Out and Nothing.

Yesterday’s Men’s Group theme was summer childhoods and all of them shared two essential themes. The first was that delicious anticipation of freedom stretching out before you for the next two and a half months, that sense of release when that last school bell rang at 3:00. Freedom to do nothing, to follow your own whims and fancy away from the rigid school schedules and over-organized activities. And the second was to do so out in nature, to get out of the house and explore the vacant lots in the neighborhood or the park or the little creek that ran through the town or the fields or forests or beach at some family summer retreat. Freedom and nature— a delightful combination that all eight of us without exception had growing up in the 40’s and 50’s and early 60’s when parenting was not yet a verb and the dangers that awaited outside of the house were small and manageable and part of the excitement rather than a cause for parents to lock their doors. 

 

It's easy to wax rhapsodic, join some nostalgic cult of “Make American childhood free-range again!”, but there is great truth in its value and great sadness that so many kids growing up now might never know this. When they reminisce in their 70’s and 80’s with their peers, it will all be about sharing what video games they played or what summer sports leagues they joined. And all because of the grand failure of our culture to only wish that we be “strong, safe and rich” (the three pathetic dreams of the current RNC Convention) rather than vulnerable, adventurous and wealthy in spirit. Yes, there are things my kids had and that my wife and I and school gave them that were an improvement over my childhood, there are marvelous organized activities like my daughter's Summer Camp in Golden Gate Park (that includes a lot of letting the kids alone to explore), but I believe that my two daughters will speak of their annual trip to Lake Michigan where they spent unsupervised time out on the beach or walking through the woods to the back lake. A gift re-gifted each summer with the grandchildren as well. 

 

May I recommend that everyone read a book by Robert Paul Smith whose title says it all? “Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing.”