Right. Playdates.
Maja started Reception in September, and by the end of the second week she came out of the classroom holding hands with a girl called Isla and told me they were best friends and also sisters now. Fine. Lovely. Then on the walk home: “Can Isla come to our house?”
And I had a proper little wobble. Because I’ve done this before with Leo, and I know it’s never just about the kids.
Here’s the bit nobody mentions when you’re the stay at home dad. The class WhatsApp group is called Reception Mums. Not a joke. There are two dads in it, me and a bloke called Steve, and I’m fairly sure Steve only got added because his wife typed in his number instead of hers. So when your kid wants a friend round, you’re the man texting a woman you’ve said maybe nine words to, asking if her daughter would like to come to your house. I wrote that text. Deleted it. Wrote it again. Changed “pop round” to “come and play” because “pop round” suddenly sounded weird. Sent it at 8.52pm and then put my phone face down on the side like it might go off.
There’s a debate on Netmums at the minute about whether it’s rude to drop your kid at a playdate and leave. Mums are properly split. Some love the chat, some would quite like two hours and a hot cup of tea for once (fair play). Same questions for dads, I reckon. Just with an extra layer on top.
Because one mum sitting in another mum’s kitchen for two hours is one thing. A man she’s never met sitting in her kitchen for two hours is a different thing for a lot of women. And I get it. I genuinely do. I didn’t always (the first time a mum suggested the park instead of ours, back when Leo was in Reception, I went home and sulked into a pan of bigos). But some women have very good reasons for not wanting a man they don’t know in their house, and they don’t owe me those reasons. So I’ve stopped making it their problem to solve.
What I do now
Years in kitchens and I still think in prep lists. Most playdate awkwardness happens because nobody said anything beforehand, so everyone guesses and you end up stood in a hallway doing polite faces. So I say it all up front. Mise en place for small humans, basically.
The first text goes something like: hi, it’s Tom, Maja’s dad. She keeps talking about Isla. Would Isla like to come and play one afternoon? I’m the one at home in the week so it’d be with me. Happy to do the park if that’s easier, and you’re very welcome to come too.
Then my number, and Hannah’s as well. (I’m not going to pretend that having a second name on there, a woman’s name, does nothing. It does a surprising amount. I’d rather it didn’t, but there we are.)
I give actual options and I mean them. Park. Ours with her staying. Ours as a drop off. Whatever she picks is fine. And I always give an end time. 3.20 pickup from school, back to ours, home by 5.15. Nobody wants to be stood at the front door at ten past six both saying “right then” over and over.
For a first one at ours I assume the other parent will stay unless they say otherwise. Four year olds can be fine for twenty minutes in a new house and then suddenly very much not fine. Isla’s mum, Jo, stayed. I put a tray of flapjacks out (old habits, I physically can’t have people round and not feed them) and we talked about the school’s frankly mad policy on water bottles for about forty minutes. Better than fine, actually. Before she left she asked if I could have Isla one Wednesday so she could get to an appointment.
That’s the bit that doesn’t make it into the debates. One normal cup of tea and after that a playdate is just a playdate.
A couple of other things I do. I ask about allergies when I’m arranging it, not when the kid’s already sat at the table (ex chef, I can’t help it). And I keep it all downstairs, front room and garden, doors open. Partly that’s so I can hear when it goes quiet, because quiet means felt tips on something. Partly it’s because I know how it might look from the other side, and it costs me nothing.
When it’s Maja going to someone else’s, I just ask. “Do you want me to stay or shall I leave her with you?” No reading the room, no guessing. If they say stay, I stay. If they say go, I’m in the corner shop buying things I don’t need and checking my phone every four minutes.
Leo’s version
Leo’s playdates are a different thing altogether. He’s seven, he’s autistic, and he likes one friend at a time, somewhere he knows, doing the thing he’s into. At the moment that’s lining up every Hot Wheels car he owns by colour and then racing them in that exact order. A big open “off you go and play” doesn’t really work for him.
So with Leo I tell the other parent what to expect beforehand, plainly. He might wander off on his own for ten minutes. That’s not rudeness, it’s a breather. Leave him and he’ll come back. He’ll probably tell your kid a lot about wheel sizes. Most parents are brilliant once they know. It’s the not knowing that makes it weird for everyone, including the other kid.
Leo does it Leo’s way, and honestly, fair enough.
I’m still learning, mind. Last week I got a pickup time wrong by a full hour, turned up at four for a five o’clock, and got shown into a living room where three mums were halfway through a box of Celebrations and a very detailed story about somebody’s ex. They were very nice about it. I had a glass of squash and sat there like a lemon.
Isla’s coming back on Friday. Jo’s already said she’ll drop and go this time, which I’m choosing to take as a compliment (it might just be that she fancies an hour off, to be fair). Either way I’m doing pizza muffins.
If you’re the only dad on your class WhatsApp too, come and find the rest of us in the Dadsnet community. There’s more of us than the group names suggest.
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