The (Play) Dating Game

Our culture of fear means that we can no longer count on spontaneity to bring children together.

Published Aug 30, 2008

From the magazine issue dated Sep 8, 2008

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I thought I had it made by marrying my first boyfriend. I never had to worry about prom dates, breakups, make-ups or any of that typical adolescent angst. Most of all, I didn't have to worry about playing the dating game. But then I had kids and realized there's another kind of dating game for parents— one that sneaks up on you with its cute moniker and then viciously rips your heart out: playdating.

My first attempts at playdating began when my kids were in diapers. I went to the park with a bag full of Goldfish crackers and plunked my kids in the sandbox. I'd make light conversation with unnamed mothers and hope to feel a sense of kinship, even though I might never see them again. My children were not particular about their companions, and were content to be with whoever had the best shovel and pail.

But I wasn't good at "flirting" with the other mommies, winning them over with witty banter or interesting stories. Quiet and introverted, I felt like a tag-along. To make things worse, I was often out of my league when conversations turned to second pregnancies, issues of labor and delivery, and breast-feeding because my children were adopted.

When my oldest child entered preschool, another social opportunity arose. Almost immediately I was invited on playdates. The experience was awkward. I would arrive at a stranger's house, or she would come to mine, and we would sit together and make stilted conversation while our children entertained themselves with whatever toys we made available. After a few hours, we would separate. I was always left with an empty feeling, and a burning desire to ask: "Did you like me? Do you want to go out again?" Playdates in preschool were more about parent compatibility than anything else. If we didn't get a second invitation to play, I felt like I had been dumped.

But I persevered. By the time my son was in kindergarten, I was making phone calls and attempting to pencil things in on the calendar. Nonetheless, calls to our house were few and far between. I wondered if my son's empty social calendar was my fault: Were the other mothers rejecting me? Or were the other children rejecting my son? I made a few calls, but people always seemed to be busy with skating lessons, soccer practice, karate.

Past generations had the luxury of taking the essential childhood experience of playing for granted. When I was growing up, the streets filled with kids riding bikes, playing "graveyard tag" in the twilight hours, and just bopping around from one house to another. On a snow day, kids would convene in my backyard where my dad maintained a toboggan run, complete with benches, jumps and my mother's never-ending supply of cocoa. In the summer, hordes of children gathered for spontaneous water-balloon battles. There was no such thing as a playdate.

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Posted By: Janey07 @ 03/10/2009 3:17:14 PM

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.
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Posted By: Seventies Mom @ 12/31/2008 10:20:52 AM

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.
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Posted By: geashlin @ 09/30/2008 9:58:41 AM

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!