I realized today that my children have never played at a friend’s house (other than a few birthday parties)or had a friend over to play (other than their cousins) and I feel like they are missing out - but it seems like other families are equally insular these days.
Background: DH and I both work full time - I have a senior management position and he does some freelance work in the evenings in addition to working FT. We have two children: DS age 8.5 and DD age 4.5. They both attend before and after school club, which probably 80% of their school friends also attend, so they do have time with other children outside school. DS attends Cubs and DD will probably start something like Rainbows this year. They also have swimming and sometimes other lessons/sport although we try not to overschedule them.
When I was 8 or 9, I was already walking myself to all my friends’ houses after school and at weekends. But, I lived in a small, calm neighbourhood with little traffic and had my grandmother (who lived with us) home with me after school.
We now live close to a busy road. I freely admit I should have thought harder about living next to such a busy street when we bought this house before children and I am considering a house move to allow them more freedom to wander.
Weekends are usually swimming lessons, the library, some chores and errands, sometimes church, seeing family (including their same age cousins) sometimes days out as a family, and probably once or twice a month a school friend’s birthday party. Evenings after school, unless there’s cubs/football etc, they get a bit of tv while I cook dinner and then we do some reading together or sometimes a board game then bath and bed.
Sitting in friends’ bedrooms making up games and such just seems like such a formative part of my childhood - after school club and Cubs etc just can’t be the same. But, I had an adult at home with me full time and so much more free time and freedom of movement than my children do. It feels like I will really have to make a point of it if I want them to have more unstructured time with friends, and probably at the expense of our family time. And they aren’t really asking for it or expressing that they feel they’re missing out. They’re both outgoing kids with lots of friends but no one is reaching out about playdates. Perhaps this will happen naturally as they move towards the teen years.
Sorry, this went on forever for something so minor! Just feels like life for my kids in the 2020s is really missing this thing that my 90s childhood had - and it doesn’t seem like other parents in my area are much different. Curious how other people find this aspect of raising children in 2026 and if it varies by lifestyle/location etc.