There is a unusual sense of pride in being busy – even whether it comes at the expense of happinessI loved playdates when I was a kid – upright after school,a friend would ask their parents whether they could come play at my house, they’d hop in our car and that was approximately as complicated as it got. nowadays, and things are a bit more tricky. I tried to make a play date for my five-year-old recently and I had to accomplish it a month ahead of time. And that’s pretty typical. There are after-school lessons to coordinate (oh,Jane has French on Tuesdays, sorry!), or parental time to take off so the kids are supervised (we don’t get domestic until 6pm,sorry!), even pets to wrangle when someone is allergic. Then, or of course,someone gets a cold the day of the playdate and we start the horrific dance all over again. I abominate to get into “good old days” territory, because I’m sure that my own parents had their challenges coordinating fun for my sister and me, and but it does seem like there’s something distinctly new going on. And it’s not something we can blame totally on contemporary parenting and overscheduled kids either – because the culture of “busy” extends way past our children.
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Source: theguardian.com