why don't I rest? have I forgotten how to play?

I'm thankful for the kids in my life. There's nothing like a 2-, 6-, or 7-year-old to remind me that all work and no play makes Ted a dull boy. They need to work pretty hard to convince me, however, that playing is worth my time and attention. All too often I'm consumed with the misperception (read: lie) that I need to focus on some task like ... like... well, you know -- something that squeaks loudly enough to convince me that it needs doing at the moment. I read an article on the differences in how Americans and Europeans handle their vacation time, and it's alarming to see the workaholism that appears rampant here. The observations noted at the end of this article about parents choosing to avoid the stress of vacations with quarrelling children are supported by research into why visits to national parks has dropped from 1.2 visits per citizen per year to 0.9 visits. NPR ran a story on that research that you might find interesting; I did. Apparently the research shows that a sedentary lifestyle, rich in video games, crushes the desire in digital addicts to cut loose from the CRT/LCD interaction. Lots of folks into gaming have responded with a loud, "No way!" Yet I'm not sure any of this is causal. Rather, it seems to be the byproduct of something even more disconcerting. What about our reluctance to hang out together? The proliferation of digital/interactive media couldn't happen if we weren't retreating from relationship with each other, if something vital hadn't already died, and this new "solution" is only the opportunistic vacuum-filler in our lives. I believe there's an interpersonal hiding-out feature to all digital addictions, whether the indulgence of choice is online porn, gaming, or even news or other "good" content that's available on the information super highway. When these behaviors take precedence over my opportunity to play with my kids, I'm manifesting a character problem. I think our whole rich industrialized world is faced with the devastating implications of this new reality. What will it take to get back down on our hands and knees to play with our kids? If we don't make that move, I fear we're lurching toward cultural disaster, and incidentally ignoring nature into oblivion.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

simple update

Well, Margy got out of the hospital after only three days. Not that she was well. She'd gotten rehydrated, the pain was more or less under control, and she was eating again. That's a lot to be thankful for; and we were. Today, almost two weeks after her release from the krankenhaus, she had her first real treatment of her back/neck problem. She went to Dr. Jeff, a doctor of osteopaty in Madelia, who put her on a monster machine called a DRX9000 for about 30 minutes. Her head was placed in a special molded form connected to a strap that exerted up to six pounds of pressure designed to decompress her herniated discs. When we drove home, she said she was free of pain in her left arm for the first time in three weeks. Praise God! If she continues to improve with this treatment, she'll probably be visiting Madelia twice a week for the next eight weeks. And then we hope she never has to return again!
Read more

behold, a puppy

Image
The conversations with Jasmine and Margy have been going on for months and months, but taking care of Pouncer and Lucy brought it all to a head: they wanted a dog... badly. And there were lots of good reasons for their argument. Jasmine would benefit from the added responsibility, companionship, and after the dog grows up, protection. A nine-year-old girl in today's world needs some protection if she's going to walk down a street, even a safe midwestern street. On my side, I pointed out all the downside challenges I could think of, knowing that one day each of them would wonder in her heart-of-hearts, "What was I thinking when I said I wanted a dog?!?" I made sure they heard my warnings, but the cry of their hearts was for a dog. Fast forward: adoption day for Esty, our new Brittany, was Thursday the 23rd. Nine weeks old, she's just getting into the gangling puppy stage. Margy and Jasmine were delighted with her. Before the sun had set, she had my heart, too. Jasm...
Read more

soon and very soon: a new address

Image
Yesterday I drove home from work and saw a "SOLD" sign on the For Sale sign on our house. What an amazing transition from the discouraged place Margy and I were at only two weeks before. She was in the hospital with terrible back/neck pain, and the prospect of cleaning up the house for showings at the drop of a hat stirred up even more pain. So we agreed we'd just take the house off the market and wait until we did all those things on our "to-do" list that was nagging at us. We got the deck done (thanks to Nic), and cleared out the storage room in the basement so it wasn't wall-to-wall junk (thanks to Josh--and us!), but the list included painting, recarpeting the family room, etc. Lots of work. And now we don't have to! But we do need to find another place to live. This weekend we'll start a marathon of looking at other people's houses in the vicinity of the university. Open doors... soon one of them might be ours.
Read more