A fun and tongue-in-cheek send-up to what pretty much sums up my childhood has been circulating on the Internet for the past week and it’s had virtually all the mothers I know rethinking their plans for summer vacation.
In an article published by the Huffington Post, humour writer and mother to four boys Melissa Fenton shares her perhaps radical views on what she plans to do for her kids over the next couple of months.
It’s titled 10 Ways To Give Your Kids An Honest-to-Goodness 1970s Summer.
I know, right? I’ll bet you can taste that Tab already.
In it, she lays out how she is “done with all the forced-smile inducing, über-planned and supervised, over-the-top summer life experiences” she is expected to provide her kids. Instead of dolphin-shaped watermelon slices and artisanal ketchup, Fenton wants to give her kids the summer she would have had; one where drinking from the garden hose is how children naturally hydrate, if not with a packet of Kool-Aid and a cup of white granulated sugar. A summer where three-night sleepovers at your best friend’s (with no one ever checking in), a full day bouncing from movie to movie at the multiplex (tough to do in this town), unscripted talent shows, and miraculous backyard forts are the norm.
I’m on board — for the most part — though unlike her, I’m not already “done with summer.” I haven’t thrown in the beach towel just yet. I’m looking forward to letting my kids ride their bikes around town, giving them free rein to walk to the candy store (as they like to call it) and get a popsicle or penny candy (as I like to call it). Periodically.
I have always shirked the overprotective mantle society obliges parents to wear these days. Giving kids as much free time as they can handle is what I think the holidays are all about. Sure, we are looking forward to some excursions, but mostly I hope that if left to their own devices, my kids will come up with some ingenious way of illuminating their playhouse with little more than a wad of tinfoil, a glow stick, and a coat hanger. Or maybe finding a cure for cancer. Why aim low?
That’s what the gift of boredom will bring. In fact, when one of my girls comes to me saying she is bored, I take that as a challenge… to become the most boring thing in the room. It’s not our job as parents to be the entertainment. That’s what… well, pretty much everything else is for.
So while I might stop short of letting them have their fill of Red Dye No. 5 and I probably won’t trade in my homemade kombucha for a Tab, I WILL be sitting back and enjoying what comes of all this freedom. Certainly the sanity, if nothing else.
Kirsten Andrews offers Simplicity Parenting courses, workshops and private consultations in the Corridor and Lower Mainland. Visit Sea To Sky Simplicity Parenting on Facebook or www.SeaToSkySimplicityParenting.com.
