Why do adults go to soft play?

A quote from twitter

"The children are glazed and sweaty and I am definitely no more than two feet from a poo"

Why!

too lazy to look after their kids properly, so chuck them into a bacterial petridish full of other children (and poo) so they can talk to Tracy about What That Woman Said About That Thing On Facebook. 

I’ll admit it’s not great. The one near us does nice lunch though which you can shovel into you in the three minutes flat before Jnr wants to go back in. 

Its the play ground equivalent of a chicken pox party. If your kids don't come out with the screaming sh1ts then they're immune for life.

That said, if you ever read China Mieville's "The Ball Room" you'll probably have second thoughts about letting your kids loose in there...

Literally zero of my friends here describe them as fun (not even the wine having ones)

On Saturday someone described them as soul-destroying (we were in actual Glasgow at the time)

I will concede subjective taste is a thing

I might read that China Mieville thing

he gives me such mixed feelings because some of his stuff is amaze (the city and the city!) but some is so pseudy and also maybe he is a literary nonce? maybe not I should google I take it back if not!

…are more cunning and entirely ego driven so don't give a fook about your perspective and will cry and shit all over the fooking walls if you don't do what they say, NOW GET TO THE fookING PLAY CENTRE AND PRAY YOU CAN GET 5 MINUTES' PEACE FOR A COFFEE

I find you have to be in the right frame of mind for Meiville's books. The City and The City and Perdido Street Station remains his best in my view but the short stories in Looking for Jake are great and I found his Last Days of New Parise book surprisingly good (as it happened, I had a spate of visiting Paris when I was reading it so perhaps that is why I enjoyed it)

but they only KNOW about soft play because you show it to them! we didn;t have it did we. there was this one place called little marcos that we went to for birthdays and a man in a bear costume would bully you and you'd cry then play in the ball pit and eat those coloured puff rice things.

I mean fine I am not really saying WHY beause do as u like, brothers and sisters, it's just that loads of people/ almost everyone talks about it like it's a wee preview of hell and I just think "take them to an art gallery and the park instead?" Why do you all collude in your own mutually assured emotional destrution?

Kids have friends, they talk.  They have older siblings, they talk too.  I’ve had to take a couple of sprogs to softplay over the years and honestly had no problems besides one where there was a boy clearly too old for the others who wasn’t letting them down the slide thing.  Got sorted very quickly and I just sat and waited for my girlfriend to show up (‘‘twas her nephew).

For a woman with no kids you sure h8 soft plays. 3rd thread in a month. 

Just don't go to them if u don't like them. Probably not allowed as an adult without kids anyway. 

Wots ur beef?

if it doesn't look too squalid and the coffee is good, then what's not to like? tires them out, they love it and you can relax a bit (whilst worrying that you haven't seen them appear anywhere for 10 minutes).  good on a wet sunday afternoon

 

Gosh that many? Agreed this is too much I shall desist.

Consequence of having friends of a certain age and dearth of chat I suppose.

Fundamentally I am truly selfish and couldn't stand to be bored for someone else's passing amusement. 

It's the parents that ruin it. Always one who's let her hyperactive / retarded 7 year old loose in the toddler area.

Last time I complained about a kid barging into mine, mum looked up from Instagram long enough to say "yeah?"

It can be Ok. Best thing is you can leave the tot(s) to mess about and can stay glued to your iPhone with all the other parents in the cafe bit. Worst thing is you're not 18 and travelling in Cambodia with no worries.