Quick Event Reminder: Sunday 21st
Join me this Sunday at 9am for a full moon circle. Expect a meditation, some journaling, some pondering and perhaps some howling at the moon (jk). We will be exploring self-doubt and imposter syndrome, and set new intentions under the full moon.
As a paid subscriber, for $10/month, you get access to monthly events. You can cancel anytime, and I’ll comp anyone who asks! Lmk in the comments if you’re joining or have any questions. xx Alex
“I Don’t Play With My Kids” — the importance of redefining play
I’m a playful mom, but I’m not a play mom. I sometimes struggle with the concept of play, of playing pretend especially, and of always being the source of entertainment for my child. Can you play with me, mama? is a question that swells my heart and simultaneously, at times, leaves me feeling annoyed. Some moms just have “it” — as though they are playing professionals, like Mary Poppins. One of my best friends has it. She can make up a game on the fly. She can shift a toddler’s attention with the magic of a few words. She runs. She hides. She truly plays. And everytime I’m around her, I’m inspired by her parenting, while also feeling like a shitty mom who definitely does not obtain this skill. Similar to being physically overtouched and overstimulated in motherhood, the need for me to play with my daughter when I don’t want to makes me feel like I have nowhere to hide, and in the moment, can cause my resentment to skyrocket — only for a guilt bomb to explode onto me a few hours later.
When I sat down to really think about my feelings of guilt and comparison around playing, I realized I could track it back to the first time I heard the saying, “When a child asks you to play, what they’re really asking you is: Do you love me?” And oof, the weight of this is a burden I still carry — and as someone who doesn’t have a single memory of my father playing with me, it’s a line that lingers in my subconscious every time I decline my toddler’s request to play.
Social media has undoubtedly impacted my feelings on this. It seems my generation’s concept of playing is wildly different from how we were raised — and requires a lot more playing than our parents ever did. Boomer parents either shooed us out of the house to play in the neighborhood until sunset or plopped us in front of a television all day — while we millennials are bombarded with images and videos of art projects, baking activities, the best books to read, the best brain stimulating toys, and even worse, Montessori moms who make it all look seamless and dare I say fun. But the reality of “play” for overstimulated, overworked mothers with no village is not the picture social media presents, which makes finding my own opinion on play even more difficult to navigate. I’m constantly asking myself: How would I parent, how would I play, without the comparison and information overload that is social media? I know I would carry a lot less guilt about not being an artsy mom who can whip up an art project in the matter of seconds, and I certainly wouldn’t think I’ve permanently damaged my daughter when I occasionally say no to her play requests.
Not all moms carry this weight though. TikTok creator KC Davis told her 1.6 million followers, confidently, that she does not play with her four year old and six year old. In a few follow-up videos, she clarified that she does art with them, bakes with them, and takes them to museums. In other words, she does activities with them. But she does not play with them. “I’ve created a culture in my house where adults do not play with toys, adults do not pretend play,” she explained. She went on to say that she had to train her kids to not expect her to play with them. “They eventually stopped asking,” she said. While I’m incredibly inspired by Davis’ ability to authentically share her motherhood experience, and I truly praise her bold honesty, I found myself not fully agreeing with her. A child’s love language is play — it’s how they seek connection, and sometimes even love, but a healthy balance of when we as parents can and should play does exist.
Play is essential, according to numerous studies and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Modeling pretend play is how toddlers learn about the world, each other, and themselves. Not only is play important for healthy brain development, it also releases oxytocin, for both parent and child, which is how trust within relationships is built. In other words, play helps strengthen a parent-child bond. However, not all experts agree on the importance of play. “Americans go overboard with parent-child play,” says anthropologist David Lancy, which is both unsurprising and hilarious, and something I’ve definitely observed when comparing my American and European friends. He says parent-child play has been “virtually unheard of throughout human history,” and that most of the world would consider our cultural focus on playing with our children “kind of dotty.” Alison Gopnik, a developmental psychologist at Berkeley, agrees with Lancy outside of one main difference: “In many cultures, mothers hold their babies much, much more than American mothers do, and holding and cuddling a child can be as stimulating and playful as peek-a-boo,” she says. This could explain why our children may seem more “needy” at times. Their words are perhaps asking for play, but in reality, what they’re longing for is our touch and emotional connection.
When Davis shared how her children independently play for three hours at a time, she credited it to her “not hovering over them every second of the day.” And I agree with this sentiment. We live in a culture addicted to busyness, and we are not allowing our children to be bored. This idea that a child needs to be booked and busy, with endless sports and activities, therefore not allowing space for intentional, creative play, comes from our society’s inability to sit in solace. I’m always shocked by the helicopter parents I encounter out in the wild, like at the playground, who are up their children’s asses, and unknowingly, robbing them of creativity and independent play. Declining requests to play is important — and maybe even necessary — to encourage individuality and imagination. And my daughter is great at it, because sometimes I say no. Even if I worry a bit in the moment, within five minutes, I find her in a cape pretending to be multiple characters, playing doctor on our cat, and building towers and cakes and houses for her stuffies.
At the same time, I firmly believe play is one of the main ways children connect with adults they love. I believe this in my bones, solely based on my own childhood experiences. I wish my own father played more, and I wish he cared more about my interests, whether it was playing pretend, my Gameboy, or the Spice Girls. His constant decline to play felt like a dismissal, and sometimes, even a rejection of his attention and love. When I think about these memories, asking him to play was absolutely equated with asking for his love.
Like most things, there is a middle ground, a balance to the madness that social media portrays. We don’t have to be perfect parents — and we certainly don’t have to be perfect playmates. We can play with our children without overextending ourselves, and we can decline their requests without making them feel unloved. When my daughter asks me to play, I will join, often, with joy and excitement. But I am also okay setting up boundaries that remind her that I can’t always partake. And maybe more importantly, allowing her to witness that it’s more than okay for mothers — and women — to say no sometimes. When she is older, I hope she remembers how we talked about fairies, how I made magic at Christmas, and how we invented stories before bed every night. I hope she remembers how I created a home that gave her imagination and creativity room to roam freely. More importantly, I hope that both through play and saying no to play, she knows I love her endlessly.
Such a great article Alex! When my son tells me he’s bored, I counter with “Only boring people get bored” and then we laugh (bc we both know he’s far from boring) and then I remind him that it’s ok to be bored, that it’s ok to just lie on the couch and let his mind wander, that he’s giving his brain time to rest. Our society has become so over scheduled. I get caught up in it too, but I’m going back to basics, back to a simple way of living.
I love this but laughed way too hard at the parents up their kids asses at the park because my god is that true today. It’s a major cock block to the other tiny humans who want to play … but can’t break through the parental shadow hovering 5 inches away lol