No Fun for Kids These Days
Just caught the tail end of a discussion last night on "Hannity" where former Carter pollster Pat Caddell was on. At one point they were discussing some silliness in schools. Mr. Caddell made what I thought was an interesting observation that we're losing the sense of fun for kids.
That's certainly my perspective. Some is lost innocence; in an age when we have milk cartons with missing children, no 8 year old kid bikes home a mile from the park at 8 p.m. alone as I did. I know geezers tend to sentimentalize their own upbringings; but in my day, though we had organized sports which I played year round (football, basketball, baseball) I played many more unorganized pickup games with whomever showed up in front of the big grass patch in front of the local public school. Everything today seems more organized, with a parental component, even if it's just driving kids to where they go. Not sure this was what Mr. Caddell was getting at, but it does seem, looking at my kids, at least in the suburbs, that we've lost this kind of spontaneous fun that kids did for themselves: sports, building forts in the woods, etc.
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May '10
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
Bike helmets are one of the Seven Seals in the Book of Revelation. And they look ridiculous. Not when I was a kid. And I'm just 39.
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
Can't tell you, Bill, how often I've thought exactly the same. Heck, when I was a kid I could just head out the front door, then ramble all over the neighborhood. When it was time for dinner, my mother would put her head out the kitchen window, then call for me with a big brass whistle she had been given when she was a Girl Scout. (The range of that shrill sound was a good two miles.)
What has changed? I can't help thinking--and I know this is dangerous territory--that a big part of it involves the changes in the role of women. When I was a kid, every mom in the neighborhood was at home. They all knew each other. They all trusted each other. They were in and out of each other's houses to share cups of coffee, to borrow sugar or flour, or to help each other out with babysitting. Mom World. It wasn't perfect, Lord knows, but it sure was a good world in which to grow up.
Nov '10
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
Part of it is that it's too dangerous, what with those teenagers going out at all times in all places, doing things that kids used to do, now that they are allowed to/don't care what their parents think.
May '10
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
Peter - You hit the nail on the head. My mother told me a story of her youth that recounted how she had refused to go home from a friend's house when being called.
"Jean," said her friend's mother, "your mom is calling you."
"That's alright, she's not serious unless she uses all three names!"
When that story got back to my grandmother somebody didn't sit down for a week.
But everybody looked out for their children and all their friends. It was supervision made of love, not licensed day care givers.
Feb '11
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
I once was parked at a gas pump, in the shade, in the summer. I left my children in the car (five under age 10 at the time -- one asleep in a car seat, two awake in car seats, and two buckled in seatbelts). I left the van doors open for air circulation, since I didn't want to leave the key in the ignition and the AC running for fear of evil car-nappers. I could see the vehicle from the counter where I paid my gas bill. I was gone about three minutes from the scene. When I came out, an off-duty police officer was standing there, arms folded and toes a'tappin', and he told me that if we were in his jurisdiction, he would have charged me with child endangerment for leaving children in an unattended vehicle. !!!!!!!
I would be much happier to let my children free-range if I didn't fear state power. As a homeschooler, I know I am already suspect to the authorities. My ten-year-old daughter, left reading a book at the playground, could easily be reason for Child Protective Services to be knocking on my door.
Jan '11
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
I think family size also plays a role. My mother (8 children) & 2 other mothers (3 & 4 children) worked and the older kids looked after the younger ones. I don't remember any older child being praised for watching the younger ones; it's what the big kids did. We just played together: school, army, rode bikes, walked to the grocery store for candy (horrors!) or to the library, baseball, tag, etc.
Jun '10
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
I was away for 6 years and didn't see how my friends were raising their kids. Upon return, everything seems so tightly organized rather than spontaneous. Play dates replace wandering around the neighborhood looking for friends. Now play is on calendars, slotted between several other child-oriented "appointments" the kids are rushed to by car. Yes, I participated in organized activities, but it seemed a lot looser. I don't know what impact this has on anything, honestly, but it does seem to be less fun. Most of my friends only have one parent working, so I'm not totally convinced that it is because mom was always home in our day. I think the whole system has changed completely where we are afraid to just let our kids be. It is statistically safer today than in the time of my childhood, yet we are scared to death to leave children unattended for one minute lest we leave them prey to abductions. Seeing tragedies like that in the media 24/7 has scared parents to death. I think the same stuff happened when we were young, only we didn't hear about them as much, and thus felt safer.
Feb '11
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
Why should kids go outside and play when there's a TV, computer, Xbox, iPad, iPhone, and iPod inside? No contest these days. Thus, the one kid who doesn't have these luxuries probably shouldn't play at the neighborhood park all alone.
Feb '11
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
I wonder how much of this is an urban thing; friends in the midwest tell me that middle-class kids there are still being raised "free range".
I too ran free when I was little, but I also grew up in the suburbs, where there was minimal traffic and if your kickball rolled into the street, which it did about 70 times an hour, the odds of being mowed down by a car was almost zero.
My sister lives in a very traffic-y part of Los Angeles, where its not possible for little kids to get much exercise without involving the area beyond their small front yard. So she's resigned to becoming a scheduler of gymnastics and soccer, since she feels its the only way they'll get some exercise. Otherwise, they'd be glued to their video games.
Jul '10
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
Peter Robinson:
What has changed? I can't help thinking--and I know this is dangerous territory--that a big part of it involves the changes in the role of women. When I was a kid, every mom in the neighborhood was at home. They all knew each other. They all trusted each other. They were in and out of each other's houses to share cups of coffee, to borrow sugar or flour, or to help each other out with babysitting. Mom World. It wasn't perfect, Lord knows, but it sure was a good world in which to grow up. · Apr 20 at 10:11am
My Mom worked, as did some of the others in the neighborhood, but yeah...this point is well taken.
Apr '11
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
I think we're on a collision course towards a generation of kids who dismiss authority due to the inordinate number of dumb rules imposed upon them. Once we have enough of these dumb rules (I think we're already there), then flaunting one is basically the same as flaunting another, and therefore the worthy rules get lost amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the nanny state. That's the problem, and unfortunately, I don't see a solution.
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
Everything you guys say is true, and I, too, have made the same observations. When we were kids, in addition to Minor League and Little League baseball, we also had informal baseball leagues in our neighborhood and we would be outside ALL the time. I barely remember any accountability to our mom, as long as we came home when we were supposed to. I also remember riding my bike down to the river -- about 2 miles away -- and back, with no concern from my parents.
I would carry it a step further and this might even be changing the subject: I have lamented that kids today -- beginning in high school -- are so busy with school work and activities that they don't seem to have time for the fun and frolic I had in HS. Maybe that's a good thing. But things are so competitive and busy out there today I wonder whether they grow up too fast in that sense.
Edited on April 20, 2011 at 9:48pmJan '11
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
Second that!
The teachers at our local high school claim that a student should do at least three hours of homework, every night. That just reminds me of what many bosses say about working overtime ... if you can't do what you're supposed to do in the regular work hours, you just aren't working hard enough.
Oct '10
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
The story that Pat Caddell was discussing during Hannity’s panel was about the New York State legislature banning “risky activities” such as wiffle ball, dodge ball and freeze tag during summer camp.
The nanny state strikes again in order to ensure nothing bad ever happens to anyone at anytime. I am most concerned that children won't learn how to deal with adversity if every waking moment their precious little feelings are spared and they never skin a knee playing outside with their friends and classmates.
Edited on April 20, 2011 at 10:08pmRe: No Fun for Kids These Days
My children are young -- 3 and 1 -- but I let them play without hovering over them. Many times in the park, other parents will gently ask me if I know that my kids are "over there." The pressure to hover within 18 inches of one's children is immense. But I want my children to solve their own problems and be independent so I fight that pressure. I stay close enough to intervene if needed but I hope to be more and more out of the picture as they age.
My siblings and I had were allowed to play without supervision from a very young age and I think it made us closer to each other and much more responsible.
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
I suspect there are a lot of reasons, but parents are siller today too. My parents pretty much had the rule of being home by the six o'clock whistle that blew in town. A few years back in NY, a woman wrote an article for the New York Sun about how she gave her child money for subway and let him find his way back home. People treated her as though this were child abuse.
Apr '11
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
KC Mulville
Second that!
The teachers at our local high school claim that a student should do at least three hours of homework, every night. That just reminds me of what many bosses say about working overtime ... if you can't do what you're supposed to do in the regular work hours, you just aren't working hard enough. · Apr 20 at 12:53pm
This seems like a good jumping off point for a new post. I have heard that kids are being assigned homework in grade school and are being given approximately one hour per day per class of homework in high school. This begs the question: Do teachers actually teach any more? The continually poor results of our educational system seem to indicate that this method is yet another failure. I learned plenty during class time and maybe there was some homework, but that's what study hall was for. Does study hall even exist any more?
Jun '10
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
"Does study hall even exist any more?"
No. And kids are replacing lunch with AP science courses and going in for zero period classes, as well.
"...other parents will gently ask me if I know that my kids are "over there." "
Unlses you reek of gin, it's nobody's business how much space you give your kids. Some of those hovering moms are just doing it for show, I think. They are probably the ones who plop their kids in front of the TV at home, but fuss over them and put on a show for the world. Let me guess ---- they gasp and run every time a toddler takes a misstep and falls down in the grass....
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
Couldn't agree more, Dave. The professionalization of childhood is a tragic waste of an opportunity for freedom that only comes once in a lifetime.
Jun '10
Re: No Fun for Kids These Days
I grew up in the 50s and 60s as a farm boy living in a little town (400 people). I had a lot of morning and evening chores, and sometimes all day long. But on regular days, I'd eat breakfast, do the chores and head out on my bike, goof around with friends, build forts, etc. etc., roll in for lunch, and do it all again until chore time.
Virtually no organized time. Very little TV. No video games. But it was never boring.