School’s been out for two weeks, and already I’m hearing that dreaded phrase, “Mooooom, I’m boooored.” Which really means, “Entertain me, mom!”
And I do entertain. I play War and Go Fish and Clue and Guess Who, and I arrange playdates and pool parties, and I plan day trips, and I’ve also lined up daily jobs/schoolwork for them to do, much to their annoyance.
However, I am not a Camp Counselor.
I really hate to do this, but…when I was a kid, my mom cleaned the house, watched soap operas, and…um, did other mom stuff that I cannot recall. She did not arrange playdates, she did not take us to the pool, and she did not play games with us (though to her credit, she didn’t make us do chores or summer school work either). She set us free from the time we woke up until bedtime.
With the other neighborhood kids I climbed trees, made forts, and picked and ate raspberries, cherries, gooseberries and mulberries, then rode horses, and played board games, school, tag, and hide and seek, and the only time we saw an adult was when one told us our mother had called and we were to head home for supper. I also read and read and read, in un-air conditioned discomfort.
When we didn’t know what to do, we’d sit around in the shade with a Kool-Pop until we figured it out, because if you went to your mom and said, “Mooom, I’m boooored,” she would find something for you to do, like clean your room, so we learned quickly not to do that.
Now, I realize that my kids do not live out in the country like I did. And I realize that we just can’t let our children loose and not know where there are every minute of the day.
But.
I refuse to fil
l every minute of their summer with crafts and trips and mother-led games and mother-generated ideas. They come up with some pretty darn good ideas when allowed to. For instance, after our trip to the cherry orchard last week, Ben decided to plant cherry pits all over the yard. This led to him and Jack digging in my back corner garden for worms, and then they decided to pull the weeds back there too (because Ben was hoping I’d pay him for it), and then they got lollipops and their sister (who was done helping me with the jam) and stretched out on the lawn chairs and looked at cloud shapes.
All un-orchestrated by me, because I was in the house making jam then trying to clean all of the stickiness off the floors and countertops.
To be perfectly honest, I am not the noble, perfect parent I’m sure you all think I am (come on…you do, right? Maybe??). I’m just really not that fond of playing cars or cleaning up fingerpaint or pretending to not remember where the matches are in Memory for the millionth time. I do what I have to do, and I mostly enjoy it. But I just can’t overdo it, or I will go insane.
So it’s really not about making my kids use their imaginations. It’s about me not checking into the loony bin.
When you ride in an airplane, the flight attendants go through the In-Case-the-Plane-Goes-Down-In-a-Burning-Fiery-Crash instructions, which I always listen to intently, though Dave laughs at this and thinks I am so uncool because of it. I may be uncool, dude, but I will know where the exits are and be pulling your frantically cool self to safety. Anyway. They always tell you if the oxygen masks come down, you are to don your own mask first, then help your child put his own on.
Because you aren’t going to be any good to your child if you aren’t getting the oxygen you need.
It’s good advice all around, I think.
