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Kids are now handing out business cards to schedule playdates: Smart or weird?

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3 months ago

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Kids are now handing out business cards to schedule playdates: Smart or weird?

Brianna Mullally, an artist in Missouri, is an introvert raising an extrovert.  

“Liam will go up and talk to anyone,” Mullally tells TODAY.com of her 6-year-old son.

When Mullally and her family moved to St. Louis in 2021, she remembers feeling overwhelmed. Liam was ready to start making friends, and Mullally, 34, had just given birth to her second child.

Brianna Mullally made her son Liam playdate business cards and now sells them on Etsy.Courtesy Brianna Mullally

“It was winter and I was caring for a newborn, but Liam really needed to socialize,” Mullally says. At indoor play spaces she would watch in awe as Liam worked the room, introducing himself to the other children and often inviting them over to his new house.

“He always wanted me to set up playdates and in my head I was like, ‘I don’t want to talk to these parents. This is so awkward,’” Mullally says. 

That’s when Mullally had the idea to make business cards for Liam to hand out to new friends.

Each colorful card is printed with Mullally’s phone number and email and Liam’s name. The text reads: “Let’s play! Have your people call my people.” 

“I always have them on me, but he’ll ask for extra cards if we’re going someplace where he knows he’ll need them,” Mullally says. 

The cards were such a hit that Mullally now sells them on Etsy. Recently, she’s noticed an uptick in orders.

“They’re very popular right now,” she says. 

Vanity Rodriguez, a content creator in Texas, went viral in August after she shared on TikTok showing the playdate card her 7-year-old son brought home from school. 

“It had a photo of the child on the front and on the back it said, ‘Let’s hang out,’” Rodriguez, 30, tells TODAY.com. The card also included phone numbers for both parents and their son’s Roblox username. 

“It makes scheduling playdates so much easier,” Rodriguez says. “It also helps kids learn how to network with other kids in a safe way. I just love it.”

Earlier this year, a person asked on X, “Parents, if your kiddo came home with a playdate ‘business’ card from a classmate, would it be weird?”

“I do this! Not weird at all. It works!” one person replied.

Other responses included:

  • “I used to send these out with my kid on the last day of school before the summer with a lot of success. Now I know most of the moms and have lot of their numbers but I might do it one more time this year for the new kids we don’t know that well.”
  • “This would be awesome!!! My kids always want to have friends over or go over there and I don’t know any parents. This is exactly what I need.”
  • “If I received this I would cringe even though I’m sure you put a lot of time into this. It feels extremely impersonal to me and I would get the sense you’re more into how many play dates can I get my kid than having quality connections.”
  • “I think this is a brilliant idea! So often my kids would come home from church or homeschool get together and say, ‘I met someone and I really like her and I wanna play with her again!’ But when I asked what their name was they had no idea.”
  • “If my daughter came home with this I would literally be over the moon.”
  • “Stealing this idea.”
  • “I personally don’t think this is weird at all! It’s a great way to get to know other parents too, bc I rarely see any of Jack’s classmates parents during pickup/dropoff and have only just started getting a chance to meet them & chat at birthday parties lol.”
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