman #1. Now their whole relationship from Jon's conception through his 10th birthday is off-panel. Almost no organic growth- it's all implication, single panel flashback, and fill-in-the-blank.
I just want to see the Kents and Jon actually go from his birth to age 10 on panel spread over dozens if not hundreds of story-arcs.