Play-what Now?

As a young child, I don't recall going over to friends houses a lot. I do remember we weren't really allowed to do sleep overs. I'm not sure if that was because my mother preferred not to deal with it, or just didn't like her children spending the night at someone's house that she didn't know that well. Or perhaps she just didn't trust her kids, which probably isn't without its merit. When we were in 5th/4th grade my brother and I begged my mother to let us start walking home with friends instead of taking the bus or getting picked up. Somewhere along the way we got distracted and started playing basketball at some boys house, getting home hours after school had let out. Needless to say, that was the last time we walked home that year.

All of this is to say that I feel like kids are socialized way more than my generation ever was- or perhaps just more than I ever was. Now as an adult I watch the process that kids engage in at school, at parks, often with other kids they just met. One thing that has surfaced in these observations is how adults have modified their language. Like where the heck did "criss-cross, apple sauce" come from?

A few weeks back when I was picking up the kid from school, his classmate ran up and asked if he could come to my house to play. His mother who had just come in said "OK we should arrange a play date". In hindsight I hope I was successful at concealing the horror in my face because that was by far the most heinous word I'd heard that day. I can't even really articulate why I feel such repulsion by it, I just do.


I want to know who coined the phrase "play date". I just bet he or she was just trying to win a game of Scrabble. Seriously, can't kids just "go over to so-and-so's house", why does it have to be a date? Is it out of shear laziness that parents can't say that their kid is out with a friend?

Perhaps I'm being extreme, there are just some words that have no business together.