Rich Manhattan Parents Paying $400 an Hour For "Play Date Consultants" To Teach Their Kids How To Behave In Social Situations To Help Get Into Elite Kindergartens

NY Post – It’s pay to play — for kids! Posh Manhattan moms and dads are taking parental obsessiveness to new heights — by hiring $400-an-hour recreation “experts” to organize play dates for their children. These pricy pre-planned play times are monitored by instructors who teach them the proper way to socialize with their well-heeled peers in order to maximize their chances of getting into New York’s elite private schools. “Some kids need a little bit more work” at learning how to play, said Suzanne Rheault, the CEO of one of the firms that organize play dates, called Aristotle Circle. “Sometimes [parents] hear from our experts that there are some areas to improve.” Rheault’s pricey play dates involve groups of three to five 4-year-olds playing in a room. The experts closely monitor how the kids share crayons, color, follow directions in Simon Says, and hold a pencil. All this child’s play is deadly serious for parents, because the toddlers will be judged on these skills when they apply to top-end schools, such as Trinity and Horace Mann. “Given that admission rates [to elite kindergartens] are so low, parents don’t want to leave anything to chance,” Rheault said. Experts said that kids may need the play-date tutoring because their young lives have become so regimented, with classes in subjects like Mandarin and violin, that they don’t know how to play with others. “These children have five classes a week but they don’t know the simplest thing — how to be at ease and play spontaneously with a child,” said Wednesday Martin, who documents Manhattan motherhood in her upcoming book, “Primates of Park Avenue.”

First of all, a “play date consultant” that you pay by the hour is a little something I like to call a “babysitter.” Get out of my face with this “expert” bullshit. We’re talking about 3 to 5 year olds. As long as they don’t shit in their pants and eat stuff they find on the floor you can consider the play date a success.

Secondly, who the fuck are the 4 year olds taking Mandarin and playing the violin???? No joke I’m not even sure I knew how to talk when I was 4. I most definitely was still pissing in my pants – both at night and broad daylight. What fucking baby that age is talking Chinese?? I mean of course they need lessons on how to hang out with other kids because apparently you are raising a goddam robot. When you’re 4 years old you should be coloring and playing with blocks and maybe if you’re ahead of the curve playing “She me yours I’ll show you mine” with the little girl who’s inevitably gonna grow into the class slut. Thats it. You don’t need Mandarin, you don’t need the violin, and you sure as fuck don’t need some made up consultant telling you how to play so you can get into a private kindergarten.

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I swear these are the kids who grow up to put cats in microwaves.