To think it's rude to not reciprocate playdates?

[Cantheowneroftheredcorsapleasemovetheircar]

I am so done with being the one everyone comes to for playdates but barely getting an invite back, ever.

DS is 12 and going into year 8. He's had the same best friend since reception. Don't get me wrong, I've known his best friend since they were little. He's a lovely kid. I don't mind having him over, but he must be here around once a month for a sleepover and I could count on one hand the amount of times DS is invited back to their house and thry are flaky and often cancel. I feed him breakfasts, lunches and dinners while he's here. She can't even send him with a bag of sweets to share or something.

DD is 7. She has three or four good friends she loves to have over. I will invite them over at weekends and after school, they will come and have a nice time. I wait for the invite back... it rarely comes.

The parents will make comments like "oh we must have DD next time" but then nothing.

At the end of term, I mentioned to the parents of her best friend that we would have their DS over during the summer and they said brightly "Oh, it's our turn!!". I waited but no invite. DD begging to see him so in week 5 of the summer holidays I sent an invite, hoping they would say "oh no, it's our turn" but they eagerly accepted.

This week just gone she's had three friends over and not one invite back for next week.

Are these parents not embarrassed to be taking the free childcare (I've had them all day and provided lunch) and not be returning the favour?

I originally started this thread with DD in mind, hence the title but then I thought about DS's friend too and added him at the beginning.

As a child, I always had many more friends over than I went to.

We had a comfortable house, I only had one sister and my mum had a job that was school hours only and not very stressful. I didn't really realise until I was mid/late teenage that my friends had more challenging circumstances. One of them said years later that our house made her feel safe and she saw what a "real family" was like. So you might really be making a difference to them. This was a child of a well off family, by the way, but they were busy and ambitious and all had hobbies that they juggled all the time. Our relative banality was soothing!

Your child wants to see their child. If it's not bothering you, I'd let it continue. Children can't really issue their own invitations at that age and it's sad to let a friendship falter because parents are busy/lazy/whatever. I'm also all for children being busy with friends rather than kn screens.

Idle? Ffs, some people work full time juggling multiple kids/parents and commitments. God forbid they don’t want to look after an extra one. To me, the idle ones are the people who seem to be using the offer of sleepovers as an automatic IOU for over night childcare.

Exactly this. Someone asking my child to come round is certainly not a favour to me. I very, very rarely reciprocated. I was a single parent working shifts sometimes 60 hours in a week. In my time off I want to spend it with my own children not someone else’s.

My sons often got invited by the parents of only children so I felt it was us doing them the favour not the other way round. Neither of my sons ever expressed an interest in having someone round so I may have made more of an effort if they did. They certainly haven’t missed out.

If your expectation is that other people reciprocate then stop doing it. You say your child will be upset if you don’t do that so you’re doing it for your family’s benefit not anyone elses.

I think YABU. You have no idea what's going on in other people's homes and you're not required to invite anyone over, that's something you should only do if you want to.

It's important to understand people are different and that's ok.

I think the difference is that you choose to invite other children over and they don't. Tbh, DH and I work FT, we only really arrange sleepovers and formal arrangements for birthdays. Their friends are sometimes here and they can have dinner with us, but i absolutely don't want to be entertaining kids at the weekends.

That said, my DC aren't at anyone else's very much, but I wouldn't turn down an invitation if they were free.

We can’t host playdates. Tiny mid terrace house, and older child is autistic.
We are upfront about this though!

I don’t believe in reciprocation. If my kid wanted a friend over, if it was convenient to me, I invited said friend. Hate the tit for tat mindset- you have no idea what’s going on in other people’s lives or heads.

It’s annoying yes, but it has been pointed out that you don’t always know peoples situations behind closed doors.

DS ( now 17) had a good friend whilst at primary. He went everywhere with us and slept over many a time. I used to wonder why the invite was never reciprocated: after all, the family had a huge house, dad had a good job, nice lifestyle. It later transpired that dad was a manipulative bully, a cheat and likely contributed to the suicide of this poor boys mum.

I grew up sharing a tiny bedroom in a tiny house: if I had friends over we could play in the living room (also pretty small) where my mum was so that she couldn't do anything/watch TV/talk on the phone/read etc without us disturbing her or the bedroom I shared with my sister (small, plus an extra person in it).

I was delighted to go and play at my friends' houses and even at primary school I never asked my mum if friends could come to ours. I wanted to go somewhere else - to friends' houses who had their own bedrooms, or a back room/conservatory/big kitchen table to sit round and play and draw (we had no table), or a big garden, etc. My mum did encourage me to invite friends over, she was happy for us to get in the way! But as a kid I liked the novelty of going elsewhere. Sleepovers were pretty much impossible space-wise. High school was worse because my sister was still in primary school so we didn't want to hang around with a 'little kid' nor did we want to sit in my front room with my mum overhearing all our important teenage gossip haha, AND I went to a high school a few miles away whereas everyone else lived local (in a fancier area), so them coming to me was hard work and I always felt embarrassed asking them to when I was the 'problem'.

So it's not always personal! I also had friends with parents who did shift work, friends with dogs who didn't like strangers, friends with ill siblings etc who didn't have people over. Lots of reasons. As long as you don't actually mind having their friends there I'd say just be pleased you're the place their friends feel comfortable and happy coming to, and that your kid doesn't feel embarrassed or awkward inviting them home - that's not the case for all children.

Play dates culture is awful. Why do I have to feel obligated to invite you back, maybe I work full time, maybe I got plans, maybe I want to spend the day with my family. This is why I dont do play dates I dont know another country so obsessed with playdates as the uk is.

At leastvyoure upfront though and not giving it all the "Oh, er must have DD over to ours! It's our turn" bullshit before eagerly accepting an invite.

I had a situation like this when my son was that age and it wasn’t until a few years later my son told me that he thought the mum was embarrassed as their home was not that nice and the dad was shouting bullying arse.

Not everyone has an ideal home to invite kids back to. Unless you know people really well you don't know what is going on in their lives so I wouldn't have an issue with some kids not reciprocating.

My ex was an alcoholic, so I would never allow sleepovers for example. If he was away on business then I may have invited a friend over for an afternoon but it can be very difficult.

With older children I would take it as a compliment if all the friends like coming to yours - you must be doing something right! As a child I had very busy working parents who were never around and I loved 'hanging out' at one particular friends' house as the parents were so relaxed and jolly!

We are the same. I saw ‘we’ with some irony as I’m more or less the only single parent. There is one parent (also a single parent) who reciprocates but her DD has a very set definition of what she likes or will do and prefers being at home.
I’m def seen as free child care and often like the OP says the cost isn’t covered if we go out but they might bring enough to eg get themselves a drink.
I’ve started insisting on packed lunches, full water bottles etc as getting a bit fed up of being out of pocket.

It is a pain, not unusual.
You'll always have takers.
I always had play days for DD, it didn't bother me, as I knew DD preferred to stay home and it kept her connected.
I over compensated. It was a waste.

Im super happy to be a house that kids want to be at and I don’t judge the other families. My son has a couple of friends who live in very small flats so they more often come here as we have a garden. We live closest to the high school so my daughter has a friend round after school pretty regularly. I keep the snacks topped up and am really glad to know as much as I do about my children’s lives.

If you want your son to stop inviting people or you want it to be for shorter durations or you want to stop feeding them… just do that. Other families set the boundaries they want and you can do the same.

Same here. My kids mates always come here, but rarely get invited back. But at the end.of the day, I do it because it makes my kids happy.

I agree, what is worse than strangers in your house? A strange child; they go in your bedroom, pull stuff out, wear dirty shoes (even if you've got them to remove them when they came in), spill drinks. It's so awful. I suck it up for birthdays and that is bad enough.

Can you you tell im the very opposite of an 'open door', 'open house', 'everyone is welcome'? 😅

You may get an invitation if ive known you for a decade and are sufficiently nerdy 🤓

That’s a shame. Me and my two best friends in school (both lads) used to literally take it in turns- one Friday at A’s house, next Friday at B’s, them mine.

Exactly, by secondary school they should be doing their own thing by now. They want to hang out with their friends then they should arrange it.

If you think you're doing them a favour by inviting them, then stop inviting them. By the time we said yes to the playdates my kids were invited to, mine and their social batteries were completely drained. They never actually asked to have friends over to our house either. I would have found a once a month sleepover way too much.

I love that the kids want to come and hang out at ours. It makes me happy that they feel safe and welcome here.

I can think of lots of reasons someone may not reciprocate that perhaps people wouldn’t want to talk about.

In some cases their circumstances might be very different? We have one DD so it's handy for me when she has a friend to play with, plus it's no bother or financial burden feeding them. Some of dd's friends have multiple younger siblings which must make it harder