I hate soft play

There, I said it.

Feels like a weight has been lifted off my chest. All these years I have been pretending, nodding and smiling along with the general parent chit-chat about soft play centres and children’s groups, when secretly the voice in my head would be saying, ‘We are not going there’.

It transpired early on in our parenting careers that my husband, Daddy A (as he is often referred to) doesn’t mind soft play. In fact, I would go as far as to say that he enjoys it. He gets involved, sometimes stuck, and follows B round until he has had enough.

I can count the number of times I have been to soft play with our toddler on one hand. In my slight defence, I work full-time so at the weekends that is the last place on the planet I want to take him. I have though taken him a couple of times when Daddy A has been away. I always go with the best intentions, but after 15 minutes of climbing, jumping, explaining how sharing works (again) and going up and down a slide, I have had enough. You get the drift – I don’t get on with it.

At the weekend whilst out shopping, we stumbled upon one of those free soft play areas in the middle of a shopping centre.

These are a free for all. Essentially a foamy area with a couple of spiny things, a couple of soft horse type structures for the children to straddle and some foam stairs leading to a flat foam surface for them to climb, with no real purpose. B saw it, Daddy A agreed to it and before I knew it, B’s shoes were off and he was in.

The parents were all stood round the outside of the ‘play’ area, like a team of referees occasionally shouting their child’s name if they pushed another child out of the way or look like they are about to jump on someones head. The parents tried to make conversation, but let’s face it – no one had a clue what each other was saying, as although they are nodding in agreement, the peripheral vision was firmly watching the gaggle of children fighting it out over the frankly rather lacklustre collection of foam shapes nailed to the ground.

There are, of course, always the parents that are genuinely engrossed in conversation, leaving it to the referee parents to watch their children. I have noticed that there are always those parents.

So, there we were. My feelings of immense stress and discomfort must have been showing on my face, as I didn’t notice my husband looking at me until he said, “You alright?”,

“Yes, I am fine” I lied,

“Really?” He said, “Because you look like you would rather be Beirut right now.”

God, he was right. I hated it, I hated watching all the kids battling it out, watching my son not sharing with the little girl who clearly had the same idea he did about jumping from the flat foam platform, I hated the noise and the screaming. So, with that, I excused myself and said I would be back in a minute.

I went and took sanctuary in Primark. I mean to be honest, that says it all. Sanctuary in the world’s most manic, untidy shop.

Bless my husband. By the time I had emerged, B was strapped in his pram and ready to go. Not a tear in sight. “We were just coming to find you,” my husband announced.

As quickly as it had started, it was over. Daddy A, my hero, had done it again. He knows not to mention it, he knows it not my thing.

I guess it is something I am going to have to get over; put my issues aside and get in there but until that day, I am happy leaving the soft play to be one of those special Father and Son hobbies.

*I would just like to caveat that I know that some soft play centres are amazing in terms of the equipment, layout and sheer size of the places. This particular instance wasn’t in an amazing all singing, all dancing place, but regardless, the noise and stress levels are the same! 🙂

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