Kidding Around

We are one week into summer break, and Connie and I have already heard the evil word “bored” several times. It is uttered with a tone of frustration and the expectation that it is somehow our responsibility as parents to provide our children with a near constant flow of either entertainment or a constructive activity that can in no way be interpreted as a chore.

I’m sure there are books, written by people who don’t have children, which say we should do just that; spend every waking moment making sure all of their time is happy, fulfilled and busy. Since they don’t have children, those people have more energy than we do. They also write books for a living, so it’s easy for them to imagine that they can take breaks whenever they want to escort little Jimmy or Susan to the park or the movies or the art gallery. (I am well aware the most kids would not enjoy a trip to the art gallery, but people who don’t have kids but write books about children think they do).

I don’t remember ever telling my parents I was “bored.” I can just imagine the look on my father’s face if I had ever uttered that in his presence. He would have found plenty for me to do. In fact, we always had chores to do around the house, and it was not only expected for us to do them, we pretty much did them without complaint. I never felt the need to call Children’s Services to lodge an abuse claim because I had to take out the garbage. I never rolled my eyes at my mother when she told me to clean my room. If I had been stupid enough to roll my eyes or talk back to my mother in my father’s presence, I’m pretty sure I would still be walking with a permanent limp.

Don’t get me wrong, I did not live in fear of my father. He did not beat his children. The difference is that his children knew that there were lines not to cross. We knew better than to disrespect our parents. We did not talk back to our parents. We did not barrage them with selfish requests. We did not try to guilt them into giving in to our demands. We were kids, and we knew our place. If I make it sound like we lived in a “speak unless you are spoken to” existence…that’s not what I mean at all, but we understood that we were just kids. Back then, there wasn’t anything wrong with that. In fact, it was a pretty good thing.

In some ways I feel bad for kids today. They don’t have the simplicity available to them that we did. We didn’t have 200 television channels to choose from. We had 4 (five if you count PBS, which I didn’t at the time). We didn’t have Playstations or Wii’s, portable DVD players or Ipods. Our Ipods were the size of small Volkswagons and played 8 track tapes. You could throw your back out carrying one of those things around.

We got up in the morning and after a quick breakfast (which was whatever Mom put in front of us, not the ala carte choices expected today), we went outside. Outside was the place to be. I don’t remember it being so hot that we couldn’t stand it. Getting sweaty was as natural as breathing. A slight breeze on a damp shirt felt like a massage from Mother Nature. It sent a chill up our spine which was about as much pleasure as a kid could handle.

I don’t remember preferring to lie on the couch in a mindless, grouchy stupor to the smell of fresh cut grass and honeysuckle. We transformed our yard into battlefields and old west forts. Trees were mountains that we could climb and conquer, and bicycles became police cars or horses, screaming along with the staccato hum of cards flapping against our wheel spokes. Our imagination was only interrupted by the call from Mom that lunch was ready, but once we had eaten our sandwiches (usually bologna or peanut butter), we were back outside for the rest of the afternoon. Boredom was never an issue, even when we were simply laying on our stomachs in the cool grass, looking for four-leaf clovers.

Occasionally these days, I’ll see my girls race outside to catch firelies, and for the briefest of moments, I think they might be experiencing some of the innocent fun that I did. I sincerely hope so. I hope that my generation’s desperate need to give our children “better than we had it” has not robbed them of the wonderful treasures that can be found while just being a kid. Adulthood and the responsibilities that come with will be here soon enough.