the deprived child

[timepiece]

I just finished writing this for my bloglines blog, which I'm pretty sure no one reads, so I'm reposting here for a wider audience.

Reference URL: Growing Up Denatured(NY Times, registration required)

I was just thinking about this the other day, it's part of the reason I would like to move to a semi-rural, or at least much less densely populated area: there's nowhere for kids to play here. Planned playgrounds are simply not the same.

I was not by any means an outdoorsy child, but I remember quite a lot of time spent tramping through various unclaimed lots and neighbors' backyards. Even just reading in a "secret" space in the woods near my house; climbing trees, walking home dripping wet from falling in the lake, finding the shortcut between two subdivisions that saved you from climbing a fence or going an extra half-mile to the connecting road (sadly, that shortcut has now been widened and paved for easier access - my brother and I were both horrified that it looked all "official" now).

A childhood without any experiences like that does seem deprived, as stupid as "nature-deprivation syndrome" sounds. I don't want a child who has never had to be coaxed out of a large tree (as I was - and the coaxing was so we could go home, it wasn't even in my own yard). Or who has never learned for *themselves* some of the inevitable laws of physics which lead to skinned knees, poison ivy, and even broken bones. That child has also never had the delight of learning that rasperries fresh from the cane are much better than the ones in the supermarket, or that toads are actually dry and leathery to the touch, or that everything looks a lot different from 15 feet up a tree.

Comments

Glad you posted here

[vondow.livejournal.com]

Glad you posted here, especially since your take is far more interesting than the article. I've often wondered if I had kids where they would play. Growing up we had the bike trails through the woods that have since been paved over. After we moved we had the creek you could follow through the woods behind the houses for over a mile to the big creek and inaccessible forest between the subdivision and the highway. These days I couldn't image a subdivision letting that much land go unspoiled. And as you mentioned, a simple cut through involving jumping a creek could save us a five minute bike ride. Now everyone needs a fence to keep their neighbor's barbecue from spilling onto their lawn.

Graene grew up in the Chicago suburbs where houses were already one on top of the other and her childhood consisted mostly of concrete and parks. I can't help but feel she missed out.

Re: Glad you posted here

[graene.livejournal.com]

You forgot all the forest/wildlife preserves within a mile. And the street behind my parents was still one chunk of land with a single house and covered in exotic plants - we spent one whole summer "helping" Miss Helen on her sunset patrols through various backyards and that space on our way in for dinner each night.

Sadly they have paved trails into or put fences around the woods down at the beach. No more intermissions for the free plays spent dodging other kids to find the 'newest' routes where no paths worn. But my navigation skills also come from figuring out how to get to the places where I could play.

Also - I had a backyard big enough to get lost in, the summer no grass was cut due to the addition being put on. That's my minimum space for raising kids, I think.

Re: Glad you posted here

[timepiece]

Rich also grew up in an area where yeards are really small - and he lived in an apartment, to boot. He talks about climbing the fence to the country club golf course, but that isn't even close. I don't think he even realizes what he missed. He says it wasn't quite as built up, but it can't have been that different.

I lived in a suburban area, but my mom managed to find one of the only unpaved roads in the city to buy a house on. Sadly, last time I went by, it had been paved. My house was on a two-acre lot, and no one in the area had a fence, plus, there were several empty lots. And it was on the water; we had a dock, we caught our own crabs. And there was every kind of landscape to explore - there was a marshy area in my backyard with cattails and blackberry brambles; woods two lots over, a big meadow next door, a small beach on the river less than 2 miles away by bike.

Even in high school, everyone liked to hang out at my house, becasue there was room, and still privacy.