Spoiled Childhood, part two - Where does love grow best?

There can be no doubt that as a people we have embraced the maxim "bigger is better." We see it in cars - or trucks and vans rather - which have enough space for more than half a dozen people though they are often only transporting one or two. We see it in restaurant meals which, for me at least, easily provide dinner one night and lunch for the next two days. And we see it in houses - boy, do we see it in houses.

Not only the houses but their accoutrements as well. In the neighborhood next to ours, arguably the nicest one in town, the homes are large and well-kept. In one of these homes lives a family of three - mom, dad and little girl of about seven. The house is huge, of course, with probably four times as many rooms as people living in them, and toward the back of the manicured two-acre lot sits a large, empty play set.

I'm always a little incredulous as I stare at this play set. Situated on a 40x25, wood chip-filled plot, it has several slides, a couple of towers, swings, a sliding pole and more. It occurs to me that there is actually more equipment there than there is on the playground at the small parochial school where I substitute teach. And it exists for only one child, at least in theory - I'm not sure I've ever actually seen this little girl playing on it.

Now when I was a kid we had a swing set - it was metal with a short slide that burned your butt in the summer but was great for climbing, all four feet of it. There were also two swings and a glider, which my mother used to sit in with my baby sister.

My other sister, our best friend and I spent many hours on this swingset, only some of them using the equipment as it was meant to be used. The metal bars between the legs were great for practicing front and back flips, in preparation for our future Olympic appearances. Often we took the swings down and went back and forth, hand over hand, across the entire six-foot expanse of the set. We also liked to just swing, sometimes singing as we sailed up and down. We hatched an elaborate scheme to stay on the swings for as many hours as it would take to break a Guiness World Record. When our mothers wouldn't cooperate in that plan by bringing our dinners out to us we set out to create the world's longest gum wrapper chain. It got pretty long - seven or eight feet, I'd say - before we got bored and went looking for another way to get our names in the record books.

Our swing set was not firmly anchored in the ground - the legs would come up as we went higher and higher - and it was on ordinary grass rather than a layer of wood chips over black plastic. But we survived with nothing but minor scrapes and bruises, plus a few fingers pinched in the metal swing chains (no plastic sleeves to prevent that back then). My friend did break her ankle once, but that was while playing Spud.

But while the playset I see in the yard of this little girl puts the one of my own childhood to shame, I do not envy her, neither do I feel shame for providing my own children when they were small with just a modern version of my own modest play set. As I said, I don't see the little girl playing on this elaborate setup. There's probably not much time in between all the lessons and sports practices we feel are necessary for children's development today. And when she does manage to find a minute to just sit on a swing, it's probably not much fun without a friend. It's hard to find overlapping play time when your friends are as busy attending sports practices and learning to dance and meeting with private tutors as you are.

And there is one of today's biggest ironies. We have such large, lovely homes and such so many entertaining toys - yet we're never around to enjoy them. It's like our homes are just a place at which to stop off, change our clothes, catch a few zzzs and then take off again. A big part of that is because mom and dad are working their tails off trying to keep the family in big homes and toys.

My favorite comic when I was a kid was the Archie series and my favorite character was Veronica (the rich girl with the killer bod, of course). But I always felt a little sad for Veronica, too, especially after one particular comic ran. In the story, Veronica was wandering around her mansion comparing it to the "crackerboxes" her friends lived in. Neither parent was around - they were probably at the opera or some such millionaire activity - and Veronica was going from room to room congratulating herself on the blessings of living with her own bowling alley, movie theater, etc. Finally she looked a little sad and lonely then grabbed the phone to call her friend Betty and ask if she could spend the night at Betty's house. Once they were snuggled in Betty's cozy bedroom Veronica exclaimed "People who live in crackerboxes are the luckiest people in the world!"

Strange that a comic book story should have such an influence on me but all these years later I still remember that one and believe in its message. For a good portion of my grown-up family life we lived in a "crackerbox," at least as compared to the homes of our friends. My two girls had to - prepare yourself to be shocked - share a room (does that qualify as child abuse these days?) and the rooms were small enough to make the kitchen table seem a more attractive setting for doing homework. There were just two bathrooms (one more than my family had when I was growing up!) and I became an expert at getting rid of clutter because we just didn't have a lot of extra storage space.

About four years ago we moved to our present home, which has twice the living space. I'm glad we did - I really love our house and yard and the neighborhood in which they sit - but sometimes I am a little wistful for the old crackerbox. These days everyone separates after dinner to bedrooms or sitting areas - we can easily each have a room to ourself. Part of that is a function of having teenagers instead of small children but part of it is that we're not as good at sharing space as we used to be. No one wants to wait for a bathroom. The girls tell me having the computer and the piano in the same room is not such a good plan because they distract each other. Patience, longsuffering, doing without - not so much a part of life as we know it anymore. And it is amazing how STUFF expands to fill empty space (more on that in my next post).

I wonder how many important life lessons our children lose when homes are designed more for show and convenience and less for cooperation. Just the simple act of sharing a room teaches volumes about courtesy, patience and just getting along. It can also actually be kind of fun to have someone to talk to while you're trying to fall asleep at night. My own daughter who is leaving for college in the fall is currently bunking with her sister while we repaint and recarpet her room. She's having so much fun, she said, she wants to continue (her sister, however, is missing her privacy). Unfortunately, I believe there are many college-aged kids whose first experience with sharing a room is in the dorm. Kind of a rude awakening, I expect.

If they can suffer through that year of torture, however, paradise awaits in their off campus apartment. Gone are the days of ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. Today's college crowd regularly hits the local restaurants even though their apartment kitchens provide all the modern kitchen conveniences, like dishwashers and microwaves. And that roommate thing - so yesterday! Whereas my college apartment involved six twin bed in three bedroom, my son moved into his apartment to his own room with a full size bed. The twin bed accessories I had bought for him showed my ignorance of the plush lifestyle young people can expect today.

As a society we are pretty focused on convenience and comfort. Not terrible things to enjoy, of course, yet I think the overemphasis on them compromises another important c-word - character. As our economy shows more and more signs of weakening I can't help but wonder how the current generations of both adults and children will handle scaling back their lifestyles. I don't think it will be our finest moment.

Spoiled Childhood, part one

Madison and I head into the hills and mountains near our home whenever possible, but sometimes time and/or energy are in short supply and we content ourselves with walks through a couple of adjacent neighborhoods. One in particular is quite affluent - the homes are all large and well-kept on manicured two-acre lots. The other is nice but with smaller and older homes. No matter - both neighborhoods hold examples of one of the great tragedies of modern childhood: playthings that discourage imagination and social interaction and cooperation.

Today's example is from the older neighborhood. That is where I saw a great tree house in the design of a castle. It was big - probably the size of a small bedroom. I know that as a kid I would have been green with envy, which only goes to show that as a kid I didn't know much. Because as cool as this castle looked even to my adult eyes, I knew not much fun would ever be had there. For one thing, its design was so elaborate that it was not yet finished being built and I doubt it will be before its future occupants are in middle school (at which time they will definitely not want to occupy it.) For another, I've discovered as I matured that most of the fun in life is found in doing, not having.

My own childhood fort was just about as non-castlelike as you could possibly get. My best friend Kathy's family had a woodpile in the back of their yard. It was neatly stacked between two trees and came up about three feet. I don't know why but structures like this are irresistable to kids and before long it morphed into a kitchen in what became our pioneer cabin.

The two trees that bordered the woodpile were on the edge of a small woods which went down to a creek. We spent hours scavanging the creek for discarded objects - okay, we were picking trash. There wasn't as much plastic packaging then (we're talking late 1960s here) so a margerine tub was a valuable find. Mostly we found rusting cans that served as pots and pans. Sticks became forks and knives, pine cones, acorns and rocks were food. After a good meal in our rustic kitchen we could retire to the bedroom - a large, flat pile of mostly small rocks surrounded by trees behind the kitchen. A couple of larger rocks made great beds, perfect for sleeping off our imaginary pork and beans. Life was good on prairie.

Our cabin was never completely finished - we were always adding new household utensils and clearing new rooms. After month-long hiatus from trash picking one never knew what new treasure she might find so we'd head back to the creek to explore. The longer the game went the better it was.

It was the same when we played with our Barbies. For one thing, Barbie was pretty generic back then - she didn't come with a profession and all the accessories necessary to run a veterinary hospital or be a rock star. Barbie was just Barbie and we had accumulated a few of her and her friends, as well as a couple of cases and a smattering of outfits. We spent whole afternoons building and furnishing a gignatic house made from cases turned on their sides. Old boxes became beds, washcloths made great blankets and sock hangers held homemade Barbie dresses. The Barbies busied themselves moving into and arranging their new digs and it was during this activity that the drama unfolded. A couple of Barbies might have a fight over who got which bedroom, or who got Ken. There were various kid dolls of non-Barbie origin (and unknown parentage) who needed tending. And someone had to deal with the telephone company!

We would spend entire rainy afternoons setting up this communal Barbie residence (all the cases were placed end to end - no separate homes in this family compound). Just as the last dress was hung and the Barbies were ready to really do something someone's mother would call and tell her it was time to come home for dinner. The house would have to be disassembled, everything was put away and we promised ourselves that next time we would put things together faster so we could really play.

Thank goodness that never happened. The Barbie house-raising project always occupied our full play time and now I know what a blessing that was because if we had actually gotten to the point when the Barbies could relax, the fun would have been over for us. I mean, really, what is there to do with a bunch of stiff-legged dolls who already have their house in order?

I understand now that play is all about the journey because once you've arrived at your destination the game is over. And that's why castle tree houses disturb me. The destination has already been furnished and there is no need to play. Play involves imagination and creativity. It's a chance to practice being a grown-up, to invent, to innovate. When a kid is plopped in the middle of a complete playhouse furnished with a plastic kitchen brimming with plastic food, what's left to do? The fun part has already been done.

Childhood is something that should be enjoyed, not managed. We all know of kids who need their own palm pilots to keep their schedules straight - horseback riding at 3:00, ballet at 5:30, Swim practice at 7:15. Kids today sure don't have a lot of free time so maybe parents think that by providing ready-made play areas they are helping their kids get straight to the business of playing. No time to waste on making stuff up, let's get to work - PLAY, darn it!

But maybe what kids really need is free time. Undoubtedly that is one of the few things affluent parents no longer provide. What a waste.