Parents and play date politics (Title edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

[Okeydokedeva]

Got a strong willed, sweet but shy 4yr old ds. He can make some wonderful spontaneous friendships but struggles in large groups. He has a good friend at nursery and she and he has a lovely friendship. Every day he tells me stories and dreams about her. His little face melts.

the mum of the girl is heavily pregnant. She is local and has lots of friends I think. We don’t have much in common beyond the kids. We organised a play date at mine and it was clear to all of us how well they got on. Since then she has made lots of excuses and I feel a bit of a nag/Wally. Eventually she messaged me saying I was ‘overwhelming’ and that she had said she was pregnant and not making plans. I’ve tried to explain to my boy that his friends mum is tired etc. he does keep asking. It sucks. I feel really sad and ashamed. I feel like I am no good at this making friends with strangers thing. But most of all I feel so sad for him as this is his fave friend by far and it’s been going on three months now like this.

any advice????

THANK YOU. Thank you. @thankyoujeremy

im not sexualising my kid, he and I aren’t obsessed, we have other friends. He just really likes her and it was clear from the first and second play date ( mine and then park) that they really did get on. I do appreciate now that I should have just left it when she made her first not today thanks reply, so now I won’t make that mistake again. He does have other pals at nursery and i and ping my best to help him nurture those friendships - and mostly those parents are more receptive. Thank you for sharing your experience - it’s very similar x

They do know each other and I do less childcare than my DH

@Okeydokedeva I'm from the same part of the world as you, spent some time living in England and although people were nice I found it hard to make genuine friendships and struggled with a sense of not belonging. It was nobody's fault, I think our cultures are just too different.

Then I moved to Scotland and made lots of friends straight away. People kept inviting me places and when they said "let's meet up" they meant it.
I have a similar aged child to you and we've done play dates since birth, with about 12 mums and their kids. We meet up with someone at least once a week for tea and cake, soft play, park, walks, etc
Surprised people here are saying nursery age is too young - to me it's exactly the right age because the kids want to see their friends but are too young to organise it themselves.

Is your area quite diverse? You could try making friends with mums who aren't local, who will also be looking for company. Locals probably won't have a need for that because they've already got established family and friend networks.

Aww I think you sound lovely and friendly, maybe the mums not very nice ?

Surprised people here are saying nursery age is too young - to me it's exactly the right age because the kids want to see their friends but are too young to organise it themselves.

I think maybe a lot of the people who are saying it's not a big deal at nursery age have older children and are well aware that friendships can be shallow and transient at that age.

Also, I think these mum/child politics aren't unique to England. I'm in a few Facebook groups for mums in my home country and regularly see posts from women complaining that other mums are ignoring them in the playground, haven't invited their child to a birthday party or they don't have anyone to do play dates with. Sometimes people just don't click, or are too busy, or your face doesn't fit for whatever reason.

I'm surprised nobody has pointed this out, but "to have a crush" is American English. In American English it has pure, romantic connotations (butterflies in the stomach, head over heels, being infatuated/enamoured etc). But it has filtered back into British English, where it simply means to fancy someone (sexually).

Like the OP I'm a non-native speaker. We probably picked this use up from older literature and the internet.

A few years ago I was accused here that I made up a story because I used a word "prom". Because proms don't really exist in the UK. It baffles me that people struggle with an idea some posters here are either American or non native speakers!

Either usage seems inappropriate for toddlers?

It depends on the angle

Applying the first meaning of crush on a child - you can decide that the meaning is set in stone and that the word doesn't belong to the same sentence with a child.
Applying first meaning of child on a crush - describing child's version of crush, which is not sexual in any way, but have some partial similarity to teenage obsession (talking about the other one the whole time, ...).

English English use the word "inappropriate" to describe that you have collectively decided to not acknowledge the second angle (out of worry someone might not understand the difference). The point is, that it is your cultural or political decision, but there is nothing inherently wrong in the phrase from language point of view. Metaphores, metonymies, using words out of collocations, it is all normal part of the language. Communication is possible when people choose to understand others.

I do think there are cultural issues at play potentially, but there could be lots of reasons someone would not agree to playdates.
I don't like having people over to my house much. When my kids were little I really hated it. My house was always chaos and a mess, but it was also where I shut the door to the outside world.
With ds1 I agreed to a few playdates, but I never reciprocated them , so soon the invites dried up. I actually preferred that. I decided to keep my kids out of school friendships to the children of my friends, rather than trying to befriend the parents of the children my child liked. I felt safer that way.
I also made some social faux pas because it turns out I'm on the autistic spectrum and so are my kids.
I am however quite sociable on my own terms and friendly and open, so people do want to be my friend and sometimes I don't know what to do when this happens because I may well like the person, but I just don't have the capacity to maintain friendships with everyone that I get along with. I just think of these people as aquaintances, so id be happy to see them in the park or at school, but if they kept trying to arrange things with me, then I'd want to back right off as id find it stressful.

I do feel for you. There will be others in the same boat as you , who have lonely children and who are also lonely. You might find it easier in another area, or you might need to specifically ask on local groups if anyone with kids of a certain age would like to do a park meet up or something.

No 'crush' means the same here.

I was reading this again... and have some ideas.

• Locally, opposite the school there's a casual 'hub/pop up cafe' which does coffees, drinks, has a pizza 'van' next to it and hires out bouncy castles and parents often use this as a 'party space', the DP's locally also use the park for a picnic area.

• There's also a big cafe/indoor space in a park, where mums tend to hang out, which can be hired for parties.

• My ex-NDN who was very gregarious and had lots of mum/DC friends (she has 3 DC) often used all these spaces to hold parties (she has a huge house too) as she told me her 2 boys were very boisterous (her DP called them 'feral!') and she preferred to hold parties not in her house and garden so she didn't have to clear up afterwards, but she did clear up in the parks of course.

See if you can find similar spaces and arrange to meet parents/DC there. This got more popular over lockdown but popularity has increased since then too. There are probably a few meet up groups too for this. Or you could set up your own.

• My DM back in '71 when I was born. There were no mum/baby groups at all then, only a local playgroup. She opened up her living room/garden and invited all the local mums/babies toddlers to just drop in/by and she offered them drinks/biscuits or they brought their own and didn't charge.

• As the above got really popular later she started a 1 o'clock club in a local park which had a small hut/building on site, charged a nominal fee to cover hut/building and ran that until my DB was about 2 years old.

• I was a very shy child who often preferred my own company but had 2 best friends at infant/junior school. DM wanted me to socialise though with other kids, so she took me everywhere and anywhere, to any friends she made (she had lots) with other DC.

• She also but this depends on house size and if you want to do this:

• held a joint birthday party for me and DB every year from age 4-5 upwards in our house, but inviting everyone in the class (yeah sounds nuts I know!) we had a family friend who was a college/poly technician and had disco flashing lights, one was a traffic lights one (!) and a sound system and he had a DD a year or 2 older than me and they arranged for a disco for us all (free of charge, we must have paid with bottle of wine or something!) in our living room. No other kids we knew had this, though some did have parties. Instant popularity contest winner.

• DM did all the catering (with me helping) for the above.

• DM also organised huge birthday picnics for friends and family every year in June in Richmond Park as she had 2 other best friends with birthdays then (1 on same day as hers) - Geminis! We invited some of our own friends as kids but it was a good way for us all to meet up (we did meet up at other times too), everyone brought food and drink and DM had a gramophone from somewhere so that was brought along, plus a huge long rope for skipping, rounders bats and balls and anything else. You could do the same though, just invite others over, anyone you like.

You sometimes have to go the extra mile to make friends. Appreciate this may be tricky with your recent accident/disability, sorry to hear about that.

Thanks for the good suggestions. We’ve had a nice day out and I’ve had time to just think on all the feedback. I appreciate you all taking the time to share your thoughts.

This post hits the nail on the head for me.

OP it's a simple case of you and potentially your DS of not respecting boundaries. The mum has said 'no' several times and you have not respected that. This behaviour will be pickup by your DS and he also needs to know that no means no.

I winced when I saw your original thread title. 'mutual crush ' is not appropriate for 4 year old children.

Also, it is not an 'English' thing to want to put boundaries in place. I admire pregnant mum's directness. She is not being mean.

(ignore fat finger typos!)

I absolutely agree and was also going to quote this line.

A very important message for all of our children

Or maybe the mum is genuinely overwhelmed

It happens doesn't it that you just don't gel with another mum?

I wouldn't want to spend my free time with someone I don't particularly get on with & if my kid was seeing this other one most/every day at kindergarten I'd probably tell them that that's enough.

That's where they see them & they see others outside of kindergarten.

Won't be long before kids can be dropped off & a polite few words with other parents is all that will be needed.

OP has said a couple of times that the children get on well, and the issues you are raising here are not the issues being raised by the other parent, based on what is being posted, and there is nothing in the posts to suggest there are boundary issues. That is, it is not possible to infer that there are any boundary issues nor that the other child is not keen on playdates. I am not sure how helpful your posts are, therefore, and they come across to me as a bit patronising. And cheeky.

The issue - at face value - is that the other parent isn't keen, and I think that that is fair enough. Some parents would be okay about having play dates with someone they don't have much in common with, and some wouldn't - I don't think a judgement is needed either way about that.

Thank you @openeddoors . For me the biggest issue is that my ds really likes her and chats about her all the time and there is nothing I can do so he can see her more often. For the record, the only see each other once a week- i do get that if they saw each other daily this would all look a bit full on, but they don’t.

Bloody hell is this thread still going? And the same things being said on the 12th page as the first! Mums said she finds you overwhelming and doesn’t want any future play dates right now. I really don’t understand how anyone can take anything from that other than ok, I’ll stop asking for play dates?!

This is a HUGE red flag. Please read the amazing advice on here about setting boundaries for yourself and your DS. No means no.