Episode 010 - Dads, Moms, and the Mental Load of Playdates

Get ready to be BOTHERED by the story of a situation where two parents started to coordinate a playdate, at the request of their respective children. The one parent, a father, offered up his wife’s number. Excuse me!?

Julie shares her frustration at this common occurrence, and scenarios like it where men will sometimes try to opt out of the organizing and socializing aspects of family life. Ties are made to the much talked about “male loneliness epidemic”, and a new stand-up joke is born. 

Join comedian Julie Kim as she reflects on the situation and comments, and provides commentary.

🎧 Listen to the short audio version.

Non School Daze

I have a daughter. She's an only child.

We go to great lengths to socialize her. This is mostly driven by me. I point out that a lot of people we know who have no siblings are weird. He says, “but my mom is an only child.” That’s when I smile and walk away.

There’s lots of socialization at school. But there seem to be so many days when school is not on. When it is off. Besides weekends, these include: winter break, spring break, summer break, holidays and observances, and professional development days for teachers. 

In this current school year, my kid has ​180 instructional days (days in class). That means that 185 days are not spent in the classroom. Here’s a breakdown of the year from a local school board.

That means that 49.3% of each day of the year is a school day.

My point? That’s a lot of days where my kid is not in school, and one some (okay, most) of those days we send our kid to a camp. Usually a local day camp.

Is it a luxury? Sure. But if we’re identifying luxuries (and I realize I’m having this conversation by myself) it’s also a luxury to have a parent – usually a woman – stay home with one or more kids. It is also a luxury to have a kid who is old enough to take care of themselves, not requiring anyone to take the day off or pretend to work or work half-assed while they also take care of that child. There are many kinds and extents of luxury.

She’s a joyful kid when she’s not angry, and she always makes a friend. She’s so passionate about her new friends. She likes the ones who play hard and have imaginations. She recently articulated that one of her regular friends tends to kind of dampen her mood, when that friend criticizes how much she jumps around and how excited she gets about things. I love that she’s aware of the concept of vibe matching. I hope she never loses her spark. If someone does, I'll come for them.

Play Date? Double Date?

Last summer, we registered our child in a week of tennis camp. I went to pick her up on one of the afternoons. I saw her running across the field to me with another child. It’s a beautiful feeling to see your child running towards you. But the feeling of seeing your child running towards you with another child? Less beautiful. Because usually, they want something.

That was the case on this day. These two small children ran right up to me and said the words that I often dread: “can we have a play date?”

No hug. No greeting. No asking how my day was. Okay.

I realized that the other kid was also looking at the man standing next to me. 

Without looking at each other or otherwise communicating, this man and I did what a lot of parents do in such situations. We pretended that we hear the question that was asked directly to us. LOL

It’s an unspoken thing that a lot of us do. Is this gaslighting? Technically… yes. We gaslight our children because we think that maybe they’ll give up or forget. And this is foolish. If you have kids, you know that a child has the capacity to ask you a question 100 times in a row with incredible stamina and stubbornness.

It is a lot of parents’ worst nightmare to be confronted by their own child and a new child asking for a play date. That’s not fair! I don't know who this kid is. I don't know who her parents or guardians are. My kid is still at the age where a play date involves at least one parent. It’s like a double date. Usually, a bad one. In the beginning, like a real date, parents (who are just normal adults) use watered down and innocuous versions of their real personalities. They don’t share too much, and mostly share the positive stuff. Sometimes there’s comparison and judgement involved. I’m turned off if I meet and new person and they ask do one or both of these two things during the first meet-up:

• Ask “Do you rent or own?” referring to property. 

• Talk only about their kids and the activities that they’re in. People don’t care as much as you think or want. I definitely do not. Tell me something more interesting about your kid. A story. Share an experience or a fear with me. Tell me a unique thought.

“What do you do for a living?” is one that people seem or stay away from off the bat. A lot of times it’s a way to find out how rich or successful someone is. I heard it a lot from older Koreans who were only interested in this answer so that they could judge or compare or determine how much respect they wanted to give to that person. But I don’t mind the question. I’m always curious. I think what someone does with a lot of their waking hours says a lot. I love a successful person. And an interesting person. And ideally, both. Does this person have knowledge is interesting to me, or that could maybe benefit me or my child? I love having lawyers in my circle, for example. Are you stay at home mom who used to be a hairstylist and met your rich husband because he was a client? Good for you. Also, that’s interesting sh1t. Tell me more. I won’t judge. I might borrow the scenario for a joke one day. Feed me. 

Back To The Story

The kids did not stop. They kept asking “can we have a play date??” in louder and more aggressive ways.

Finally, I turned to this man that I didn't know. I said, “It looks like they want a play date. Should we exchange information?”

His response, “Sure, I'll give you my wife's number.”

He continued, “Because I'm very busy. I’m a surgeon.”

I told him that I understand busy (maybe laying it on extra thicccccc to make a point, as I usually do, even for my own amusement).

He asked, “What do you do?”

Oh great. This.

I said, “I’m a comedian.”

Surprisingly, he looked quite pleased. He said, “I help organize our hospital foundation’s fundraiser. It’s black tie, gourmet food, and we raised $10 million last year”. Note: I don’t’ actually recall how many million he said they raised the year before, but it was multiple millions of dollars.

He continued, “We’re looking for a comedian to volunteer their time. Maybe you could get some exposure.”

Well F*CK THIS GUY AMIRITE!?

My response, “Sure. I'll give you my agent’s… wife’s number.”

Mic drop. Good night, everyone.

Double Bothered

REASON ONE - Defaulting to the woman partner.

F*ck you, sir. Unless this is an explicit arrangement, and this isn’t the man making an administrative assistant of his wife. That’s what his tone told me.  

For myself and so many of my mom friends, we have to take on the organizing and the planning… all the mental load. In some cases, I guess we're better at organizing and planning, but that's probably because we have so much practice. Because of sh1t like this.

Some of us moms work. We work a lot, so much that we are comedian and don't need to work for exposure. Okay, I’ll stop referring to that part but maybe that’s the part that offended me more. I haven’t decided.

I reminds me of when I use to work in corporate positions. I would get asked a lot of times to take notes – meeting minutes. Like, on the spot. I got asked more than others. Maybe it was because I was a keener, or a junior, or because I was good at doing meeting minutes but for f*cking sure, the males were not asked as much even if they were also junior. And I would do it (honestly, otherwise I’d always drift off and not pay attention). I would also do it to be a team player and because I didn’t think I could say no. Maybe I couldn’t have at the time. Who knows. What’s important is that I’m still angry about it.

REASON TWO – EXPOSURE?

He was assuming that I am not a successful comedian and that I need exposure, and I do like exposure. I mean me doing this podcast right and everything else I do as an entertainer is for exposure. But not that kind of exposure – not insinuation that I will work for exposure when so many others are getting paid for a charitable event. The venue is likely not donated. There’s no way that the wonderful food and services of the chefs and catering staff is all donated.  

Can you imagine asking this man to do a surgery for free? Maybe it would be good for exposure, for a better RateMyMd rating or for public perception? I’m gonna look up his rating. His bedside manner probably sucks because his real life manner sucks. He was not good at the camp side that day! Let me tell you! 

Similar Story, Kinda

My husband recently told me that he pulled this move, but for a different reason. He was picking up our child from a dance class, and one of the moms (who he had never met before) told him that her child and our child had decided that they wanted to take horseback riding lessons together.

Foreshadowing: He is not good on the spot. He is also not social.

My husband then darted his eyes around and he said, “Oh, my wife books the camps.” He then pretended that he saw someone talking to him and left. Did I mention that he was called Mr. Personality as a nickname in school? No? That’s because he was not. That’s not a nickname someone would give to him unless it’s meant to be ironic.

Tapping Out of Responsibility

This has been my pet peeve in the past few years.

It’s mostly a blessing for your child to be invited to other kids’ birthday parties. Before she was “of the age”, and by that, I mean “of the age for a drop-off party”, one or both of us would go to the party with her.

Every freaking time we had a party to take our daughter to, if it wasn't one of our friends, my husband tried to tap out. He would pretend to be sick, or to have diarrhea (honestly this is his excuse 20% of the time). He’s an introvert, I think but you know who else is? Me! Part of the time. I’m an ambivert. I a lot more to say on this but also a word count limit for this blog. More on this another time.

One time before a party, he said, “Can you do that one alone? Because I don't want to.”

Literal fire flamed out of my eyes and I said/yelled “You think I WANT TO?” I don't f*cking want to! I haven't wanted to go to any of these 10 parties that we've gone to this year, but I have gone for our child. You think I have been enjoying this?”

Why would I like watching children play? I love my own child and I love our friend’s kids and all of that but I don’t care to passively watch anyone play. I don’t even like watching most sports. Unless there’s great food and drink. Totally different. Then it’s a social gathering with people of my choice and 10,000 strangers, and most importantly, a meal.

Male Loneliness Epidemic BUT Also a Burden For Partners

My husband, who is not a social person, I would say that his social battery is low to dead and doesn't charge that much, and that's… mostly okay.

I've been hearing a lot in the past couple of years about the Male Loneliness Epidemic. and a lot of people are calling bullshit, saying, well, they should just learn, or it's not a real epidemic, epidemic, like, if they really wanted to, they could be social or whatever. But I have seen my husband and lots of other grown ass men not be able to make friends.

I know it's hard. Vancouver (and Seattle, similarly) are known to be not friendly places where it's difficult to meet people. Some people blame the rain, etc. Overall, I blame people's personalities. Also their inclinations, oriented away from connection.

It’s hard. I do believe that a lot of men are not comfortable getting out there and trying to connect with other men. I know so many men who haven't made a new friend since high school or college, and that it's great to have a friend for that long, but it's also really great to make new friends.

Because I know, like a lot of women, know that it is necessary to have social interaction. It is what keeps us healthy and happy. It's one of the reasons why women live longer than men. If men had more socialization and went to the doctor more and other things, they would live longer, but God, I hope my husband dies earlier, because then I wouldn't have to fucking pry him out of the home to talk to people and be a normal, functioning human being.

He has social interaction a weekend in him. Beyond that, there’s a fight or some real bribery.

Back to the Story - Again

I think I did take his wife's number. I don't think I ever called her, because that interaction actually really turned me off, and it turned me off of wanting to be in the same circle as those people. I'm sorry, but my daughter could have had a really good friend in that little girl that she enjoyed so much, but I didn't want to know her dad.

So we don't know those people.

I guess he would come in handy if I ever had a medical problem. It would be nice to have extra advice, but no, I have Google and I have AI and f*ck that guy.

I'm not working for exposure!!!! I’m not over that, I guess. But I will share here that I do indeed to corporate gigs everybody. And if you want to check me out, it's juliekimcomedy.com/corporate. That's actually an unlisted site because I don't have time for a whole bunch of corporate gigs, but it's really fun and I love it so feel free to connect. Or get your wife to connect. DO I HAVE NO CONSISTENT MORAL STANDARDS!?

Ending

Let me end this, finally. The best thing I got out of this interaction, we a new joke. Please enjoy.

PLEASE like, subscribe, comment, rate below, etc! If you have a story to share that could be related to a future episode or this one, email us at bothered@juliekimcomedy.com.