{Author’s Note: There is no editor. Hi Ruth Anne!}
When we went out to vote on November 7th, my wife and I had to drive by our son’s elementary school. We were mildly amused to spy him, out for recess, playing football in the schoolyard with his classmates.
We parked across the street and watched for a few precious minutes. Since we were not a butterfly, or a jet contrail, or a candy wrapper, or a penny, he didn’t notice us there, so we got to see him in that rarest of settings: “somewhere else,” without his parents or guardians present.
The football activity was hilarious. It alternatingly resembled an algae bloom and an ayatollah’s funeral– first a kind of milling around in an amorphous blob, then a kind of wild melee over a leathery old totem. We watched them drift back and forth for a pleasant minute, with the odd missile launch of the forward pass rocketing rudderless out of the scrum and landing any old place but that most rarified of targets: a teammate.
It was wry to consider that playing tag is verboten at his school. I’m not joking.
The school is getting comical in this regard. They were terrified of the food the little ones were eating, so they tinkered endlessly with the school lunch menu to make it so healthy that no one purchased it anymore. Now everybody eats fluffernutters they bring themselves.
They built an elaborate and very expensive handicapped playground. That’s a kind and thoughtful gesture. But it is merely a gesture, as there are no handicapped children to enjoy it. There just aren’t that many children of any kind in a little town like ours.
And no tag. Someone could get hurt. Someone could be left out. Someone could sue is the real reason, and the powers that be always point that out right up front.
Tag isn’t allowed, so one of the kids brings a football, and they play that. And football isn’t banned, because no one thought of it yet. And the absurdity of allowing mobs of pre-teens to chase one another if one is holding a ball, but not if their hands are empty, seems to be lost on the school administration. At least for now. And I, for one, am glad of it.
I’m not as worried about my son being injured playing football as I am in contemplating the little straitjacket world he’s being fitted for. Those children decided on the rules, supplied their equipment –a ball– and played their game without any adult supervision; and I saw a lot less kvetching among them than at any organized sporting event they participate in. I’m leery of them being told that someone will always tell them exactly what to do, and simultaneously unerringly protect them from not only from harm, but hurt feelings. One aspect of that tandem of supervision is repugnant, and the other unlikely.
I’m living in a strange world where people for whom I have no regard draw finely calculated and ultimately meaningless distinctions about everything, down to the scope of activities allowed for pedophiles to roam the earth, while at the same time they ban children playing tag in the schoolyard. Such distinctions are meaningless because anyone who is prepared to commit a great offense is not concerned about the rules governing small ones.
I dread the day, which is on the horizon now, not over it, when I’m forced to tell my children that the only sensible course of action is to ignore the rules, as there are so many of them that they become gibberish. And what the hell, the rules only seem to apply to those who wish to live worthwhile lives anyway –who never needed them in the first place.
6 Responses
Posts like these leave me unsure if I should laugh uproariously or get depressed.
I was one of those terrible mothers who let her children go to the playground alone or with an older sibling. I’m talking preschoolers. They all survived. A couple of scars resulted. They have never ever reproached me for those scars.
Neighbourhood kids would play in my yard because I allowed water fights, at least in warmer weather.
When I was a child, a neighbour with a double lot and five kids built a homemade playground. We practically lived there. Most of the time when we played there, no adults were outside with us. Nobody minded. Nowadays it would never get built, or he’d have to get all the neighbours to sign waivers.
Posts like these leave me unsure if I should laugh uproariously or get depressed.
Comments like these let me know I’m doing it right.
Great new picture, BTW.
You can thank my daughter. We were playing around with vintage sunglasses the other day and she achieved that great rarity – a decent picture of her mother. You should see the one of my father-in-law.
Janet: I get the big red hand of death trying to view that new photo from work. It must go to a verboten site?
Sippican: Hi yourself!
Ruth Anne. It never occurred to me that could happen. Yes, it’s on Facebook. They obviously don’t want you hangin’ with your homies.
Nothing better than a four-on-four recess game of tackle football! When I was in elementary school a new administrator decreed “touch” only, so in protest we played jacks with the girls for a couple of weeks. Eventually, the rule was sort of forgotten and we could go back to what we considered real football. Too many arguments in touch, where it was hard to dispute a successful tackle.