Time to Rethink the Playdate. NewsWire

NewsWire: 11/9/21

• How did the playdate become the standard non-school social activity for young kids? As families begin rescheduling playdates again, some are questioning if they should return at all. (Vox)
• NH: It was a standard ritual before the pandemic: two parents cross-referencing their calendars for an open spot free of soccer practice or piano lessons. The goal: to schedule a playdate--typically, some pre-arranged activity like board games or an art project, overseen by one or more adults.
• For Millennials and Homelanders who grew up in middle- or upper-class households, the playdate is probably how they remember socializing with other kids as a child. The idea of being constantly supervised and scheduled is totally normal. (See “Are Kids Overruled?”) But ask Boomers, and you’re more likely to get tales of watching cartoons unsupervised or roaming around outside with the only parental input to be home in time for dinner. Xers have similar childhood memories--but the big difference is that by the early 1980s, unsupervised play was beginning to be considered dangerous amid rising hysteria about child kidnappings and “stranger danger." The playdate is a relatively recent invention that arose in the 1990s in response to these fears.
• With the number of fully vaccinated Americans inching ever-higher and vaccinations for 5- to 11-year-olds now approved, playdates are starting to make a comeback. And if anything, the scheduling process is even more fraught now because parents have to navigate divergent attitudes towards masks and vaccines.
  
• But just as the pandemic has made many Americans rethink what they want out of work, it’s pushed some parents to declare that they want something different out of play. It’s breathed new life into the “free-range kids” movement that encourages parents to let their children play and explore on their own--a request that resonates even more when some of these kids have barely interacted with anyone except for their family members for a year and a half.
• This time, however, the focus isn’t just on building self-sufficiency in kids. It’s also about freeing parents, particularly moms, from increasingly demanding childcare responsibilities. This Facebook comment from one frazzled parent, quoted in a NYT piece published last April, says it all:
• “When I was a kid, there was lots and lots of free play with no parental interaction. My kids cannot be alone for five minutes. WHERE DID WE GO WRONG?”
• All this being said, play isn't reverting back to what it was in the '60s. The idea that every activity must be planned and structured is getting jettisoned, but the way you know it's still the 2020s is that kids remain protected to within an inch of their lives.