My daughter has just now reached the age (she is 5) when people start asking her on play-dates that don't include me. So far, they've only been with other parents who I know very well and for a long time, but I know there is a time in the not-so-distant future when my daughter will want to play at someone's home and I won't know them. Scary!
This is why stories like this one where a dad accidentally put on his own porn instead of the Smurfs movie he had intended to show at a child's birthday party scare me to death.
If I were the parent of one of the kids at the birthday party, I would be livid, and this is a classic example of how hard it is to trust other people with your kids. This is why I have a plan.
My plan is multifaceted. First, I plan to BE the cool hangout pad. Oh yes, I will have all the Tang and cookies my kids could want. I will provide red paper for Valentine's and plenty of candy and fun. My house will be the place to be for kids after school.
My mom was the queen of this herself and I almost never went over to anyone else's house after school because she was so cool and all my friends wanted to be around MY mom. It's a genius plan, really.
My other plan is to really get to know parents of my kid's friends. This past January first, we invited one of my daughter's friends and her whole family up to my family lake house. We did skiing and snowshoeing and ice skating. At night, we put the kids to bed and we got to know the parents.
Now I consider them somewhat good friends of ours and it was really a very simple thing. The fact is, I want my daughter and son to make many, many good friends. But I also want to know the parents. I am never going to be comfortable sending my child over to a stranger's house. That would just not be me.
So I have to bake a lot of cookies, make my house super appealing, and be prepared to make a lot of new friends.
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Comments 43
Yet another article titled with the "X proves Y" scenario. ONE isolated incident does not ever, has never and will never prove anything. The Stir is littered with these articles.
I think it's funny that the author is so "scared to death" by the idea that she insists on hovering over her child at every moment- this assumes that all other parents won't have a problem sending their darlings over to her super cool mom pad all the time. If hovering were normal, wouldn't all of those moms refuse to send their kids to you, too?
For the pay or leave pool partyer, I totally agree with you on that one. I would not trust a parent or 2 to watch a gaggle of kids in a pool, especially that young. Taking each situation into consideration, and deciding against what makes you uncomfortable is healthy and normal!
**rolling eyes**
Honestly, You sound like a bitch. It was an ACCIDENT. Learn to laugh it off. It's not like he made them watch it and act it out. Now that would be a horrifying event. Accidents happen.
Second tis.unnatural.
Chances are you you're not going to be able to meet every single parent of your child's friends. It's just part of life. Most parents work and a lot of children basically arrange their own 'playdates' these days, and half the time it's an Uncle or Grandparent(s) picking the child up so even if you meet an adult, it's not necessarily the parents or owners of the house where they'll be going.
Sure you can decide to not send your child over there, but you'll be ruining a lot of friend opportunities for someone who professes to want their child to have lots of friends. Sometimes that means taking a leap of faith and realizing that not every parent is a lurking pedophile just because they won't have coffee or go skiiing at your lodge.
I view my son's friends as his friends and I don't see a need to be buddy-buddy with the parents just because of that. We're very different and run in completely different 'social spectrums' and wouldn't have much to talk about. They're rich, married middle-agers and I'm a poor former-teenage and still single mother. But our kids get along so great, I like my son having playdates. I walk home from school with them since we live two blocks up and I always make sure their parents have my name, address and phone number.
Omg. is this really what your going to all up in arms about? really? now if you said the parents were having sex infront of the children, or a gun was found in the hands of one the children, I don't know I thought maybe it was serouis! Accidently putting the wrong movie in just doesn't seem like a big deal unless they let the kids watch it. My own mother watched my kids for me and unsure what to put on for them she saw a anime and through it on thinking it was kid friendily. Turned out it was a tad too sexy for the kids (you know how those work, in japan just cause it looks innocent doesn't mean it is tv-17) and freaked out when a butt appeared. What I do? Laughed it off. Why? cause in the bigger picture just not worth it. I know just living they see worse. (at the very least they probably heard worse. What? Just cause I'm a mother doesn't mean I can't have sex). Call me when you have something worth ranting about!
Well... I once pushed play on a video that was not what I thought it was.. In my own home.. In front of company. Yes.. kids too. But.. it was also shut off as soon as we realized it was not what we thought it was. We all blanched.. then laughed. The kids (now teens) don't even remember the incident. So much for curdling their young brains with filth!
Our house is definitely going to be the fun house - we have a pool (and yes, we have VERY strict rules and it is fenced with a padlock on the gate), I'm in the process of setting up a multiple-kid friendly craft room where I have all my crafting supplies (I'm an artist, so I have everything from huge rolls of paper to markers, colored pencils, face paint, canvases I'll never use...all kinds of stuff!), I LOVE to bake, and we have a big yard and a trail through the woods for taking nature walks. We also have tons of board games, legos like there's no tomorrow, Barbie dolls (I used to collect them), a Wii game system (for rainy days), and a pool table that WILL be set up again in the near future. My mom was also the Queen of hosting the neighborhood kids, and she always tells me how much better she felt having us home with her and letting all the kids come over - she says it's worth dealing with just about anything - and that was in the 70s. We totally lucked into the pool and pool table - our house was a fixer-upper, so we got a good deal, and hubby used to be in the pool table biz and someone was throwing this one out (full size slate top and all!).