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Original poster

When you were a kid did you go on 'play dates' and was your mum 'a part of the school gate clique'?

68 replies

YuleingFanjo · 17/03/2012 22:18

Inspired by another thread (thread about a thread, sorry) which made me think maybe that's why I don't make friends with all and sundry but rather keep myself to myself and stick to the friends I know well.

I moved around a lot as a child but even when we were settled in one place for longer periods of time I didn't really hang on to friends. I have 2 friends from secondary school who I see infrequently and no friends from any of my primary school.

My parents were never really involved with other parents and I didn't have other kids come to the house to play with me.

OP posts:

AwkwardMary · 17/03/2012 23:14

mrudagawa I have a good friend who is very posh indeed and she says her 1970s childhood was terrible...as an only child, she had a vast garden, pool and toys but no playmates.

The village kids were cajoled to come in during the summer but wouldn't if the pool wasn't made available...she knew they were ony there for her pool and so felt sad a lot.

Original poster

YuleingFanjo · 17/03/2012 23:15

Thinking about it, I walked to school with siblings so didn't often have a parent walking me to the school gate.

OP posts:

HateBeingASchoolMum · 17/03/2012 23:15

My parents worked and there were no such thing as playdates. We got ourselves to school and back on our own and played with neighbourhood kids after making sure we were home for the 4pm phonecall from mum to make sure we got home from school. So I wasn't forced into friendships with children due to my mum beng friends with other mums. All the best friendships i had were developed when I got to secondary school and university.
We never had friends over as it wasn't a done thing.

AwkwardMary · 17/03/2012 23:15

Can I ask why people won't let their DC out to play?

pictish · 17/03/2012 23:15

Oh yes and that's true - there was no mums at the school gates because we all walked to school by ourselves.

usualsuspect · 17/03/2012 23:18

I think it depends where you live , loads of kids play out around here still.

exexpat · 17/03/2012 23:18

Ragwort - my DM is still in touch with some of her friends that I think she made through the Housewives' Register, but she is also in her mid-70s, and the reunions now tend to be at funerals - so far mainly of the husbands.

pictish · 17/03/2012 23:25

My ds1 has been very fortunate because luckily the parents of his favourite friends have a similar outlook to me...so the four of them do play out, if time allows.
Here in Midlothian, the schools finish up at lunchtime on a Friday...so Friday afternoons are a regular bike/mud/skint knees/soaked through/found a den fests for the lads.
They all have mobile phones. It works well for us.

oldsilver · 17/03/2012 23:26

We walked to school (all the children together in the street) from about 7 when we went to Juniors.

We never had "playdates" as such cause all the local children just played together on the street or in the back lane. What we did though, is sometimes go to other's in our class for "tea" who didn't normally live in our 3 street set up.

I wasn't allowed to do this as, I quote "That would mean we would have to reciprocate". Even the neighbourhood children were not welcome IN the house - not even when they called for me to walk to school with them.

I still don't understand why

startail · 17/03/2012 23:29

No school gate clique because we walked my ourselves from 7. Before we were 7 mum dropped us off in the car (infant school was a bit further) and latterly our mums' sweet talked a half empty bus to give us a lift.

No play dates as I lived on an estate with lots of kids so we just went to each others houses or chased round on our bikes.

Y6 onwards I had friends who lived out of town and then more formal sleepovers did happen.

I also used to cycle 3 or 4 miles up the road to see on particular friend and I would ring her to check it was ok. It was up a steep hill and I wasn't going to bother if she was out or her Mum was busy.
She lived in a hotel and 90% of the time this meant a warm welcome and plenty of food. However, clearly some times her mum really didn't need visitors.

Tryharder · 17/03/2012 23:30

I've never really done playdates. I've been to friends houses with my DCs in tow and they've come here but would never dream of using the term playdate.

I have just started letting DS1 play out usually with a boy around the corner or next door's granddaughter. He's quite a mature 7. Like *usualsuspect", a lot of children around here play out.

TheSecondComing · 17/03/2012 23:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Haziedoll · 17/03/2012 23:40

Never went on play dates. Played with a little girl who lived in my street but never with school mates. Mum was not part of a school gate clique, but I remember the mums were not really any different than mums of today, there was pushy mum, always late mum, glamorous mum etc.

I'm not part of a clique, it isn't really like that at ds's school. I don't do playdates, occasionally ds will have a friend round in the holidays. I find it hard enough looking after my own kids and what with homework and after school activities there isn't really time. I try not to buy into the whole middle class parenting caboodle.

CointreauVersial · 17/03/2012 23:46

Another child of the 70s who walked herself to school, and played outside with local children on the estate.... I don't think my mum knew any of my friends' parents.

munkysea · 17/03/2012 23:52

I rarely went on playdates with anyone but my best friend because I went to a childminder while my mum worked. I'd go to my best friend's house one day a week as a usual play date, except it wasn't called a play date back then. It was called, 'Going round to X's house for tea'.

The child minder's daughter bullied me. Then my best friend decided she saw enough of me because we also went riding together and didn't want me to come around any more. Her mum told me and I remember sitting in the back of their car feeling very small and numb and not knowing why.

And I wonder why I still have trouble making friends and trusting people. Worse, I've unconsciously exhibited similar patterns of behaviour with my later friends. :(

Jellykat · 18/03/2012 00:09

I was born in the early '60s, and walked myself to and from school (latch key kid) from an early age, all the kids played in the back ally, i tended to watch as they were all much older then me..

Left London at 11 and moved to the middle of nowhere which i hated too, at school i was bullied for my accent.
The day i left, was the last day i had anything to do with any of them.

I found out many years later, there had been a rumour at school that i used to inject myself with water in the loos, no wander everyone thought i was a freak!

Needless to say i'm a loner too now.

kerala · 18/03/2012 00:21

Yes. My mother is good fun and always had millions of friends so as a result of her being matey with all the other mothers we had a brilliant childhood with lots of "playmates" though weren't called that then. Trying to do the same for my dds.

kerala · 18/03/2012 00:22

playdates not playmates!

CappyHunt · 18/03/2012 00:57

I remember walking to school with other children that lived close by when I was 5/6. Through the church yard and then one road to cross, but that was opposite the school. I was a Forces child, and we moved abroad when I was 7. Getting to school meant getting the (school) bus from the end of our road, which my brothers and I did on our own.

We lived off base when we moved to Germany, but in married quarters in a nearby town. We could cycle where we wanted (within the marred quarters streets) and could go to the cinema for the Saturday Matinee on our own. We basically left our houses after breakfast and came home at supper time, spending hours building dens out of hay in the fields that we were NOT allowed to go to...playing kick the can etc etc. But we were very rarely in each other's houses, it was more scooping people up as we cycled past.

When I was about 9 I was allowed to cycle across the town to the pool with my friends - cycle paths everywhere so very safe.

Lueji · 18/03/2012 01:27

My mum was part of the school teachers' clique.

No play dates. Kids used to go out and play on the street.
Am I showing my age?

I don't really do play dates with DS. He usually meets his cousins, or plays with the kids when I meet with friends.

Tortington · 18/03/2012 01:33

it was the 70's i went to anyones house and played out all day every day until dark - pretty much anywhere in the area - my mother and all the other mothers didn't know where we were particularly, but becuase everyone knew everyone else in teh area - a large area in a huge town - one would perhaps refer to it whimsically as a community ( that thatcher later butchered) someone would always report my whereabouts back in a ' just seen your custy' kind of way.

our house was always full of kids and villains

TheBolter · 18/03/2012 09:03

I started school in 1979. We had 'playdates' (but they weren't called that - loath the expression it's so American!) and sleepovers, but I don;t remember having any under the age of 6 or 7.

I walked to school from the age of 8, so my mum wasn't part of a school gate clique, but she did chat with my friends mums. I do remember there being a bit of a school gate clique of PTA mums, but it didn't seem to ever bother my mum! She was too busy working anyway.

TheBolter · 18/03/2012 09:03

loathe

Hollyfoot · 18/03/2012 09:15

The word 'playdate' makes me cringe. As has been said, we went out to play with someone. I find the 'date' bit a very strange turn of phrase....

My Mum went to work so there was no clique at the gate for us.

Bunbaker · 18/03/2012 09:25

My mum wasn't part of a school gate clique. We lived too far away from most of my primary school friends to have them over after school or for me to go to them on a regular basis. But I did have my sister and cousins to play with. There weren't many children in our street.

Seeing friends after school happened more when I was at high school. Obviously it had to be arranged, again because we didn't live near each other and my parents didn't have a car so a bus ride or two was always involved. I used to ask if friend A could come to tea next week or if I could go to tea at friend B's house. We didn't do sleepovers either except for one set of friends. We used to put the tent up in the garden and have a midnight feast.

exexpat I used to belong to NWR (used to be National Housewives Register, but name changed in the 1980s to National Womans Register). It was a great way of making new friends, especially as I had moved to another part of the country.

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