Medically reviewed by Emily Edlynn, PhD Medically reviewed by Emily Edlynn, PhD For a season of life in which we’re rarely alone, parenthood can be pretty lonely. School runs, work, squeeze in a sports practice or a music lesson (maybe both), get dinner on the table, and hop on the bedtime train — the daily hustle alone wears us all out. Even if we long to extend an invite to that family from drop-off , finding time to host on top of the daily demands of parenthood can feel impossible. Or maybe your own type-A ideas about what a clean house should look like take up all your free time.
It’s easy to understand why “scruffy hospitality”— the internet’s favorite low-key approach to hosting — is gaining traction among parents. Embracing the flexible, forgiving, and (most of all) achievable ideals of scruffy hospitality is helping many of us grow our villages, deepen friendships, and find the kinds of social connections we so badly need.
What Is Scruffy Hospitality?
While the idea that you could invite people over without tidying up first is not new, the term “scruffy hospitality” originated with a blog post titled “Why Scruffy Hospitality Creates Space for Friendship,” shared in 2014 by Father Jack King, an Anglican priest in Knoxville, Tennessee. A father of two young children at the time, he sorely missed spending time with his friends. So he and his wife started inviting people over more often by taking a more laid back approach to hosting.
If you let hospitality have a ‘scruffy’ definition, King writes, dinner can simply be frozen food from Trader Joe’s, and it’s no big deal that the kids will be cranky by dinner time. Usually, the definition of scruffy hospitality follows these rough guidelines:
- Don’t tidy your home . Play room messy? Great. The kids will probably make it even messier before the night is through, so why tidy it before the get-together anyway?
- Be yourself . And let your home and kids be themselves, too. That, scruffy hospitality reminds us, is who your friends want to hang out with anyway. Need people to leave at a certain time so you can get your kids to bed? In the scruffy hospitality universe, it’s OK to just say that explicitly. The goal is just to get together, with as little stress for busy parents as possible.
- Keep your to-do list short . Basically, text your friends something along the lines of “I defrosted a lasagna. Come over!”
- No elaborate, fancy meals. Make it a potluck, and tell friends to bring whatever they’ve got at home to share. Set out a zillion snacks and call that dinner. Or, pop a frozen pizza in the oven and call it good. You get the idea; ease is everything.
The Benefits of Spending Time with Friends
A recent found that parents spend twice as much time with their kids as previous generations—a trend that surely benefits families in the long run—however, it comes at the detriment of their friendships. Here's how spending time with friends can be a significant boost to your mental, and physical, health.
- Researchers found that friendships can help protect adults against anxiety and depression.
- Talking to a supportive friend lowers your blood pressure.
- And maintaining close friendships might even help lower the risk of premature death.
- Kids will enjoy the benefits of scruffy hospitality, too: Research shows that when kids feel more socially connected, they see an increase in happiness.
When parents feel less pressure to keep home looking perfect, they might be more inclined to host play dates. These casual, regular gatherings give kids a chance to build friendships outside of the academic and social demands of school, and a chance to be themselves can be as important for their mental health as it is for parents.
Why Parents Are Embracing Scruffy Hospitality
On Instagram, Holly Erickson, of the popular food blog The Modern Proper, seems to have an enviable social life for a busy working mom of 3 young kids. Her rich social life is 100% the result of a relaxed, open door policy and full embrace of the scruffy hospitality lifestyle, she explains.
“Scruffy hospitality, to me, is being open and transparent about the fact that I am going to invite you over and I'm not going to pick up my house. I'm going to serve you something that I froze. I'm going to thaw some soup, or maybe I’ll pick up tacos.”
Parents are all in the same, busy, overloaded-but-lonely boat. And most of the time, they don’t care at all what your house looks like or what food is on the table—they just want to spend time together.
“Your friends probably feel exactly the same way you do,” she says, adding that for parents who don’t have partners in the picture, or who have very little babies or kids, the need for active friendships runs even deeper. “All they want is to have somebody else hold their baby,” she says.
Tips for Embracing Scruffy Hospitality
Still feeling a little shy? Especially with newer friendships, it may feel uncomfortable to actually try out scruffy hospitality. Inviting someone over sounds great, but that little voice that says “But what will they think when they open this hazard-zone coat closet?” can be pretty loud. Here are a few tips for trying out the scruffy hospitality lifestyle:
- Decide on simple parameters for the get-together. “Agree ahead of time on some parameters,” Erickson suggests. You might text an invite, she says, just asking how to make a get-together work that’s easiest for both families. “For me, it looks like not having to clean my house, and it looks like not having to cook a big meal,” she says.
- Limit the time . Erickson says that her invites often are explicitly “squeezed in” between pick-ups, activities and bedtimes. “We eat together and then we're like, great, we're going to go home to put the kids to bed. There’s no pressure to host for a super long time.”
- Text an invite with a link to an article of social media video explaining the concept of scruffy hospitality trend so that your friends (or friends-to-be) know that you're embracing a relaxed atmosphere at home, and that they should feel free to do the same.
Even in the midst of a hectic week, Erickson values the get-togethers that have happened thanks to the scruffy hospitality mindset. “When I'm in my sixties and my kids are out of the house, I want to still have friends” —and hosting without the pressures of perfection has helped her make sure that will happen.
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