I should not post this, but I've spent enough time wondering when and if anyone from my child's school will reply to my emails and voice mails requesting playdates this summer that I've clearly gone over the waterfall. My dangerous mind has concocted a checklist that I am super tempted (but do not dare) send out to parents of potential playdate companions for my soon to be second grader.
It goes something like this:
Hi! My child wants to play with your child; perhaps we could get together at playground sometime, or if you're too busy to meet up, you could leave your child at our house for a couple of hours some afternoon. Please let me know what you think!
For your convenenience I have provided a handy checklist to save you the time of crafting an actual response:
__ My spouse and I both work full time and barely have any time with our kids as is, so you can bet we have no time to reply to your email/voice mail.
__ My kid doesn't want to play with your kid, but I don't have the nerve to tell you.
__ I don't want to interact with an unfamiliar person like you, even for the few minutes it would take to tell you that.
__ I'm so resentful of the fact that you actually have time to contact another parent to arrange a playdate, that I cannot even form a single sentence.
Thank you for your time!
Yeah, I've had a few such voice mails/emails go ignored. I don't mind, but it sucks for my kid, who just wants to see friend she played with daily during the school year but now can't because they're going to school somewhere else. I can't easily explain to her that some parents only see their children as extensions of themselves, and the real "no" is coming from the parents, who don't dislike her personally but just don't care about facilitating their child's social life if it's at all inconvenient.
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