The (Play) Dating Game

I can relate even though now my girls are all grown up. We used to live in an upscale Charlotte suburb where most of the moms stayed home taking care of their bodies first children second. I was out of place from the get go because I worked, I wasn't a big spender and I was a few years older than the median age of about 32. Things got worse when I sent my older daughter to a private high school which was a great school, but full of very wealthy up and comers who looked down on me for not having as much and for not working. what was wrong with this world? All of us were spending a lot of money to educate our kids yet the old "I have more money than you do" rules seemed to apply.

Now a few years later my daughter who is now in college told me that the other moms would gossip about me even IN FRONT OF HER. I just found this out! Because I worked and they did not, I asked them to pitch in more for the driving although I was willing to offer bartering (I am in a service business) for the extra day of driving. I figured since they didn't work and I did they would be willing to do a bit more. No such chance! Anyway, the mean girls mentaility lives on way pass middle and high school. It's sad, but the best thing to do is find yourself in other things because making friends with the other moms can be a losing battle.

i totally relate to the pain of which Ms. Augusto speaks. When my little twins were one, we joined a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group. They had the time of their lives every two weeks. But when it came to scheduling get-togethers on off-days, that was another matter. Several people said they wanted to get together, but when I would try to pin a specific date, it was clear that they really didn't mean this. I think that is something that Mr. Davies doesn't really understand about women. Women do what seems to be the nicest thing on the surface, but the outcome is that underneath all that niceness is people who promised to get -together, but actually don't want to. Men are more straightforward about it, and I appreciate that. As an adult, I can handle that, although for a long time I questioned myself about how "acceptable" I was, because it wasn't like people were beating a path to my house to get to know me either. But I would go back and give up all the great birthdays I ever had if I could spare my kids the pain of all the implied rejections of no invitations at all. The really heart-wrenching thing is when birthdays come around and your child or children aren't invited to parties because they don't have any play date friends, or when one twin in consistently invited, but the other is not. How can you throw a party for twins when one is popular and has ten to twenty people who want to come, and the other you have to beg to get two? You can't, obviously, but even with two parties, the one with fewer friends is going to notice. Or when a child has "special needs" and no one invites him to a party. My son has only ever been to two parties in his life -- both when he was in kindergarten and first grade (he is eleven). And when it comes to being proactive, I can call all I want, but you cannot make people respond to invitations. How sad for a kid to invite thirteen kids and get only two responses? And they may even be turn-downs. I have heard other parents say that they have stopped booking skating rinks and bowling alleys for birthdays because they are tired of spending all the money and then having no one turn up; so I guess we are not the only ones. But I think if we had the "open" neighborhood of my childhood (and we have at least 13 kids in elem. on our block!) there wouldn't be this wholesale elimination of kids from others like there is now. I think the comparison to professional networking and social climbing made in the article is dead-on, although sometimes I am at a loss as to what certain people or families have that we seem to lack. WE were the neighborhood family on our block and my mother always made sure that every kid was doing something, even if she had to pull out a checkerboard and play on the driveway herself. Those were halcyon days and it is sad that often people take extraordinary interest in their own kids but seem to lack empathy for other people's kids.

I am against playdates. We as parents have to set the standards for or kids and for other parents. Many adults feel the same way. Kids, don't play together anymore, when I was "younger..." The real issue is fear and since we are afraid that something may happen to our kids we keep them in making it more dangerous for the few kids that are out. Their numbers are in the sigle digits making them easier pray for the would be interloper. It's our duty not to rob our kids of the simplest of lifes pleasures...discovery. We are becoming a culture of introverts, HELP!

Bravo Ms. Augusto!
Playdates are women's high school cliques in disguise! I live in a burb where there are NEW homes and OLD homes. A parent need only ask "where do you live?" and there is the first prerequisite of being on the INside. Kids want to play with each other and mother's at the school functions redirect them to the people they perceive to be in the same social status. If you have an IN such as being on the school board or run a business in town, you have the luxury of choosing from a myriad of children to play with your own. Your social calander is full. When our school boundaries changed, for sale signs were a dime a dozen, scrabbling to have their kids in the NEW school. Forclosure on a NEW home (plenty are happening in MN) is social suicide for the adults and the kids. My husband and I chose to invest in a child, we did an international adoption but as a result naively moved into the OLD part of the burb. Our home is 2700 square feet of 1980 bliss! After realizing my children are being passed up because of our address, watching soccer moms talking together, having mass garage sales and redirecting their children to the children of parents that they feel would be nice to have a network connection to, I was agaust. I felt like I must have missed the social connection bus in high school. Once I realize though that those groups of women function exactly like the cliques in high school, including the powerful queen bee and the threat of rejection at every social faux pas, I have since breathed a sigh of relieve. The children in our neighborhood are passed up for playdates and instead, the parents have an old fashioned neighborhood where we are all watching and the kids play hide and seek, use flashlights as a group to go from one home to another and jump up and down when its time to "go out and play" We are mostly stay at home moms and although we don't necessarily have the correct jeans or the kids dressed in gymboree from head to toe, we are happy! Thanks Kerri, great article! Katy from Mn

I just read the above-mentioned article written by Kerri Augusto. I couldn't help but identify with her, even though our issues were somewhat different. I was 38 when I had my daughter, so going to the park was no picnic. (Excuse the pun.) The other mothers were younger and my attempts to converse with them were largely ignored. Trying to set up playdates, I experienced the same difficulties. In my day, we just went over to someone's house and rang the doorbell. I, too, grew up during the time when kids roamed the neighborhood or town for hours at a time and parents didn't worry about them. I hate that my child can't experience that. She's 12 and I still worry about her walking to the bus stop by herself.

If you could pass this on to Ms. Augusto, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

Mary Helen Organ
Raleigh, NC

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03-Sep-2008, From Ellery Davies ... < Ellery (at) starbus (dot) com >

Some of the authors concerns speak more about her own insecurities than they do about the very real changes in our society. When parents fail to call her to arrange play dates with her child, she frets that they may be rejecting her own friendship and social skills rather than her child.

But I agree with the writer's premise. As the father of a 7 year old girl, I have long been concerned about a profound change in parenting over the past decade. My neighbors and school administrators seem comfortable with a regime of over scripting, constant (and counterproductive) supervision and especially over protection.

Society has begun to remove so many obstacles and dangers for children and young adults, that we have come to choreograph their days and evenings. When I was 8 and 9 years old, I sometimes took an elevated train to Chicago from my suburb 20 miles away - to check on my grandmother. On snowy winter days, I would purchase groceries and bring them up to her 8th floor apartment. As long as I got out of the neighborhood before dark, my parents were comfortable with my unaccompanied travel on a commuter train into a big city.

I fully agree with the following statements from Ms. Augusto. Yet I cannot explain in a public forum how I avoid these problems. If I did so here, it would very likely lead to my being investigated for irresponsible parenting:

"Parents can no longer count on the spontaneity and
curiosity of childhood to bring children together
for social interaction. Instead, we schedule them
in sports and dance and after-school programs where
other adults set limits and structure the time."

"No one I know allows her young child to explore the
woods, wander local neighborhoods or ride a bike
across town"

and
"We have come to accept that it is our job to keep our
children from harm at the expense of everything else.

I don't think I'm going to parent this way. My life is complicated enough as it is - I don't need to pander to other moms or make nice with them just because our kids play together. How about going to the playground with a good book or your favorite music? But I agree that we have changed so much over the years and that self-play outside is almost unheard of nowadays. What a a shame. I loved playing outside my house!