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Excerpt from
Child's Play
Rediscovering the Joy of Play
in Our Families and Our Communities
Written by
Silken Laumann
The Dream
Not long ago, on a damp, fall evening, my children, Kate and
William, and I were taking our thirteen-year-old golden
retriever, Banner, on a quick lap around the block before
dinner. As I neared the dead-end road by my neighbourhood
park, I heard the distinctive thwack of a hockey stick on
asphalt. Slam went the stick, whack went the
ball–the sound was rhythmic and constant as my young neighbour
Mark slapped his bright orange hockey puck into the net over and
over again. A car came up behind us, and Mark glided over to
pick up the net so the car could pass. He moved the net
effortlessly back again and resumed his play, oblivious to my
watching eyes.
Hearing that sound of stick on pavement transported me back to
the noisy streets of my childhood. On the roads I grew up on,
there was always a group of kids playing street shinny and
screaming, “Pass, pass, pass!”
Unlike many other Canadians I’ve met, hockey wasn’t my passion –
I loved capture-the-flag. In my neighbourhood we played this
game almost obsessively. The objective, as the name implies, was
to capture the other team’s marker “flag.” But if you were
caught on the other team’s territory, you were “frozen” and had
to wait to be rescued by one of your teammates. I would call,
“I’m frozen, I’m frozen!” at the top of my lungs, hand stretched
out, craning and leaning until someone on my team managed to
sprint across enemy lines to release me. We would play
non-stop until a parent finally shouted, “Dinner!”
Kids used to live outside. Adventure was a central part of most
days, found in the form of a scavenger hunt down a path near
home, a trip to the neighbourhood Mac’s Milk, a meeting of
friends on the first snowy day to sneak our toboggans onto the
exhilaratingly steep slopes of the Mississauga golf course.
I must have been staring at Mark for a while, lost in thought,
because he eventually looked up at me curiously. I smiled and
move on. The streets my children and I walk resemble the ones I
grew up on – snug houses, big old trees and tons of space for
adventures – but there is one critical difference: the streets
today are silent. Mark was the only kid I saw that evening. The
playground we dodged through was empty, and so were the
schoolyard and all the driveways we passed. And it was so quiet;
there was a notable absence of boisterous shouting and gleeful
laughter.
I miss these children who make too much noise, whose fluorescent
orange hockey balls get too close to my car window. I miss their
energy, their smiles, and I miss the community these kids help
create. I remember the neighbourhoods of my childhood and can’t
help but compare them to my neighbourhood now. Those streets and
parks and play spaces were ours.
Children have disappeared from our streets, seemingly overnight.
Some are inside their homes, where television, the computer and
video games entertain them for hours on end. Others stay in
after-school care until their busy parents return from work,
or are shuttled to prearranged lessons. In a busy world, where
parents are under an almost unbearable pressure to balance work,
family and their own health, quality family time is often
snatched in the minivan on the way to hockey practice, or in the
few moments before bedtime.
Even a decade ago, kids still played in the parks and streets of
their community after school. They met with friends and learned
to skip in the driveways; their mom or dad might have come
outside for a quick game of soccer or basketball. While the kids
played, parents grabbed a piece of sanity and that necessary
half-hour to prepare dinner. My mom made dinner in peace
while the three of us kids played outside.
People say the world has changed: our streets aren’t safe, kids
can’t go outside alone and parents don’t have the time to watch
their kids play in a neighbourhood park. I try to accept this
logic and yet I can’t help but believe that the way we are
living today isn’t really working. We are denying children the
best and most vital part of childhood: play. Play is the
lifeblood of childhood – it brings children joy, it nurtures and
excites their creativity, it builds social skills and it
strengthens their bodies. Play is the very best part of being a
kid. I can’t accept that something so good for their hearts and
minds and bodies, something so good for us as parents, has been
lost.
Children may have more toys and more treats and fancier
bicycles, but they have lost much of the freedom that made our
childhoods so joyful. A good friend of mine grew up in Rycroft,
a tiny northern Alberta village. His single mom supported her
four children by cutting hair in the daytime and slinging beer
at night. There wasn’t much time for cuddles, and yet Paul
remembers his childhood as happy. Why? He had the love of a
parent and the luxury of spending all his free time outdoors,
riding his bicycle, finding friends and playing kick-the-can
or intense games of road hockey.
I began to ask why things have changed and how
things have changed, why we seem to be okay or at least resigned
to this change and whether or not I was alone in my desire to
reconnect with the past. I started to dream of my neighbourhood
as a place where my kids could meet in the park, where they
could roam the streets with their buddies on bikes or
skateboards or scooters, where there would be a championship
road-hockey game in my driveway.
I began to dream about how I could make this possible,
not if it was possible. I decided that I couldn’t be
alone in this – my neighbourhood is full of parents my age,
parents who would have grown up playing as I did, full-tilt
until dinner. I knew that moving to a different neighbourhood
was not the answer – the solution had to be about creating
opportunities for kids to play right here on my streets. And I
couldn’t wait for someone else to come along and take the
initiative for me; if I was unsatisfied with my neighbourhood,
then I had to do something to change it.
Excerpted from Child's Play by
Silken Laumann Copyright © 2006 by Silken Laumann. Excerpted by
permission of Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of
Canada Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may
be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from
the publisher.
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