Recently, my daughter-in-law and I were talking about parks and playgrounds lacking... things to play on. Gone are the Merry-go-Round, the Jungle Gym, and most importantly, the Monkey Bars.
I know. You're sitting there with that is that chick insane? look on your face right now. But trust me. I gave this all of about five seconds of thought.
You can think Dave Matthews for this epiphany. I've been on a kick this weekend and was listening to his Proudest Monkey song off his Crash album. It's always been one of my favorite tracks to listen to because of the rhythm guitar and the declinations of tone and structure. If you don't know it, it's extremely relaxing... until you listen to the lyrics. Really listen to them. I'd know the chorus forever, but this time, for whatever reason I dove into the lyrics and realized what a depressing song it is. Almost as depressing as his Pay For What You Get from his Under the Table and Dreaming CD.
Anyhoodles, as I sat at my desk contemplating country vs city life, I realized that, as a society we have become so risk averse that we are actually afraid of actually enjoying or getting benefit from anything. In fact, we started with our kids first.
When my kids went to the park and on their school playgrounds, they had those three pieces of equipment, including seesaws. Think about that for a moment.
I don't know about you guys, but some of the merriest moments in my childhood, and the childhoods of my children were on old park swings, slides and monkey bars. I can almost see why we got rid of the old metal slides. Hot as hell, but then the hot ass plastic ones aren't much better, are they?
Now, look at your average Millennial and Zoomer. Ain't no upper body strength there to threaten you is there? The fat little blubber balls can barely stand up much less lift a game controller. Am I right? I mean, they're either deathly thin from not being able to eat anything so that mommy could post about how put upon she was by the food allergies that all wound up being made up except for the nut allergies, which we can all blame on the CDCs along with COVAIDS.
I'm sure that, as a parent, that makes you feel so much better for not allowing kids to go outside and, wait for it, just be kids.
When my kids were growing up, my house was where everyone came to play out in our backyard, climb in trees, swing, sand box, basketball goal and tons of games to play in the rec room (made out of our old garage).
We also had video game consoles and a computer. I watched over them, baked snacks and proctored their homework before they got to play. I was, in fact, parenting them because their own parents were uninterested in the job. Some were busy with big families like my own. Some were busy with both parents working to keep them in our definitely blue collar, refinery row housing development that was quickly becoming a barrio. Some were fatherless, a couple were motherless. My home was a safe place for them to hang after school. I was mean and scared the socks of any bully chasing them after school.
You know how I know it was good? My kids ALWAYS talk about that when they're all together.
I was there for tae kwon do. Yes, I actually sent my children out to fight other children in their dojang. They played baseball, football, basketball, and still would go to play at the local park with their friends. They ran around screaming, eating snow cones and JUST BEING KIDS.
I was part of the PTA and I volunteered at their elementary schools. I did that because I didn't get to do it in the beginning, so I embraced being a stay at home mom when I got the chance. No, I didn't get it, I took the damned thing for my own.
I don't remember parents of my generation because such fucking pussies, but it's where it began. We were going to be so much better than our Boomer parents, weren't we. And we were almost there. It was the ones that came after my kids that frankly make me want to slap a bitch.
I'll tell you a story to illustrate. When my youngest daughter was playing softball in elementary school, I made cupcakes for her birthday because she had a game that evening. One of her little friends took one and her mother ripped it out of her hands and threw it at the trashcan telling her she couldn't have all that sugar.
Yeah, you know that cunt had my sights on her face. All the little girls talked about that little girl and how mean her mom was. And it wasn't just them, the other parents talked about it. I was coach that year and kept a very close on her. Her home life had to be hell is all I can, but since I never saw any signs of physical injury, there was precious little I could do. I just fucked up things in other ways. Because I'm a bitch. You can think it and know that it's a universal truth.
I noted that the elementary school my daughters went to took out their playground equipment and I no longer saw the kids outside playing. I saw it at the Intermediate schools and the Middle School... sometimes. You know you're going to see it during football season at the High School. How else can you boost your parents' egos?
These items disappeared from our local parks when they were all remodeled and updated. Because someone might fall and hurt themselves. Gods forbid you learn a lesson as a child, right?
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