Carefree

The kids ran the neighborhood back then. The culmination of our activities took place in "the circle," which was a grass area which the road encircled. As one of the older kids, I was probably what they'd have called bossy. But I was also full of creativity so we played games like who can invent the most interesting creation from junk findings from garages and nearby dusty fields, and building forts using whatever materials we could scavenge that our parents wouldn't miss; old lumber, torn sheets, bungee cords, you name it.

Childhood games filled many a day. Touch football. Fort building. Bike riding tournaments. Tag of any sort. Picking on siblings. Fly up. Red rover. Dodge ball. The type of clubs where so and so was not allowed so they made their own club. Any venture to make money from snow cones of crushed ice doused in Kool-aid or carnivals with haphazardly constructed booths. Eventually we discovered that you can take any childhood game and it becomes ten times as fun if played at night. Hide and go seek was much more intense as evening fell. Little brother, I'm sorry hide and go seek at night sometimes brought out the worst in me as a time or two I tried to scare the bejeezus out of you.

We spent more time outside then. Our parents didn't have to watch us so closely. In fact, I hardly remember them being around at all. I remember my dad would go about his hobby working on cars in the driveway and we came and went at our leisure. We even walked a good 4-5 blocks to the neighborhood market with a dollar to buy candy. I use to save up my candy money to buy grocery store toys and I put them in a box which I took to baby-sitting jobs. They were probably choking hazards stamped Made in China fo' sho'.

We were probably more supervised than we thought, with other children's parents looking out for us when our activities brought us near their homes. I find myself wishing today that I could give my children the gift of such a carefree childhood. The gift of having to solve their own problems amongst themselves and more importantly how to entertain themselves.

I kicked the boys out into the yard yesterday after a morning of video games and all I heard was "This is boring. There's nothing to do." Is it not play that quintessentially defines childhood? Do I really need to teach them to PLAY?!

Good God.

*(Comes to a horrible realization.)*

Maybe I do.


Reality check mommas. Screen time just isn't cutting it. Tomorrow I reach up into my childhood memories and retrieve some games that are just too good to leave behind, like toilet tag and sardines. Here we go looby looooooo!