This year, as winter’s chilly days fade into spring’s promise of warmth and renewal, we’re spending a lot more time playing outside. Given the opportunity, our son will play almost anywhere and anytime if we stop for five minutes and let him loose. Thanks to my husband’s own perpetual adolescence our boy has lots to keep him busy in our own backyard, which is great, but there’s something about our community playground that he loves the most. So a couple weeks back, as the time sprang forward, the snow and ice melted away, and zero degree temperatures shot up to double digits. I decided that I would start taking my little monkey to the playground in the evenings after I got home from work. Well let me tell you, now that I have been spending time there, I have made some interesting observations I would like to share about the fascinating world of the community playground.

We have lived in our suburban middle-class neighbourhood for nearly a decade now. Until we had our son two years ago, the playground at the elementary school across the street from our home wasn’t even close to being on my radar. It has just been the past couple months that he is getting big enough to safely play on the equipment and with the other kids so, for me, the evening visits have been like forging bold new territory, and there have been a few surprises to be sure.

Right off the bat, I became acutely aware of this really weird etiquette that seems to prevail among the other playground parents, where no one talks to anyone but their own kids. Now maybe it’s because I’m from a different generation than some of the younger parents – I’m 47, or have always been a really friendly guy, or that I was taught it’s just polite to say hello to people when you encounter them in social situations – but, after saying hi to a couple people and being met with what I can only categorize as total disdain by several playground moms and one dad on our first outing, it got me wondering: why aren’t parents friendlier to each other?  After all, weren’t we all there for the same reason? That being when your kid is worn out after playing, they go to bed on time and actually sleep which, as any parent of a toddler knows, is a true godsend.

At first I immediately wondered if I was experiencing some sort of mass homophobia. But, as time goes by, I have observed that none of the parents talk to each other. It’s like they’re there, but behind an imaginary glass enclosure that separates them from the rest of the world and their only link to the outside – ironically, since they’re already outside – are their cell phones. That coupled with the fact that I’m not a very flamboyant gay man – polar bear here – leads me to think it’s probably not homophobia at all, just self-absorbed parents with little to no social skills which, in some ways, I think is worse because their kids are just as anti-social as their parents are. Since I love to study people, which is why I chose communications as a professional career, and all I have to do while I’m there is observe the other parents in this setting, I have identified some archetypes that seem to sum up our playground’s cast of characters.

The first, and most prevalent, are the ‘I’m way too busy to talk to you’ moms. They arrive in their mini vans with their brood of five or six in tow, always on their cell phones, and between texts or calls they’re the ones screaming at little Johnny or Tiffany to stop whatever they’re doing because Mommy has had it. She’s also most likely to be the parent not paying any attention at all to her kids, except for the screaming. I would love to tell these ladies to put down their devices for just a few minutes and actually interact with their children on their level because believe it, or not, the simple act of playing with your child is really, really rewarding! But hey, you only get one chance to snub me before my imagination starts to write your back story and, in the narrative, I imagine these moms end up divorced with daughters who dance on a pole and sons who end up living in a religious commune in Costa Rica with 16 wives and 27 children.

The second most common archetypes are the ‘Helicopter Parents’ and these can be either women or men. In classic helicopter fashion they won’t interact with the other adults because they think their children are made of glass. They seem to operate on the assumption that if they take their eyes off their kids for even a second, something terrible will happen. To date I haven’t personally observed any monsters or child eating animals, so I think the playground is pretty safe, but by the way these people act, disaster is only moments away from happening. Who knows, maybe they know something I don’t? But until I see a Muppet with a meat cleaver, I’m going to assume my son is safe on the swings.

The third parental archetypes I have catalogued are the ‘Tiger Moms’. Not just of Asian descent either, although they do make up a large portion of this group, they can come in all shapes, colours and sizes. These parents are so competitive and structured that even something as fun as a twisty slide becomes a lesson in physics, a swing set is a geometry problem, and a hop scotch grid turns into an ultimate fighting ring. I’m all for a good education, competitive sports, and finding teaching moments all around us, but sometimes play time is just that – time to play. My advice to these moms is to lighten up and let your kid be a kid once in a while. In order to be well adjusted and psychologically stable adults, everyone needs time to relax and unwind, but these moms can’t seem to allow their kids any freedom at all, and when playing and having fun are viewed as work which needs to be scheduled, that’s a recipe for resentment and rebellion down the road.

Next up are the ‘Single Dads’. They’re usually around the playground on holidays and weekends and are pretty good at paying attention to their progeny, yet even they can’t seem to put down their phones for any substantial amount of time. I often wonder who’s more important than their own kids, or if that text or call couldn’t have waited for 15 minutes until it was time to go? Maybe that’s why their divorced in the first place? Men, here’s a hint: you need to actively listen to your kids and spouses from time to time. There’s a great deal of information to be gathered if you just take a few minutes to give 100 per cent of yourself to the other people in your life. It can be the difference between a happy relationship or one clouded by distance and suspicion.

Last, but not least and the most rare of the bunch, is the category I put myself in, and that’s the ‘child stuck in adult’s body’. We’re the ones playing on the swings with our kids, running around and screaming like we’re five again, riding down the slides and hanging upside down from the monkey bars. We take play time seriously and have never met a game of hide and seek we didn’t love. I’m sure when my son gets to be a little older I’ll totally embarrass him, but hey that’ also part of the fun, and I hope that we have many more years to play and be kids – both big and small – together.

Of course this is all meant to be tongue and cheek with me poking a little good-natured humour at the other parents in my neighbourhood. In reality, I applaud any parent who takes time out of their busy day to spend some quality time with their kids. So far my experience has been that it’s this time that kids crave from their parents, not what we give them materially, or how much time they get to play video games, but actual time spent just being together. If you take anything away from my musings here, take this: nothing can replace one-on-one time with your kids. So give them a big hug and a kiss and tell them how much you love them right now. You won’t regret it later on.