The Tao of Playdates

When your kids are in preschool, playdates are a pleasant experience. You strike up a friendship with another mom and then throw their kids together one afternoon to play. You chat while they share toys, the end.

Then your kids enter public school, and suddenly they're being invited to someone's house whom you've never met. You don't know the mom and dad. Do you ask if they keep guns in the house? Do you insist that they name every video they might let your kid watch? Do you hint broadly that licorice does not a wholesome after-school snack make? Do you forbid them to take your child anywhere in a car without consulting you first? Some, yes; others, not so much. Your kid comes home and jumped on a trampoline without adult supervision or played computer games the whole afternoon or reeks of the parents' cigarettes or had to accompany the friend's older sibling to an orthodontist appointment or ate three popsicles.

Then their kids come to your house. Some of them you just flat-out don't like. You don't want them to come over again. Ever. You consider trying to brainwash your child: "Gee, Mary sure is bossy!" or "Is Johnny that whiny at school?" You hope this was one of those one-playdate wonders. Other kids are so wonderful that it's easier to have them over than not. You never hear a complaint out of anyone all afternoon. You read a magazine! In your house! Full of kids! Giddy, you present them with a platter of cookies.

Sometimes a mom will ask repeatedly for a playdate, but your kid doesn't like her kid and you don't know what to say. So you make up ten million excuses until she stops asking. You feel like a total jerk.

Comments

[Erin]

Good info for a rookie like me. I'm still in the playdate stage where the babies just sit next to each other and bang on things until one crawls away. :)