Summertime, and the Livin' is Crazy...

Forums: Parenting And Childcare
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Continuing a theme:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/07/02/weekinreview/03foun.1841.jpg

Quote:

For Lisa Hart, a work-at-home mother of two in Oviedo, Fla., the realization that she was in danger of losing her grip on summer came last Monday, while driving her 5-year-old son, Ryan, to day camp. He'd spent the previous three weeks at the camp, but as she neared it to begin the new week, Ryan piped up from the back seat.

"He said, 'Mommy, I thought we were going to Kids' Gym,' " Ms. Hart said.

She realized he was right. Months ago she had signed him up for the gymnastics program for the week. So she turned the car around and headed across town, arriving only 10 minutes late.

Ms. Hart's confusion is understandable. Arranging a plan to keep the children occupied during the summer, and actually carrying it out, can be a logistical nightmare.

But that is what many parents must do these days, to a greater and greater extent. And the result is the season is being transformed. What was once a time for relaxing and recharging - those lazy, hazy days of summer, remember? - has become, for many parents, as frenetic as the other nine months of the year.

Full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/weekinreview/03fount.html?

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 1,586 • Replies: 20

No top replies

Whatever happened to . . .

Get out ! ! ! Get out from under my feet . . . go outside, go to the park, just go somewhere ! ! ! And if anything happens to your kid sister, i'll take it out of your hide. Supper is at six, be late and go hungry ! ! !

0 Replies

I think parents are just to fearful to shoo kids out of the house anymore.

The corner pool opened a few weeks ago. Mo and I have been swimming a lot and often take our neighborhood kids with us - B, a boy, 11 and S, a girl 13. The pool is three blocks away and neither child is allowed to walk the distance by themselves or even together.

Someone drives them or they walk with me and Mo.

By the time I was 11 I was a free-range child.

As to overscheduling I think it is some kind of frantic parent thing to do whatever it takes to keep their kids ahead of the pack.

0 Replies

I think it's a whole bunch of things -- that (ahead of the pack), but also this, as the article says later on:

Quote:

But for many adults, letting their children do what they did in their youth - spend unscheduled, unstructured time with friends - is not an option.

"I think it's a pity that the capacity for doing nothing has been lost," said Judith Warner, the author of "Perfect Madness," a book about the culture of motherhood, and the mother of two. "For most people, it's the fact that both people work," she said. With neither parent at home, the children have to go elsewhere, often to some structured activity.

But there's more to it than that. A kind of critical mass has been reached, where so many children are doing so many things that parents are often out of luck if they choose to have their children do less.

"My huge ambition was to do nothing in the month of July and go to the pool with my kids," Ms. Warner said. But she found there was no one for them to hang out with there. "Everyone else was at camp," she said.

The critical mass thing is the thing I keep talking about, death of the daytime neighborhood et al.

That said, I am LOVING my neighborhood!!! We don't have Ms. Warner's problem at the pool, and there are free-ranging packs of kids on bikes everywhere. Starting to feel like it's one of the last communities in America like this, and even so I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth in that I wish there were a lot more kids nearby who are home all day, everyday. But when sozlet gets to be say 8 or so, summer shooing ("out you go, be home for dinner") will be a real possibility, I think.

I think there is no WAY she won't be riding her bike to the pool on her own (or with other kids) by the time she's 10.

0 Replies

This might be a bit off topic but then again, maybe not.

Today Mo wanted to play with some Pop-Its and I told him he could set them off on the front porch but that he had to stay ON THE PORCH.

It reminded me so much of when I was a kid and the porch was often my limit. We always had a big porch.

And nobody really had air conditioning so people cooled off by sitting on the porch. There were always extra "eyes" out in the neighborhood.

We don't have Warner's problem in our neighborhood either. Our pool is jammed. The park is jammed. The streets are jammed with kids this time of year. Most of the houses in my neighborhood still aren't air conditioned so people still congregate in the street every evening. The pool is the major cooling off spot.

I too imagined Mo being off doing things on his own and with friends in a few years but knowing that my neighbors aren't allowing their kids much neigborhood freedom makes me question my thinking.

0 Replies

bookmark

*and sad*

0 Replies

"But that is what many parents must do these days, to a greater and greater extent."

IMO, this is a cop-out. The idea that parents "must" do any of this stuff is just a part of the hype that is part and parcel of any/everything to do with raising a kid lately. It goes along with the "I have to get my 3 year old enrolled at a private nursey school" and the "soccer mom" mentality.

What ever happened to letting kids be kids?

0 Replies

I agree about the "must". I don't! I mean, it's a hassle in a lot of ways, and I wish there were more kids around to make things easier, but sozlet's taking a only a half-hour a week of scheduled classes and that's mostly 'cause we're new here and still meeting people (has indeed proven to be a good way to meet locals.)

boomer doesn't either.

Definitely agree about the cop-out aspect; "Well, everyone else has to, too -- it's just the way it's done..." No, it's the path of least resistance in a lot of ways.

0 Replies

Quote:

Definitely agree about the cop-out aspect; "Well, everyone else has to, too -- it's just the way it's done..."

Some people would rather be Trendy & Helpless than sensible.

0 Replies

I tried bein' helpless once't, but nobody comin' to my rescue, i was obliged to trudge upon my dreary way . . .

0 Replies

...with your tail in your mouth?

0 Replies

Sure, why not . . .

0 Replies

0 Replies

I'm a little weak on my Pooh-lore . . . i was crossin' the border from Windsor to Detroit once't, an' when i got to the immigration agent, he was laughin' quietly, and couldn't immediately speak. Then he informed me that when the vehicle ahead of mine had pulled up, the steering wheel had a Winnie the Pooh cover on it. So he gently observed to the driver that she had pooh all over her steering wheel. He reported that she started wavin' her hands in the air, makin' "eek" noises and askin' him: "Where, where ? ! ? ! ?" I had that guy more than once't at that crossin', he was always good natured, and very sharp, too.

0 Replies

Ha! You should get into a little Pooh, there, Set. It's good stuff.

0 Replies

Well, i did . . . long time ago, more'n forty years . . .

0 Replies

Good bathroom book, boss.

0 Replies

heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

If i recall, he was a bear of little brain, so you're likely quite right . . .

0 Replies

Naaahhhh.... it's the human nature exhibited by the characters and the knowledge, that the books were written for a much-loved child that make them special when you read them as an adult.

0 Replies

I loved A.A. Milne as a child and while I developed a few reservations about his ethics in exploiting his son when I grew up, I never went so far as to agree with Dorothy Parker's review:

"Gentle Weader frowed up."

0 Replies

Summertime, and the Livin' is Crazy...

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know