I’m a little behind on my TV watching these days. I try to catch up in the evenings after the kids have gone to bed but even then, I only get through MAYBE an episode before I conk out from exhaustion. Needless to say, I finally got through the latest season of Stranger Things and it has me thinking…where has all the play time gone?
Don’t worry – if you haven’t gotten a chance to watch the latest season, no spoilers will be shared. No warning is necessary.
My husband and I were in the car this morning talking about the episodes we managed to watch last night and came to a general question – where are the parents? Aren’t they wondering what their children are doing and where they are? Do they really have that much trust that their kids are at a friend’s house?
My brothers have waxed nostalgic about the days when they were in high school, believing (possibly incorrectly if you talk to our parents) that they were relatively free to roam, coming home whenever and that, oftentimes, our parents had already gone to bed.
If we compare that to my high school years when cell phones were a thing (although we didn’t have the latest iPhone which made its debut after I graduated), my parents readily called me to check in on where I was, when I planned to be home, and who I was with.
I’ve even seen posts on parenting groups questioning whether elementary school children should be making the short walk from school to home alone. There is no such thing as a latch-key kid anymore. That isn’t the life we lead in our current world.
So where has all the play time gone? Where are the days of riding bikes freely around town or playing in the front yard or at the local park with your friends without parental supervision (either in person or via a find my friends-type app)? Should we go back to the days where kids were able to just roam and play?
Parenting styles changed in the early 2000s. Parents felt a need to hand hold and ensure their child’s success. We can see this through the most recent arrests regarding college admission scams. Some parents who raised young children through the 2000s saw the need for bubbles. The world grew so quickly in that decade that into the next, who can blame them? Suddenly the world was no longer just what was in your little community, but HUGE and access to it was relatively fast and easy. Who can blame parents who were faced with these unknowns of the internet and cell phones and social media and how they would affect their children.
I can imagine raising a young child in this time and the questions you would’ve had to ask yourself.
Who can see what I post online?
How do I prevent my children from seeing something not age-appropriate? What is age-appropriate?
How do I know what their friends are showing them?
These questions seem familiar. They are ones I ask myself today when raising my own little ones. The difference is that I have experience to fall back on. I have a generally good understanding of the internet and social media. Yes, it’s always changing. Yes, what I think I know today will be completely different by the time my little ones are in school. But the general rules of the internet stay the same. The general idea of safety and the importance of communication with your children is the same from when I was first starting on Facebook to today. The world is no longer bursting at the seams, growing at the speed of your internet connection. This part has slowed and allowed our parenting generation to better adapt and plan. To better understand and parent from our own experience with the growth of the world through the internet and social media.
On top of the internet, the “small town” has died. In Stranger Things, they live in a small town where everyone relatively knows everyone else. The number of cars isn’t as much, there aren’t as many major streets. There is a small downtown but even the creation of a nearby mall seems to spell destruction for the small-town feel.
Families aren’t staying in one place for as long. They are moving, changing jobs, chasing success – often times to other cities or states. With this has developed the uncertainty of who our neighbors are. As soon as you get to know your neighbor, up pops a for sale sign on their lawn. The average length of time for a house to be owned is about 3-5 years. If you imagine that your neighbor already lived there for several years before you moved in, you may not have long before they are moving out.
With all of this being said, I do think that things are changing. I think that parenting styles adapt to what the parents desire for their children. We look at our children’s development and want them to be able to be independent. We want them to explore and be curious about their worlds. We want them to have faith and trust and to know that there is always someone watching out for them.
With the creation of social media are mom groups – collections of people who may not have previously ever met but share similar interests. When a family moves, they can now reach out to moms in the new city and ask their questions. They are no longer blindly moving somewhere with faith that they are making the right choices on schools, day cares, or doctors.
Friends groups may no longer be created from who your neighbors are, but are now created from your Sunday school class, the moms you met in a breastfeeding class, or a local moms group.
So where has all the play time gone? It’s still there. It may be hidden a little beneath the scheduled soccer practices and swim lessons. It may seem a little more structured. It may be accompanied by a cell phone where parents can keep tabs on their children.
But those activities provide additional skill building opportunities. The structure provides a little safety among all of the busy streets and crazy (oftentimes, reckless) drivers. The cell phone provides a plethora of photos, evidence of the fun our children have.
The play time doesn’t have to be gone. It’s just looks a little different. But hey – the good news is my kids won’t just roam the town trying to chase and then subsequently escape from terrifying monsters…right?