Child's
Play
 The
latest Atlantic Monthly magazine has a great
story
contemplating the idea that we coddle modern children
too much, that we're WAYYYY overprotective compared
to ye good olde days. Child abduction, one reason
for our contemporary over-caution, isn't, statistically
speaking, such a threat that we need
to watch over
our kids almost every minute of their waking lives,
but we sort of do and that, the article posits, may
not be the optimal path for child development. Especially
regarding creativity and self-reliance.
Not having children I don't know if I'd kick my
kids out of the house at daybreak to fend for themselves,
after a hearty breakfast, of course, but that's
exactly
how I was treated as a kidling, and I somehow survived. In
fact, I'd like to share one memorable moment of
unsupervised excitement.
--------------
The house we moved into
when I was about nine years old featured Fort worth's
Trinity River a mere six feet beyond the four-foot
cyclone
fence that
framed our back yard. This was a wild and untamed
part of the river, with steep 20-foot banks, massive
cottonwood trees, and all manner of creepy-crawly-bitey
critters lurking everywhere.
It was like Heaven.
Not long afterwards the city, or state, thought
it best to civilize, nay sterilize, the river,
in
order
to keep its fair citizens safe from the unpredictability
all this nature, so
they came in, cut down and burned all the trees,
then
dug
a new
course
for the river, filling in the old one.
It was literally apocalyptic. (I would also like
to add that once the vast meadow that bordered the
river was demolished all the mice that lived there
summarily invaded our home. That's when I got my
first cat.)
On the other hand, our playground was now one vast
sandbox, filled with real trucks and construction
equipment of all kinds. One day, a man rolled
past our back gate in a bulldozer, scraping up a
huge rolling mound of fresh earth. I, my little
brother,
and
my older sister stood off to one side enjoying the
show. I don't know whose idea it was but we all
began
launching ourselves into the pile of dirt, rolling
and tumbling amongst the clods and rocks... and
the bulldozer didn't stop. In fact, it seemed like
the man running the machine was amused as
this
continued for
about five minutes. Eventually he told us to knock
it off and so we went looking for other mischief.
We didn't consider this a remarkable event at the
time, just an opportunity to relieve the boredom
of a fall
afternoon.
There was certainly the possibility for disaster
in what we were doing and if I saw a child of mine
attempting such an act today I'd probably have a
minor coronary,
but, to be honest, it wasn't half as dangerous as
other
things
we got
up
to on
the new Trinity River. But those are stories for
another day.
=Lefty=
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