I hate that term "play date"

They're two of my favorites, too. I agree with Chai, but not with Mame. I think this proves we're living in an adult-centered world. Even something as simple as getting kids together to play now has to be a scheduled "date" on the parents' calendar for it to happen.

seems to me like the natural evolution of the information/global economy. As information comes streaming at us faster and faster we choose the less emotionally and physically chancy modes of communication and socialization (forums, IM's, text message). Combine this with parents both in the workforce, and the loss of safe-ish unsupervised neighborhoods, people draw further apart while maintaining their need to socialize electronically. They draw apart to the point of compunicatuion (texting or IMing someone in the same room as you). This apartness seems to require more and more personal space for a person to feel totally comfortable, both physically and emotionally. Politeness and manners functionally serve to enforce the recognition of personal space. It is no longer polite to show up at someone's door unannounced. For many people it is not that polite to call ahead without 24 hours-ish notice. It is not surprising that a term that would fit with an overly scheduled life and sound like it should be in an appointment book would embed itself in the the cultural lexicon. Also treating it as an appointment alleviates the need for the parents to feel as if they should act friendly. It can be more of a business venture investing in the future of the child by making sure s/he has play time with other children. I'm not saying its right, as I grew up in RURAL U.S. and the summer time was farm work or running wild from dawn till dusk unsupervised, I'm only proposing that it may be a natural instance of the times.

That is a stretch considering all the parents who do their damndest to control their kids lives until they are 24 or so. That is an adult centered dynamic. The parents can't let go.

It sounds like she does not like being a mother,
or
does not like the kid.





David

cause it's insipid. my fiance's former fruitcake says she's "booked" a sleepover for their child...

When they book sleepovers, does that imply they will also 'do' dinner?

They ride their bike back home.

What? You don't think I, or any number of people here, rode their bike, or walked over to a friends house, and they were'n't around?

What have people done since they started visiting each other, when the anticipated friend wasn't there? They did something else.

Not to inject more jargon, but that was a perfect opportunity to either turn to "plan B", or on the spur of the moment, go to the library, go to another friends house, ride/walk around in search of that friend, lay on the ground on your friends front lawn, staring at the clouds until someone showed up, maybe thinking you should keep a book in your bicycle basket to read in times like this. etc. etc. etc. etc.

It's not such a tragedy that the other kid isn't home, that's life.

Being a kid, you think of something else to do.
You don't need an adult to arrange your time, and make dates for you to do that.

Some of the best time I can remember as a kid was when I figured out something to do, with no prior notice.

Right. And then they do it again, and someone's not there again. And they do it again, and someone's not there again. And they kinda want to hang out with friends. So then they call five friends, and one is home, and THEN then they bike over to that person's house.

And then later that day the other four call back and they make arrangements to get together the next day (friend 1) the day after that (friend 2), etc.

It works pretty well and they even call it a playdate occasionally (I haven't seen much allergicness to the word amongst these 9-year-olds yet though they'll use it interchangeably with "go to ___'s house" or "come over here.")

I don't think that's a big deal.

We crossed posted while I was editing.

As you can see, you answered your own question....

If you show up and no one's there.....It's not a big deal.

Note -- from the description in the original post, I agree with Dr. Laura, especially about the "clingy" part.

Helicopter parents exist and annoy me.

I just think that an indictment of that doesn't reasonably extend to kids arranging to get together rather than just physically going over and knocking on the door. That part has changed considerably since we were kids.

Sure, it's not a big deal.

But why is it a big deal to call if that keeps happening and they want to see a friend already?

I'm with soz on this one. (Big surprise, right?)

I think the objections seem to be mostly about scheduling preschoolers to play. I'm going to guess this is because 1) families don't have 3 to 5 kids in a household anymore and 2) preschoolers nap during the day and 3) preschoolers can't bike to each others homes and 4) many more families have both parents working or are single parent households. Yes, there are some pretentious parents out there. We call them Buckhead Bettys here and they're usually on the wealthy side, but they're really in the minority.

As for older kids, I think the burden of arrangement starts to move away from the parents and on to them by this time, though they do still have to check with the parents before making plans. We have a little neighbor girl who consistently will invite kids over to her house when it isn't ok with her mom (who has two little ones) and this is obviously not kosher. By the time they're in upper elementary they've usually got a group of kids that they call for sleepovers and to hang out. (Yes, we call and make arrangements because we live in a place where kids can't ride bikes and most of their friends live a mile away or more. ) But the kids make the calls and the parents give the nod.

It sounds to me like the negative reaction is more about the pretentious sounding parents than about the term or what it represents.

OMIGOD I MISSED FREEDUCK.

Ahem.

Carry on.

FreeDuck missed you too.

SO STIPULATED. Makes sense.
When I was a kid, I was alone most of the time.
U gotta take care of yourself; its not hard.





David

Best argument for playdates EVAR.

I coud have called
and made an appointment, but we never deemed such formality to be appropriate.

I just went over to my friend David 's house and knocked on the door,
or yelled his name, and vice-versa; we just showed up
at one another 's residences. It worked fine.





David

Well, I do think it's a child-centered world, considering what it was like when I was a kid. Everything is all about the child and it's well-being. Examples:

No spanking. People get really righteous about parents who spank or whack their kids in public and will often get aggressive and interfere. When I was a kid, we got cuffed on the head if we dragged our heels or annoyed my mom. With 7 kids, you have to keep everyone together so not to lose one and if cuffing worked better than saying "Hurry up" 20 times, then so be it. Not a big deal. We didn't bawl our eyes out or throw a fit, something which I see regularly these days.

Children of my friends today don't fail anything at school. That would damage the poor kid so he wouldn't ever try again, right? Blah. There is so much less competition - oh, that would be so bad if Johnny got picked last for the pick-up baseball game at lunch time. Hey, not everyone can be first and somebody has to be last - that's just the way it is. Deal with it. How are they going to handle rejection at a job interview if they don't learn how to handle it as they're growing up?

Kids are enrolled in everything today - there is so much more out there for kids than there was when I was growing up, and many families pack their week with schedules. It's certainly NOT for the parents, who have to find the classes, schedule and pay for them, then spend time chauffeuring them around. It's for their little darlings, to expand their horizons, expose them to this and that, etc. We got one thing to do (swimming, art, music) and that was it. Of course, there were 7 of us, but that seemed to be quite normal. My friend's twins, aged 4, have already been in classes for swimming (since 8 months old), gym, art, music, science, skiing, baseball, soccer, and yes, tennis. In addition, there are all these baby cd's and dvd's which educate your infant for heaven's sake. Why? Again, it's so their kid can be a Baby Einstein.

Emotional/psychological well-being - grief counsellors are all over the place any time something happens, to make sure the little ones aren't 'damaged'. Okay, this is a good idea, not saying it's not, but what happened to mom and dad? Bad stuff happens in life all the time - are they going to be able to access counsellors whenever it occurs?

Shows on tv - look at them all! Baby this, child that, parent and tot shows abound. And I'm not talking about Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Dressup... I'm talking about talk shows where they discuss every aspect of childhood under the sun.

Some parents take their kids everywhere with them - I even have a friend coming to my wedding reception with her four year old. Um, it's in a Blues Bar! I'm not impressed with that. When I go out to dinner at 8:00 p.m., I don't want to be around children, thank you. If I go to a park, I expect to see them, no problem, but at night - NO! I don't care if they're well-behaved... it's adult time and they should be in bed.

I believe there is much evidence to support my theory but it doesn't matter if anyone agrees with me, it's just my opinion.

Yeah. Nothing wrong with busy parents arranging an afternoon with a friend...with crazy schedules in the current average American family - you have to be organized....it's the terminology that chafes me...but I may be alone in this. "I've booked Alice a Memorial Day sleepover..." Chai may be a little wistful of moms (or dads) who can stay home, affording their children the luxury of hopping on a bike and tooling over to a friend's house - who would obviously be home, too... beatific summer days, laying safely on the dappled lawn of one of your five best friends on a quiet street in the suburbs...

The point where you go wrong is if it was a kid centered world we would be doing either what kids want or what is good for kids. We don't. All of this coddling is actually bad for kids, the over scheduling is almost always parent driven as they try to make their kids better than other kids but actually do them no favors, ditto for pushing academics at a early age which has been proven to be of no use at all. Yes the focus is on the kids, but the motivation is all about what the parents want, what makes them feel good about themselves. If the motivation was on what kids want or what is good for them we would be doing things completely differently.