I am a very lucky man. There are many reasons for this claim, and I don’t want to seem like I’m gloating so I’m going to focus on one tiny example. I don’t have to arrange play dates. My wife does it all!
This is mostly due to the fact that most of her friends have kids, and pretty much none of the degenerates I choose to associate myself with do, so it’s just easier for her. In case you don’t know what a play date is, here a quick summary:
Two sets of parents who are too tired to constantly entertain their child decide that if their children spend some time together, they will entertain each other while the parents get to sit and have a normal adult conversation about the zeitgeist of the day. In an ideal world, there is wine somewhere in this equation too.
“There has to be the delicate back and forth most parents are now so used to they don’t even notice they are doing it.”
Obviously, we don’t live in an ideal world though, so this is what actually happens:
Because everyone’s schedules are so busy, the parents struggle to find a time that works for both sides and even when they do, they then have to decide where to have the play date.
Should they meet at a park? If yes, which one? They then have to work out which park is equidistant from both homes, but that is also liked by both kids.
Maybe they decide to meet at one of the homes, but then the question becomes “Which one?”. This is tricky social interaction where you don’t want to seem selfish, but at the same time don’t want to be the parent who has two crazy kiddies causing havoc in his home for the afternoon. There has to be the delicate back and forth most parents are now so used to they don’t even notice they are doing it:
“Oh, I’m sure you don’t want to get the kid in the car and do all that travelling.”
“No worries, we’ll be on the road anyway.”
“Ah. Also, I know your boy is a little scared of our big dogs.”
“He’s not that scared anymore. Besides, I think we have a flea problem at our place.”
“Well, we have lice.”
“WELL OUR PLACE IS HAUNTED, OKAY?”
“…will you bring the wine, then?”
“Sure!”
And then, when all of that finally comes together and the meet-up happens, both kids are suddenly shy and spend the first hour trying to crawl inside their parent, and then their second hour fighting over one of the hundreds of toys they could play with separately.
Sounds like fun, right? I told you I was lucky.
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