The Death Of Childhood

[Robert Crisman]

When I was a kid we'd go to the playfield and play: every day, baseball in summer, football on weekends in autumn, basketball ditto in winter, and all through the year there wasn't a parent in sight, which made us all happy, seeing as kids and their parents need breaks from each other.

Nowdays it's different: I go by the playfield and no games are played, except once in awhile some organized shit, soccer more often than not, put on by schools or whatever, and parents are there by the boatload: soccer moms snarling like rabid pit bulls and dads by the dugout with guns in their pockets and rage at the coaches who keep their kids warming the bench.

I used to think this influx of parents on kids' hallowed turf was prompted by fear of molesters and rape-os who seem these days to lurk near the playfields in clusters, just waiting for Johnny or Jenny to chase a ball into the bushes...

And that's part of it, sure, but this fear is just part of a far wider theft of our childhood, really, engendered by creeping corporate control over ways that we think, feel, and act, down to the ways that we eat, sleep, and shit, which in turn has spurred parents to try and wrench kids into lockstep, and make them all dipsy-do Dagwoods and Blondies, vassals well-versed in the ways that Life's Games Must Be Played in the Land of the Corporate Logo... 

The kids are all given uniforms now, and Branded and turned into numbers on scorecards; the first thing they learn is, Losers Are Dead Meat...

Childhood is over...

 

 

[Mike Handley]

Late to the trough here, but I agree. They're raising kids nowadays to have no imagination. I often wonder if there will be a next generation of writers.

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

I have been thinking the same thing for a very long time but never expressed it in words.  I grew up in New York City where in the summer when I was 12 years old I used to take the subway with my friends to the beach in Far Rockaway and stay away all day.  There were no cell phone or phones of any kind and no one expected me to call.  I was expected to arrive home at suppertime, set the table and after my family ate, wash the dishes.  No one asked where I was all day or whom I was with.  I had the most fun childhood growing up in the city that never sleeps.  Today--no one would have this kind of childhood in the city of my youth.

[Jamie Hogan]

Exactly, Robert. It's too hard to teach sportsmanship and losing gracefully. Too hard to teach kids to deal with losing and retain self-esteem. So let's just live this dream for a while, and then let it shock the hell out of them when they get out into the world. Kinda sickening.

[Robert Crisman]

@Jamie: It seems to me that the idea that there are "no losers" is merely the flipside to "losers are dead meat," at least with regard to competitive sports. I think the point is, people should learn how to lose as well as win, gracefully, as a requisite to sportsmanship and keeping things in perspective. "Losers are dead meat" has been the American ethic for a long time, and that "no losers" business is another example of our genius at fashioning formal opposition and mistaking it for real change.

[Jamie Hogan]

I can echo Travis for the most part. You try to strike a balance between not too much and enough that they can hold a reasonable conversation with their buddies about stuff that's on TV. I don't want them to be zombies to it, but I also don't want them to be social outcasts. And my guys like to get outdoors, so it's really not a problem.

 

The only part I would even niggle with is the "Losers are Dead Meat" phrase. In my experience currently as a parent, schools and especially civic recreation departments work extremely hard to paint the picture that there are no losers anymore. We don't keep score at games much anymore. Everybody gets a trophy, no matter what. And there are schools where you get as many tries as you need to make a passing grade. It's not even close to real life.

 

And this may be completely inappropriate, but the term "rape-os" for some reason made me laugh hysterically. Maybe because it sounded like a cereal I would eat to help me be able to rape better. That's horrible, I know. I have this black humor that bubbles up sometimes. I'll put myself in the corner now.

[Travis Smith]

Excellent rant - and as a parent of youngish children one that I see regularly - we try hard to limit TV (the watch once per week), no i-phones, etc. But the culture is pretty pervasive and if you avoid those things, even as the parents we get looked at as on the fringe - I can see the temptation - I would have a lot more time to write if I just stuck my kids in front of the TV...

[Edward Dean]

Good one R.C.

Structured play's sin is by exclusion of those not chosen. Parents are living vicariously through their own kids. The momma that never was a beauty queen tries to make her daughter into one. The dad that is stuck in a dead end job wants his son to be the starting Q.B.

Free-play is the bedrock of imagination. No wonder Reality shows are so popular. These parents never got a chance to act stupid and be a child.

[Sandra Davies]

To the point and so very well said - it seems to me that parents are afraid to just let their kids BE!

[Robert Crisman]

We used to box in the back yard. Nowdays they'd probably make us take out insurance. You can bet there wouldn't be any Boxing Moms, though.

[Stephen Torelli]

Yes, we used to play without parental and corporate interference--baseball, basketball, football, boxing, and during Winter, sleigh riding down those big fucking New York hills. When they got iced up it was like flying... just sayin. Excellent insight.