Why playing in the streets matters
Today’s kids aren’t like that, of course. Those free-wheeling, suburb-conquering, bush-whacking kids grew up to be the kind of parents who won’t let their eight year old venture into the front yard to collect the mail. The kind of parents who still hold their 10 year old’s hand when they cross the busy cul-de-sac. Whether through fear that our children are in genuine danger, or fear that we’ll be judged for not caring enough that they might be, parents no longer allow their children the run of the streets. We don’t really allow them the run of anything much at all.
White van man
About four times a year a rumour goes around our school about a man in a white van casing for kids as they walk home from school. Every now and then the rumour will grow into a child being approached and once there was discussion about a child actually being snatched (no one knew exactly which kid it was). No one knows why it’s always a white van, no one knows why a person is necessarily wanting to snatch a child off the street in a white van, but the rumour runs rampant like an invasive weed. That white van is why a lot of parents in my area don’t want their kids playing in the streets.
I don’t believe in the white van, or at least, I don’t believe it’s doing quarterly rounds of our suburb. I might be wrong and one day my kids might get brutally snatched off our quiet street by a scout for a child pornography ring, but I don’t think so. I’m willing to risk that something that random and that awful might happen if it means that for their whole childhood my kids feel a sense of freedom, independence and belonging.
Not for a second do I have my head buried in the sand about what wicked things can happen to beautiful children for no apparent reason, but I don’t live my own life worrying about the ‘what ifs’ and I’m certainly not going to allow my children to live their childhood in such an isolating manner.
Keeping kids dependent
It’s natural (and entirely instinctive) for parents to want to protect children from whatever it is they need protecting from. Every cell in our bodies screeches at us every single day to wrap our kids up tightly and strap them to our side and never let them go. Keep the doors locked, don’t talk to strangers, don’t go anywhere alone, don’t answer the phone, don’t, don’t, don’t.
The ‘cotton wool’ or ‘helicopter’ style of parenting is actually the easiest parenting route of them all, but possibly the most ineffective. Keeping kids dependent and fearful robs them of their childhood. That’s a big statement, I know, but childhood is all about growth and self-learning and kids can’t really do that unless they’re given the opportunity to think for themselves and, more importantly, do for themselves. I swear the white van was invented by our suburb (and lots of other suburbs) to give parents a neat excuse for not facing up to what we’re all really terrified of – our kids growing up and not needing us.
Kids looking out for each other
The fact is, when it comes to playing in the streets, I’m not worried about that one white van – I’m more worried about a lot of white vans. Whether you live in the country or the city, traffic is significantly higher than it was in the ’70s and ’80s and so are driver distractions.
Talking on mobile phones, texting, rushing to beat the clock and the general stress of modern-day life means that kids playing in the streets need to be cannier and more responsible than ever before. They need to be vigilant and sensible in a way that’s hard to do when you’re right in the middle of an awesome game of dodge ball. Every kid needs to be watching out for every other kid and they need to agree a system of alerts and alarms that will keep them all safe. They need to be prepared to call each other out if someone isn’t playing by the agreed rules.
Read those last few sentences again … are you feeling me? I can’t even write those sentences without wanting to boot my kids out into the street immediately. Kids looking out for each other, learning responsibility, standing up for themselves … it’s the stuff that parental dreams are made of. When we give children the space to work things out on their own, they surprise us every time. When we let them see each other and play with each other in an informal setting that they can regulate themselves (they need never be aware that mum was watching the whole time), they surprise us even more.
A childhood worth getting nostalgic about
Out on the streets, kids can rule the world and absolutely, positively do. Freed from the constraints of fences and traditional boundaries, they learn how to use a well-known and loved environment in increasingly creative ways. Our neighbourhood kids built a wall using old bricks, stones and some mud concoction they stirred together, the ingredients of which are a closely guarded secret (mostly because no one knows what they threw in there).
Sure, that wall will probably fall down and someone might get hurt, but it’s only three bricks high and the benefits far outweigh the ‘what ifs’. They worked out how to build that wall all on their own and their initiative and perseverance is admirable: they were out there most afternoons, slaving away, chattering and screeching away loud enough to annoy the cockatoos.
This community of kids is an odd bunch of ages, talents and interests, just kids from up and down the street and a few streets over. They don’t play with each other at school; I sometimes wonder if they even acknowledge each other. Rather these kids seem come together regularly to work on extraordinary things. Just out there, in the street, building a wall and a wonderful childhood.
What’s the white van that keeps your kids inside?
