Does hating my toddler’s playgroup make me a bad mum?

Stepping inside a musty hall to the din of toddlers running around makes my skin crawl. It’s another week, and another playgroup. I thought I’d try out a new one – it’s like test driving a car, only without the fun.

The well-meaning woman who greets me when I enter with my son assures me that it’s not always like this. We both know she’s lying – this is not my first rodeo at a playgroup. I’m not even sure if my son really enjoys them. I certainly don’t.

I’m grateful that places like this exist – it’s good for children to have a place to socialise, and if the government can get its ducks in a row regarding their pledge to extend childcare provision for working parents, it will certainly help lots of families – but that doesn’t make them any less of a nightmare for mums like me.

There are toys everywhere, and a frenetic desire among its young audience to use all of them. The kindly lady, a warm and bustling “churchy” type, tells me that the mums love it too. Which ones I wonder? They’re the ones I should probably avoid. I am actually a really friendly and highly sociable person, but I want to sit like a recluse on the red velvet “function” chair at the edge of the hall, watching my son play – counting the minutes until we can leave. Unfortunately, we have to get through snack time and the “Hokey Cokey” before we can do that.

You can see the intention of setting out the room in “fun zones” to play in, but no distraction can take my eyes away from the fraying curtains, crumbling ceiling tiles, and the shuttered-up bar at the end of the hall all bound together with the familiar smell of a community hall used for many purposes. Was it full of drunken 18-year-olds at the weekend as they celebrated another milestone birthday and downed Sourz shots? Probably.

And then there’s the fact that I don’t think my son enjoys it. He’s only two and a half, so there’s no playing together. If we’re lucky, he’ll end up next to another child who is equally happy to “parallel” play.

The opportunities to interact with other children his age seem quite limited in comparison to when we’re at the playground. There’s a fizzing tension as children vie for the popular toys – everyone wants a ride in the red car, but sadly, there’s only one and there are a lot of tears. Parents warmly encourage their child to share, but we all know it’s futile. Plus, I don’t want him to think he always has to give things up to please other people – that’s not a great message for life.

I feel so much pressure to make sure my son is socialised, but these visits always seem to end in tears; the environment can be very overwhelming for both of us. It’s noisy and hectic – full of toddlers running around and babies crying, all of this under the glare of cold strip lighting.

He’s a quiet constructor, but the look he gave me when his tower got destroyed for the fifth time by an overzealous Batman charging into it on purpose nearly broke my heart. I can’t cope with such pain, so how should I expect him to?

The world can be a hard place, but he doesn’t need to know that just yet. I tried to reason with Batman, but when you’re firmly told by a three-year-old caped crusader “NO! I WANT TO PUSH IT” then, believe me, you don’t push back.

I looked around for their carer and saw a group of women engrossed in each other and their coffees – I wasn’t going to be that parent who went to say anything. The layers of social structures are beyond me and my ability to decipher them. I’m not in the clique – but then, I never was, so it’s not a new feeling.

My son and I retreat to the safety of the train set and try to regroup. Next up, the frenzied snack time – corn puffs and cucumber sticks get grabbed at like prized treasure, we don’t even bother trying to get into that melee.

I’m telling myself that we only have half an hour left, and it’s just a nice singsong to get through – but by this point, my son is broken. He looks at me, bursts into tears and says he doesn’t want to sing, he just wants to go home – me too darling, me too – so we pack up weaving our way through a sea of “hopping bunnies”.

Come the evening, I feel like crying too as I must be failing him as a mother by not giving him the appropriate time with his peer group ahead of him starting preschool. Am I raising a social pariah? Will this set him back? Of course it won’t, I have to remind myself that we are all different, whether we’re two or 92, and we definitely don’t all have to like the same things.

So, my son may not love playgroups, and neither do I, but I’ll keep showing him a world full of different experiences, with the hope he’ll have the opportunity to find the thing he does love – and that’ll be worth all the tears along the way.