I think of my childhood and I smile, reminiscing on days where I had blisters on my dirty feet from running around barefoot all day, and splotchy sunburns that told me exactly where I had forgotten to apply sunscreen that morning. When chalk and wiffle balls were my only handheld devices, and lemonade and ice cream Popsicles were my drug of choice. When I was free from responsibility, from worry, from work, from technology.
That was my childhood, but if I were only 10 years younger, I’m not so sure that would still be the case. In fact, I believe that my entire childhood would have been transformed. Being a child in today’s world is less about curfews and riding your bike with your helmet on while avoiding strangers, and more about at least taking your tablet outside with you, and looking for shade so that your phone doesn’t overheat. And this is at age seven. I’m serious. I know five-year-old kids who got tablets for Christmas. It’s like people don’t know how to handle children and technology. When it’s running rampant all around them, they know that it’s only a matter of time before their kids are exposed to it, anyway, so why not expose them to it in your own terms, right?
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Wrong. Why not discipline them and bring them up like you would want to be brought up -- like you were brought up -- with neighborhood friends and pickup games of basketball, with refreshing jumps in the pool after running around on a scavenger hunt all day, with hopscotch and scooters, bubbles and trampolines, manhunt and tag games? You might think it isn’t possible in today’s day and age when they’re surrounded by technology that threatens to swallow them up, but don’t give in. Just because “everyone else is doing it” doesn’t mean that you have to, too. I didn’t get my first phone until high school, and I’m still alive. Parents today didn’t even have cell phones in high school, and they’re still breathing. Life without technology is okay, it’s even good. But childhood without technology is necessary, it’s healthy, and it’s just right.
A friend recently told me that when she spent time with her family in Denmark, she noticed something. Even though it was the dead of winter, and the weather was cold as can be, the children were still playing outside, all fitted up in these big outdoor suits that insulate them and protect them from the bitter temperatures, and ensure that they can continue to enjoy themselves and play outside even when the weather is dreary. I, too, noticed upon my travels to Copenhagen that the kids were always outside -- outside stores in their strollers, or roaming the streets -- it’s just something the Danes value: a childhood spent outdoors, a childhood of playtime and exercise, of kinship with humans and not with technology.
I’ve never been a parent, and so I would never claim for a second that I have all the answers (or any of the answers, for that matter) about parenting, but what I do know is this. I would never trade my childhood for the world. The scars on my knees from when I fell off my bike, the ice cream that dribbled down my chin, the summers I spent trying to learn how to water ski and building up the nerve to cliff jump from 40 feet; to me, this represents the beautiful and sweet time of our lives that exists before we lose our innocence and enter the real world. And I cherish my childhood memories, none of which involved sitting around while my fingers and eyes strained themselves to work a machine that only isolated me.
Tim Tharp wrote in his book, "The Spectacular Now," that, “Childhood was a fantastic country to live in,” and I’ve never forgotten these words. They rang true for me. I’m sure they rang true for you, too. Now, let’s make them possible for our kids, too; that someday they might look back and remember fondly their days spent playing with classmates and friends, and not their days cooped up inside with only their iPads to keep them company.
