The Best Thing About The Pandemic Is The End Of Play Dates

In a store check-out line, friendship can blossom quickly. Accompanied by the rhythmic beeping of the scanners, my son's eyes lock on his new best buddy: the kid standing behind us in line. They talk in hushed tones, huddled together like the world around them doesn’t exist.

Because I live in a suburban Los Angeles neighborhood where the number of new moms per capita is low, I recognize the hunger for connection. It starts with a stranger’s delighted sizing up of my child (about the same age and seems to get along with her child), then it’s a slow scan up to me (I am also a human mom). I know what’s coming next. A palpitation of feet behind us, a stranger smiling sheepishly while clutching the hand of my son’s newest best friend, and the inevitable question, “We should have a play date! What’s your number?”

Then, with dead eyes, I program the new mom’s number into my phone, one of many that I scroll past every day: Penny Kyle’s Mom, Karen Chase’s Mom, Emily, the random person at the library. The list reads like an obituary of failed play dates set up by my gregarious fourth grader, who just has the natural ability to make friends. You see, one of the most beautiful parts of childhood is the ability to have deep shared connections over the simplest things: a favorite color or even a shared love of the same TV show. In a neighborhood park, my son once anointed himself Captain Barnacles, the leader of “The Octonauts” and ran around a dome play structure by himself making loud siren noises. Soon he attracted a crew of friends complete with a little girl waddling around as Peso Penguin. But adult friendships, at least for me, are more nuanced. And when we seek to extend a moment of connection into a friendship, results may vary.

The play date, a date for play, is so ingrained in current American parenting culture, the pressure to participate can build before a newborn can hold its own head up.

In the Before Times, I always said yes to play dates when I really wanted to say no. Meeting at playgrounds so our kids can run around like wild animals while I was stuck next to a random person who talked endlessly about apple pie recipes made me yearn for a portal to open in the wood chips and swallow me whole.

Although it’s tough to find a bright side to the horrors of the past few years, I realized that for me, there kind of is one. Covid is the panacea to play date awkwardness, and the catch-all excuse to say no whenever a random mom or dad slides into my inbox with the ubiquitous question: Do you want to have a play date? Sorry, you know, the BA.5 subvariant is so contagious. Even outside? Yes, we are super cautious! Just being good citizens!

The play date, a date for play, is so ingrained in current American parenting culture, the pressure to participate can build before a newborn can hold its own head up. The hospital where my son was born hosted new moms’ play date meetings, starting as soon as we were discharged, in one of its cavernous rooms. Every week, bleary-eyed moms, necromanced to life, held their kids’ floppy heads close to each other, and soaked in the satisfaction of being able to answer yes when someone asked, “Have you had a play date yet?”

Once, I was pressured into hosting a group play date and my living room was invaded by babies, who had no interest in each other. They crawled into one another, toppled over, and cried.

“This is so good,” said one mom, exhaling and drinking in the scene with hearts in her eyes.

Experts say social interactions, specifically through play, are important to childhood development. By allowing children to ride around like a maniacal trike gang, they can gain invaluable cognitive and social and emotional skills. Oh, Tommy, do you see how sad Farrah’s face is? She is sad because you ate her crayon.

As beneficial as they are, play dates can also suck. My son once made a new best friend, a curly-haired little boy, while we walked our dog around our suburban neighborhood. They fell in love with each other over intense talk about dogs. Do you have a dog? Mine is white. Mine is brown. Naturally, we had to bring them together to play again because science and experts say it’s important, and who am I to snuff out love? Except that the conversation between the curly-haired mom and me ran the same course: Do you like coffee? I like coffee too. We should hang out more.

It was exhausting to the point that I knew no matter how much more time we spent together, we were never going to click.

We tell ourselves to swallow the discomfort of going on 50 first play dates because it’s good for the kids. We tell ourselves this despite knowing deep down that if this were a dating situation, we would have swiped left long ago.

She began texting with breezy invitations for more walks, which eventually I turned down. The invitations became more urgent until one day I saw her standing on the sidewalk, staring at our house for uncomfortably long. Slowly, she rolled her Uppababy stroller away, curly hair blowing in the wind.

In the isolation of the pandemic, I began thinking a lot about time. Mainly because we had an abundance of it — time to nurture living bacteria into warm loaves of bread. Time to evaluate relationships and the lies we tell ourselves as moms. In the name of our children, we say yes when called upon to give a few hours to a stranger or worse — a parent we don’t really get along with — for the sake of our children. We tell ourselves to swallow the discomfort of going on 50 first play dates because it’s good for the kids. We tell ourselves this despite knowing deep down that if this were a dating situation, we would have swiped left long ago.

The writer William Penn described time as a precious resource we want most, but use the worst. Because of its finite supply, our time and energy need to be fiercely protected, not scattered so freely that we cannot nourish meaningful relationships. Now, when I say no to play date requests, I show my kids how to choose friendships wisely. That when I say no to the bad ones, I make room for the good.

It just so happens that the pandemic is the perfect excuse. Because even though we are thankfully at a better point than where we started, it’s still OK to play the Covid card. You know, all in the spirit of being a good citizen.