Imagination and play

Oh, for mercy's sake! People, just back off and let the kids play. ABC News has an article on new playground styles, some of which feature "play workers" to guide the children through them. Um, big swings and slides were nice when we went to town, but as a kid, I was much more likely to play by climbing trees (well now, we can't have that), running around with my siblings, the dogs, or other children, catching fireflies or balls, playing with my dolls - ranging from commercial dolls to yarn dolls that my granny taught me to make, and even to "dolls" made out of things like corn husks, daisies, or braided grass stalks. My brother and I regularly courted putting an eye out by "fencing" with marsh reeds from down by the stream. If you could break your opponent's reed or poke them in the belly with yours, you won.

I mean, I am not the world's biggest fan of dodgeball. It could be outlawed for schools tomorrow and I would not weep. I caught more "bean balls" than I care to think about. It's a wonder I didn't get multiple concussions from "playing" dodgeball. Ouch. Some concessions to safety don't bother me. Not letting bullies at school play "tag" with their picked-on classmates doesn't strike me as overly controlling. It strikes me as sensible, knowing exactly how much the bullies at my school were able to pull without one word of reprimand from the adults present, except perhaps for the victim, who wasn't allowed to quit a "game" used as an excuse for abusing them.

Nevertheless, aside from such flagrant abuses, I think children should be allowed to have their own play and their own imaginative view of the world, rather than being fed the pap of someone else's. Sometimes, rather than running about, I'd lie on my back in the grass, wondering what it would be like to be a cloud, or the wind pushing the cloud, or a bird, or a mountain. Or roll over on my belly - Imagine to myself that I am an ant, carrying away a leaf bigger than I am, or a spider, waiting on my delicately perfect web for a juicy fly. Maybe somehow while I've been lying here, some of *me* has rubbed off on the grass or the grass has become part of me. How will I ever manage to get up?

Or make up stories - "so the sky got bigger and bigger, and she realized she'd become an ant...", or retell ones I've read - "Once upon a time, there was a terrible witch, and she lived in a house that sat on a chicken's leg and could hop about by itself ..." or heard - "So, there was our great-great granddaddy, and he could see that the horses were nervous, when all of a sudden he heard..."

Or just make a great big mess in my already grass-stained shorts and t-shirt. And the main instruction that I got from adults was - You kids hose off the worst of it and come in for dinner.