Pitfall of the Modern Playdate

This weekend marked an important milestone in my maternal career - I hosted my 5,000th playdate. Or should I say my kids' 5000th playdate? Either way, it seemed like a perfect excuse to send out this excerpt from Can I Have a Cell Phone for Hanukkah?

Pitfalls of the Modern Playdate

play-date (n): 1. adult-supervised, adult-directed "free play" between kids. 2. an organized method of fitting socializing into a kid's hectic agenda. 3. a means of improving a child's social status and heightening his popularity. 4. the culminating step in the over-scheduling of kids' lives by over-protective, stressed-out parents.

When I first started teaching, I couldn't fathom how an otherwise with-it mom could morph into a neurotic disaster at the sheer mention of her child's social life. I mean, I could have just wrapped up a thirty minute conference with Mrs. Xberg about Justin's math and reading woes without so much as a sniffle, only to watch her well up in tears and start fishing around in her purse for the tissues the moment we broached the issues of playdates.

What's the big deal? I used to think to myself. Can't Mrs. Xberg just tell Justin to go play with the kid down the street? But when my own son hit grade school, and I began agonizing over his social calendar, I alas had a glimmering. For I - the cool as a cucumber teacher - had inexplicably morphed into a maternal tossed salad.

At an especially low point, following a momentary glimpse of my shy first-grader hanging solo in the schoolyard, I managed to convince myself that if I didn't get on the playdate ball soon, my son would grow into an antisocial recluse living in a cabin in the woods whose only friends were raccoons.

Determined to spare my six-year-old this solitary fate, I willed myself to become the playdate hostess with the mostest and began stocking up on all available literature on the topic - A counter-productive strategy, I might add, at least from an anxiety standpoint.

One article, for example, entitled "Plan the Perfect Playdate" suggested I orchestrate a caterpillar cookie recipe that would have daunted Wolfgang Puck. And do people really have potato sack races anymore? Or stitch the participants' initials on burlap sacks before the big hop-off?

Despite the societal clout of playdates, they have their share of pitfalls, too. Largely thanks to a few defining features of these contemporary kiddie rendezvous:

The Playdate Scheduling Feature -When we were kids, our social plans were arranged with a "Hey, you wanna come over?" on the school bus ride home. Today's playdates, in stark contrast, are planned weeks in advance and entered indelibly into parental blackberries.

The Problem with the Scheduling Feature - Since kids' friendships can change with the tides, a playdate planned six weeks in advance offers no guarantee that the playees will even be speaking by the designated moment of contact. Furthermore, due to vast parental involvement, playdates exude a comprehensive list of adult-driven etiquette rules that weren't even on the radar screen when kids were running the show. If someone invites our child for a playdate, for example, mommy protocol suggests we reciprocate within a reasonable period of time. If, perchance, the other mother invites our child back prior to reasonable reciprocation, we must profusely apologize and promise to have her kid over two times in a row next time.

The Adult-Supervision Feature - When we were young, unsupervised play was the norm. We'd hop from one backyard to the next (before the evolution of the cul-de-sac) and stay out until our moms called us in for dinner. Today, parents are expected to continuously supervise their children's social gatherings (and supply a long-range Walkie-talkie in the event they have to run in to check on dinner).

The Problem with the Adult-Supervision Feature - From a safety standpoint, parental vigilance is perfectly appropriate. There is however a fine line (especially with older children) between being cautious and being overprotective and smothering. Our kids are growing up in a nervous world as it is, our refusal to leave their side (when they are old enough for us to do so) sends a neon message that we, their knowledgeable parents, genuinely believe our absence will jeopardize their safety - an unsettling message indeed for children just getting their feet wet in the waters of independence.

The Organized Activity Feature - In the old days, If we and our friend grew tired of hopping on our pogo sticks, someone would say something profound like "This is boring, let's do something else." We'd bounce around ideas like climbing a tree or watching the Flintstones, and move on to a new activity. During the modern playdate, on the other hand, the host parent is the designated boredom buster. Kids (and other parents) expect us to provide playdaters with one organized option after another, and have an arsenal of dehydration-preventing juice boxes are on hand, to boot.

The Problem with the Organized Activity Feature - Having every moment of a playdate planned and accounted for from bubble blowing to Batman action figure time, deprives children of the opportunity engage in free creative play and learn to occupy themselves independently. Plus it reaffirms the erroneous belief that it is a parent's job to provide kids with round the clock entertainment.

So what can we modern parents do to counteract these playdate pifalls without making social pariahs out of ourselves? We can begin by throwing in the towel on the Julie the Loveboat Cruise Director persona (orchestrating limbo contests and shuffleboard competitions) and make like Captain Stubing, instead (controlling the ship from a comfortable distance). In other words, our role as playdate hostess is to provide a safe and pleasant playing environment, adequate (as opposed to constant) supervision, and, oh yeah, dehydration preventing juice boxes.