Talk:Play date

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[edit] Suburbanization and Play Dates

Couldn't suburbanization be another reason to schedule play dates? Play dates are most popular in the United States and suburbanization is a fact of life in the US. As society is fragmented and distances are vast (at least for a child) between child friends and children can't drive yet they have to be driven by their parents or nanny or Au Pair and that has to be scheduled.

Furthermore, many suburbs can't be left on foot or bicycle as there are no foot/cycle paths. Also, many extra curricular activities (e.g. sports) result in a fragmented schedule for the children.--Soylentyellow 22:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

How about a note in this article about how it's a stupid term for a stupid practice? Geez, kids just need to go play for crying out loud, stop trying to make them go to work so early on. Next thing you know we'll have "play careers" and "play 401k" and "play cocktail hour." As it is, the term sounds like these kids are meeting up for romantic interludes. So stupid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.41 (talk) 17:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] United States English usage

I suspect this is US English usage and virtually unknown in Britain at least under this name. We've had something similar here as part of our children's activities for decades but it's called "Can Sandra/Thomas etc come round to play?".

For recent examples of British reactions to the term see here: [1]

"The American mother of a little girl whom Meike visited for a recent "play date" (I won't even try to provide an equivalent British noun) told Marika her daughter had felt "elated" that she was learning a new "language"."

And here: [2] "she informs me, the last boy she looked after, had Gymboree on Mondays, Monkey Music on Tuesdays, Crechendo on Wednesdays.

He did Aqua Babies on Thursdays and some sort of music lesson on Friday. And every afternoon he had a 'play date'. A play date?

'You know, ' she says, 'when another child comes over to play.' It seems that poor ninemonth-old was so busy being stimulated that he needed to make an appointment to play."

Having said that there are counterexamples such as this: [3] --PeterR 20:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)