Mummy Hates Playdates

As our eldest nears “big school” age, and the huge milestone of turning 5 is so close now it almost seems within visible reach, I have been making every effort to prepare our Miss 4. I have no doubt she will flourish academically, my child is incredibly gifted intellectually (at least us proud parents believe so), yet I do remember how awkward it can be finding your place in a new social setting.

Our local school has a huge enrollment with over 600 students from kindergarten through to year 6 and frankly that scares me. I am terrified she will get lost in the crowd, become invisible as she blends into the masses of grey and blue checkered uniforms, her needs unmet, her uniqueness lost.  Filling in enrollment forms this morning I became a bit emotional and also nostalgic. I was nervous at first, what if I filled it in wrong? What if I didn’t know the answers? Silly right, I know my kid, but I also know these forms will form the basis of the first opinions made about my child even before anyone from the school has met her.

I feel proud as I fill in our family details, both parents are tertiary educated and married (to each other). Then I consider how it must have been for my mother filling out these same forms 25 years ago, being the sole parent for two children. Well I hope she was proud when she filled out those forms. She should have been, I am awesome and my brother is okay and parenting in a team is hard work, going it alone must be incredibly onerous. As I continue filling in the form I ask our daughter what her preferred name is and she tells me her first name. I ask about her nickname, a cute name we have fondly called her since birth. She declines, her full name it is.

Now my emotions begin to race, I feel sad even though there are 6 months before she starts. I tell husband I will need either wine or a baby in my belly to get through the first day of school. All the energy, expense, time and love I have poured into this child since the moment she was first placed into my arms as a newborn is about to go on show as she takes her first big steps away from me as her guide and closest friend and confidant.

Since the start of this year I have headed preschools advice that play dates would be a good starting point for our Miss 4 to gain confidence in social interactions. It’s not that she isn’t confident per se, she is just as her preschool teachers describe it, “in a bubble”. So I took the initiative and arranged a whole lot of play dates. I prepared our house as best I could, husband and I madly dusting, vacuuming and mopping the day before each play date. Me baking cakes and biscuits, ensuring there were enough activities to keep the kids occupied and happy.

The play dates themselves weren’t all that bad. The kids did have a great time as they jumped from couch to couch, threw rocks against the walls, zoomed about on scooters and painted up a storm all the while leaving a trail of play-dough and cake crumbs throughout the house and smushed into the carpet. The mums and I would converse as we, well just I in a few cases, tried in vain to keep an eye on the kids and salvage any semblance of tidiness and unbroken-ness our home had. At the end of each play date, some of which went on way too long, I was exhausted. Yet the excitement Miss 2 and Miss 4 have about “fiends coming to play” made me feel I had done a good job of Mummying.

Then weeks began to pass and not one mum invited us round for a repeat play date but on their turf. I don’t think it has anything to do with my child, yet more to do with the fact these mums are smarter than I. It is stupid really, setting your home up to be vandalized by preschoolers, mums too preoccupied with a hot tea resting in their hands to bother looking at what their kids are getting up to. And it is hard to tell another person’s child what they can and can’t do, to set the rules when it isn’t your kid. And this coupled with the clean up is just way too much outlay of effort when you get nothing in return. I praise all those mums who host regular mum’s groups, they truly have a surplus of patience to provide respite for fellow frazzled mummys and play spaces for their cheeky children.

So our Miss 4 may be in a bubble, but it sure looks like a wonderful place to be, unhinged by the cruelness this world can bring. She may have unicorns and rainbows dancing on clouds in her world and be immersed in her own wonderful place. She may be incredibly focused on painting or writing or pretending to be a cat or mastering the art of riding her “sideways scooter” whilst hiding from ever looming dinosaurs and searching for sparkling fairies. She might be a little more introverted in large social settings. But what kind of world would it be without a little difference from the loud confident yet compliant extrovert the educators of today seem to be trying to mold out of each individual child.

One day, too soon for my liking, my child will begin to form real friendships and they will gradually become more important to her than spending time with me. So I am no longer going to be stupid, I have wised up in more ways than one. I am keeping my child to myself for as long as possible. I see her in the park, happy to interact with other kids, and for now that is all the extra social interactions she needs. Play dates are time consuming and require lots of effort, and quite frankly I prefer the often strange, sometimes bazaar, yet charmingly whimsical and comical conversations I have with my child than the forced interactions with other mums whilst their children run amok in our home. I intend on keeping my child as close as I can for as long as I can because spending time with her is a privilege and a joy.