Yep...
...a lot of us can remember playing outside. That was what you lived for...to play outside. Summer vacation was a 3 month period of playing outside. Sometimes playing outside meant playing in the snow, sometime it meant the playground but usually it just meant hanging out with my friends. Karen, Gloria, Kathy and sometimes Laura. There were other packs of kids but we didn't play with them, we taunted them.
We could because we were the big kids on the block since all the families bought houses in that new subdivision at about the same time and we happened to be born first. And...of my own group, I was the oldest as well. So, I was the kid that caused a lot of grief to the younger kids. I turned mudpies into pennies during one dinnertime. Those were some impressed pre-schoolers, I must say. I walked into the corn field behind our subdivision and came out with strawberries that I had stolen from somebodies back yard. Those kids were mesmerized by me. I made pennies from mud and strawberrys from corn, I was incredible. And, on top of that, I made my own clothes. I even knitted my own sweaters. I put the labels in there so "no one knew that I made my own sweaters".
I was quite the little liar now that I think about it. I told one teacher that the stove blew up and burned my entire back, but I couldn't show her because I was "wearing a dress and not a skirt" that day. I don't know why I told that teacher such a lie..but I did. I even sneaked into a neighbors house to steal the snack size potato chips that I knew they had. My mother never bought stuff like that. We just got a big box of Jay's Potato Chips, which were good, but I didn't have my own bag. Anyway, I waited for them to leave and then I snuck in the sliding back door that I had unlocked whilst working on my plan-op. I hadn't counted on one little thing. The possiblity that those nit wits would forget something and come right home. Thank God they didn't have to take a leak, I was behind the bathroom door. Whatever they got was in the bedroom that I was next to, I could see the fool reaching for a box that was under the bed.
It was quite frightening. After the guy left, I ran back the way I had come...after I grabbed the potato chips that I had come for. That was my first and last burglary. I was so afraid of being caught that I never did it again. I can't say with for sure but I'm faily certain that would have garnered me what my father referred to as "a severe punishment". A "severe punishment" involved a belt and it was not very pleasant. But, it did keep me a good girl.
The kids that don't have video games and computers and cell phones have parents who micro-manage their entire lives with extra-curricular actitivies that leave no time for playing outside. Do you realize how serious this is? If we don't fix this now, no one will ever get the point of Peter Pan!
Meg
...a lot of us can remember playing outside. That was what you lived for...to play outside. Summer vacation was a 3 month period of playing outside. Sometimes playing outside meant playing in the snow, sometime it meant the playground but usually it just meant hanging out with my friends. Karen, Gloria, Kathy and sometimes Laura. There were other packs of kids but we didn't play with them, we taunted them.
We could because we were the big kids on the block since all the families bought houses in that new subdivision at about the same time and we happened to be born first. And...of my own group, I was the oldest as well. So, I was the kid that caused a lot of grief to the younger kids. I turned mudpies into pennies during one dinnertime. Those were some impressed pre-schoolers, I must say. I walked into the corn field behind our subdivision and came out with strawberries that I had stolen from somebodies back yard. Those kids were mesmerized by me. I made pennies from mud and strawberrys from corn, I was incredible. And, on top of that, I made my own clothes. I even knitted my own sweaters. I put the labels in there so "no one knew that I made my own sweaters".
I was quite the little liar now that I think about it. I told one teacher that the stove blew up and burned my entire back, but I couldn't show her because I was "wearing a dress and not a skirt" that day. I don't know why I told that teacher such a lie..but I did. I even sneaked into a neighbors house to steal the snack size potato chips that I knew they had. My mother never bought stuff like that. We just got a big box of Jay's Potato Chips, which were good, but I didn't have my own bag. Anyway, I waited for them to leave and then I snuck in the sliding back door that I had unlocked whilst working on my plan-op. I hadn't counted on one little thing. The possiblity that those nit wits would forget something and come right home. Thank God they didn't have to take a leak, I was behind the bathroom door. Whatever they got was in the bedroom that I was next to, I could see the fool reaching for a box that was under the bed.
It was quite frightening. After the guy left, I ran back the way I had come...after I grabbed the potato chips that I had come for. That was my first and last burglary. I was so afraid of being caught that I never did it again. I can't say with for sure but I'm faily certain that would have garnered me what my father referred to as "a severe punishment". A "severe punishment" involved a belt and it was not very pleasant. But, it did keep me a good girl.
The kids that don't have video games and computers and cell phones have parents who micro-manage their entire lives with extra-curricular actitivies that leave no time for playing outside. Do you realize how serious this is? If we don't fix this now, no one will ever get the point of Peter Pan!
Meg
posted by Meg Kelso | 4:07 PM
3 Comments:
Well you are right. kids need to be creative and poorly used technology can inhibit that, much like the TV can.
Since I watch TV with my son, I've noticed that some channels (NICK, I think) actually tell the kids to get out and play.
My son's school also has a bfit4kids program which I think may be national, they need to complete 20 physical or healthy activities per month from a list.
So some people (me I think) get it, but you are correct that a lot don't get it. They dump their kids on technology, just like my wife dumped my child on some young stranger this evening instead of his father.
I know that thanks to technology, my court order allows my son to call me daily. Every time I get a call from him from a new number (in caller ID) I save it. It will help me immensely when she makes good on her threat to kidnap him again. It helped me the first time, and it will help me the next time too.
So I still stand by my statement that technology (OK, when correctly used, I'll give ya that) can be your friend.
I'm thinking of a Magellan GPS with waypoint back tracking so we don't get lost on our nature hikes, or for kidnap tracking.
Meg, those were the 'good ole days' you speak of.
It isn't safe now-a-days to let kids play outside unsupervised. Kids are grabbed right out of their yards, and while riding their bikes.
The kind of summers you describe were glory days, I am sure, but now-a-days would constitute child abuse.
If I had young children I would not want them out of my sight and would probably home school.
The sad truth is I would rather they were at home under my watchful eye, playing video games.
I agree with JQ75 that technology can be your friend. Oh and I DO have a GPS.
Ditto-littlewing. I remember those lazy free summer days as the best days of my life. I remember running thru the woods with friends, riding my bike to the corner store with a dime, lying in the field in the back yard hidden by the tall grass- and I wasn't even 10! I try so hard to impart the same feeling to my daughter even if it isn't exactly the same. Just one of many losses in the techno world.
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