One of the unseen and powerful benefits was the connections formed among the families," said former state Sen. Dave Magnani, who launched the Ashland Educational Community Center and its playgroup program in 1972.
Spitz: Playgroup plays out its existence
By Julia Spitz
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Twenty-five years ago, in the old barn of a rectory at St. Cecilia, I didn't give much thought to the boxes I checked on the registration form. I'd only been a mom for a few months. How was I to know playgroup lasts a lifetime?
"One of the unseen and powerful benefits was the connections formed among the families," said former state Sen. Dave Magnani, who launched the Ashland Educational Community Center and its playgroup program in 1972. The AECC was "people coming together to solve common problems. We tried to bring that philosophy into programs for all ages," including adult enrichment classes, family support services, activities for seniors, the monthly Directions newspaper and playgroups -- where kids learned to share toys and moms learned to share everything else.
When playgroups were under AECC's umbrella, members were required to do volunteer work. I chose Directions. Mary Aberg chose baby-sitting. She watched my son when I worked on the paper.
We didn't see one another too often after our kids started school. That didn't break the bond. It was tested, not broken, a few weeks after our children got their driver's licenses. My son, the one she used to baby-sit, and her daughter ran into one another in the Ashland High parking lot. We didn't need to call insurance companies for help with the few hundred dollars' worth of damage.
The bonds with four other moms got 11 kids through toilet training and Little League, chicken pox and college applications. On the road to adulthood, the children found other friends. The moms never lost the playgroup ties.
The days of daily calls are gone, but the semi-retired support SWAT team can be activated on a moment's notice. We can pick up the phone and discuss any subject under the sun.
Wendy Flaherty of Framingham gets the picture, even though her eldest daughter is only 4 1/2.
"It was definitely a refuge for us" to go to Kidsplace, the name adopted after AECC disbanded in the 1980s. "Our kids grew up together" in playgroup, she said. "We've seen them learning to walk. We've seen them learning to talk."
Even when members moved, they didn't leave.
"I'm willing to drive for 45 minutes in Monday morning traffic just to get there," said Shaunna Wildman, who lives in Whitinsville.
It was the same way for moms in the Kidsplace playgroup I joined 10 years ago. They came from Upton and Stow, where houses were more affordable but nothing quite compared to the kinship in the Ledgemere Plaza building across from Shaw's.
By 1995, when Justin, my bonus baby, and I arrived, the volunteer requirement had been replaced by an annual fee, but the women I met were kindred spirits of the AECC sisterhood. (Yes, there was an occasional dad, but moms were always the overwhelming majority.)
They were women like Gena Blinderman, who surprised our fellow playgroup moms by announcing she was running for Ashland Planning Board. Her recount victory by a single vote in 1996 gave us civics lesson fodder for our toddlers.
They were women like Kelly Kaprielian, who took care of Justin when his brother was in the hospital. And they were women like Rhonda Grasberger, a former Kidsplace president who's one of many alumni active in groups like the PTO.
"The parents who were involved with their kids (at AECC) were involved with their kids' school careers all the way through, the ones who ran the booster clubs," said Magnani.
That part hasn't changed. What's changed is there just aren't enough of them to make it work.
Kidsplace will close on June 13.
Toys and equipment will be sold Saturday, June 4, from 8 a.m. to noon, at the Eliot Street site. Proceeds will be used to pay utility bills and debts.
"We've really struggled to keep it open the past couple of years," said Paula Pepper of Ashland, current president of the nonprofit group. "We're down to 30 members." There used to be about 100.
"People don't want to pay for playgroups," she said. "They'd rather pay for dance classes or something they may feel they're getting more for their money." Fewer people meant fewer sessions offered, which in turn made people less likely to join, she said. Also, religious and civic organizations have started offering alternatives.
"We don't find as much diversity in the library or town-based programs," said Grasberger. "I'm so sad it had to become such an expensive thing."
"People just don't realize how good Kidsplace is," said Pepper.
Maybe alumni like me should have done a better job of telling them.
"Maybe it's time to go," said Flaherty.
I prefer to think Magnani will be right on this one.
"Maybe it'll rise like a phoenix in some other form," he said. "There's definitely a need."
