Sometimes I’m a bit of a grouch. So went yesterday’s grouchy blog, in which I ranted a little bit against the idea of the playdate. So if I’m against playdates, what am I for?
Yes, I want my daughter to play with other children. However, I also think that the first home for a small child is within the family. There’s a growing concern about peer-orientation among children, and I must say that Gordon Neufeld’s book Hold On To Your Kids is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. In it, he describes the need to forge strong bonds between children and parents. Reading his work always reminds me to connect with my daughter at her level and create experiences together before she ventures off to school, the world of so many peers and so few adults.
I’m also for community. I am sad that our communities are often preschool deserts, deserted of any visible children. In fact, walking through the suburbs I am sometimes the only person walking. Of course we need to contact other parents via phone, text, or email to set up playdates. Our children won’t meet each other in the street, because no one is playing out there.
In Hold On To Your Kids, Neufeld describes a community in which children know each others’ families. Parents know each other well and are comfortable having their children move into each others’ yards and homes. When the children go to school, their parents hand the children to a loving teacher whom they also know well, secure in the knowledge that the children are in good hands.
That’s what I want for my child. A safe, common space to play, with children and families whom I know and who like me and my child. Yes, it’s a lot to ask. I want a village in a suburban environment, a secure and lovely village where my child can safely ask others to play.
Do you have a village? Do you know of others who live like this? How did we lose our villages in the first place?
(Image courtesy of mzacha at stock exchange)