June 26, 2008
"Being a child at home in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you." - Erma Bombeck.
Parents if the kiddos are driving you crazy this summer, try this. Have them do absolutely nothing, as long as it is outside that is!
If they are bored already with video games and television, here is an idea--let us go back to the "lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer."
A time when laziness was a virtue and children and parents alike did as little as possible.
Maybe it was too hot in those days to do anything productive because few of us had air conditioning. Staying outside to find a cool breeze and shade was vital. So, if one was outside already, one might as well play.
Incidentally, none of our summer fun cost a penny and almost all of it got us exceedingly dirty.
An imagination was the only thing else one needed in order to find unending summer fun.
Mostly, we did nothing at all except daydream and get really, really dirty.
We created elaborate roads and bridges in the dirt for our toy cars, we made play houses of branches and rocks, hunted lightening bugs, and played hide and seek in the woods until someone gave up or got hurt.
And yes, kids did eat mud pies. The mud pies, by the way, were constructed with small sticks and stones to glue the substance together. Occasionally, we older ones might feed the younger kids a mud pie just to see if they would eat it, and sometimes they would try.
Playhouses were made of tree branches, old boards, and large stones, or in our case, a nasty old chicken house converted to a playhouse. This project took days until eventually the "secret" playhouse was ready for old furniture and broken dishes from the shed. We thought our parents never knew. Looking back, I can only imagine the chicken droppings and the disgusting grime on that dirt floor.
We spent hours throwing the dog sticks often following him into tall grass and woods where we contracted "stick-tights", chigger bites, ticks, poison ivy, and nettle stings. However, even pests and noxious weeds did not stop our forays.
And it would not be a perfect summer afternoon without spitting watermelon seeds from the porch or laying on one's back on the ground to search for shapes in the clouds. In the evening, the entire family would admire the night beauty of the stars once again from the porch, and if we were lucky talk dad into taking us to town for an ice cream cone.
Once again, I sigh wistfully and ask, "Can we go back?"
Of course we cannot, but we can try on for size the idea of summer laziness. I guarantee you will love it and so will the kiddos!
As writer Sam Keen quipped, "Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability."
