Bad Parent: The Self-Deprecating Playdate
Why are parents competitively confessional?
by Hana Schank
October 2, 2008
Thankfully, the other mother quickly produced something called Mac & Cheese Crackers, which looked as if they were made of even more plastic than my son's Goldfish. In accordance with the unwritten rules of the self-deprecating playdate, we then both said something about how terrible it was that we allowed our children to eat crap, thereby allowing ourselves to feel a lot better about the whole thing. We were letting or kids eat chemicals, but at least we knew it was wrong. Take that, parenting rulebook.
In some ways, I lucked out on that playdate, because there is always the risk that you will have a playdate with someone who has a parenting philosophy diametrically opposed to yours, and when this happens there is only one thing to do: find a third party you can both judge harshly. I once spent an afternoon with a mother and her two children, where we spent the majority of the time discovering that we had non-compatible parenting styles. I did sleep training, she didn't. I did time outs, she didn't. I found parenting exhausting and wasn't sure I could manage any more than one kid, she found it easy and was pregnant with her third. Then finally, we hit on something we agreed on.
"I was talking to this woman and she puts her kid to bed at 7:00," she said.
"That's ridiculous," I laughed.
Picking yourself apart is an easy way to make friends.
"That's what I thought," she said.
It was only later that I remembered my own son's bedtime was 7:00. But it didn't matter. We'd found a common enemy, and we would be able to go on and have another playdate. To some extent, that's what the self-deprecation is all about: finding common ground so you can continue to spend time in the company of other adults while your child learns how to play with others. Picking yourself apart is an easy way to make friends, and, frankly, a standard way women are used to communicating with one another. Only on a playdate the context is different. So you while you wouldn't walk into someone else's home and say, "My thighs are fat and I hate them," criticizing your parenting skills is acceptable and welcomed. And once someone has become your friend, you tend to be able to find things to talk about that aren't just what you did wrong that day.
But what is all that self-flagellation about? It's probably a side-effect of all those modern parenting rules. There are so many edicts parents are supposed to follow that it is impossible not to have a few missteps along the way. Nothing feels better than getting it all out there and magically being forgiven. Every parenting decision has innumerable pros and cons to weigh. In today's brave new world of parenting there are no right answers, only things you could have done better: I should have joined a farm share so my child could eat locally grown organic pureed kale instead of Gerber's; I should have breastfed longer; I should have bought only BPA-free bottles even though they didn't make them yet when my child was on the bottle. With all the ways today's parents can fail, is it any surprise that when two parents get together the first thing they do is admit their sins?
©2008 Hana Schank and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Hana Schank is the author of the memoir A More Perfect Union: How I Survived the Happiest Day of My Life. Her writing has appeared in Glamour, Destination Weddings and Honeymoons, and other national publications. She lives in Brooklyn, but you can visit her online at www.hanaschank.com.
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