Playborhood

Well, with the new baby I have not had too much time to write.

I also have not had too much time to go to playdates either, or to take the kids to the playground. (My youngest is ill, so I have a good excuse to park them in front of the TV to make her stay still on the couch.)

In times like this, it makes me sad/annoyed that the kids in my neighborhood don't roam around. They play fairly little with each other or outside in general, I have the impression.
In general, our development is good, for American standards. There are Trick or Treaters at H'ween and you do see the occasional tween or teen walking somewhere.
But my older kids are 5 and 3. Too young to roam the neighborhood? Don't know. When I spent some time in Europe, all the neighbor's kids between 3 and 6 (the preschool pack) ran around the neighborhood, only supervised by a few maternal glances out the window and whoever happened to be outside doing grown-up things.

Granted, the houses in European villages/towns are often closer together and the area we were visiting is still very much agricultural, so people have stuff to do in their courtyards, so they are outside their houses more often, repairing their tools or whatnot.

Also, since most Europeans still are less mobile than Americans, there is often more of a social net, esp in smaller towns, i.e. everybody knows everybody and so have their parents and grandparents. That leads to more trust.

I can't help wishing I was back there and have my kids run around with the others, maybe having an impromptu kiddie pool party...(And don't get me started on how free and unstructured MY childhood was, in whatever European country I happened to be!)

Here I will have to formally invite my neighbors for a playdate. They might or might not come. There will def be at least one parent and up to 2 younger or older siblings. Since it gets to be a bigger gathering, there should be refreshments, one is polite, after all.

And all that with a colicky baby who insists on breastfeeding marathons?

I think not!

I mean, I'll do it for the kids, to alleviate their boredom, but it is not exactly giving me a break. And whom do I try to kid? Unstructured play it isn't.
Since I was once again annoyed over this situation, I did a web search, trying to find out if there were more people as annoyed as I was. Turns out, that is the case.
http://playborhood.com
Read esp "Mike's Manifesto", which can be found in the "About Us" part.
They basically echo my grumblings and want to change things. I want to do that too, but don't exactly know how. I was about to mail them to suggest that they create a database with likeminded parents for cities/towns/places, but then what? While it might be nice to know more people who think like I do, it would only result in more playdates at best. I mean, what good is it to know likeminded people, if they don't happen to live in your street/neighborhood?
Although by now I would even be willing to move to find for my children what I had (and my nieces and nephews have) in Europe.