Inquiry Into the subject of play, part 1
I’ve been reading a lot about play. It’s is a big subject now. The theory seems to be that adult work is—or, at least, optimally, should be—a kind of play. The kind of work most of us need to know how to do, the kind that requires “soft skills.” Play at least as my generation knew it. That is, imaginative, creative, participatory. Playing house, playing doctor, playing store. As I mother, I am beginning to observe play and the striking thing about it, when it does happen—for it seems not easy, not predictable, the conditions have to be right—is that it is absorbing and difficult. She puts things into a basin and takes them out again, fitting them into holes that require her to identify matching shapes. Her head is tilted down, her eyes focused intently. When she fails, she looks up and cries out in frustration. This kind of play is not passive, not even fun in the sense we think of play as adults; it requires effort, but it leads to discovery.
So, okay, I buy the work analogy.
Now folks seem to be mourning this kind of play we knew as children’s play as it disappears amidst scheduling and demands of the modern entertainment juggernaut for kids. Or so the argument goes.
But I don’t know if I buy it. First off, play is, of course, a subjective term. Did it even exist in the, say, 1600s—before the modern concept of a childhood took root? In these agrarian, pre-democratic years, children had chores and began them as early as 5 or 6. They were not family mascots; they were necessary members of the economic unit.
So, maybe here’s the question: are adults really mourning the disappearance of play from kids' lives—or their own lost childhoods? Yes, this generation will have a different relationship to play—and we hope it is not one which confused play with entertainment (more about that later). . . So perhaps this generation will tell us what it was like to be consumers from a very young age. But they will tell us in their own way. It is an essential nature of humanity is to consume; but it is also essential to transform.
So, okay, I buy the work analogy.
Now folks seem to be mourning this kind of play we knew as children’s play as it disappears amidst scheduling and demands of the modern entertainment juggernaut for kids. Or so the argument goes.
But I don’t know if I buy it. First off, play is, of course, a subjective term. Did it even exist in the, say, 1600s—before the modern concept of a childhood took root? In these agrarian, pre-democratic years, children had chores and began them as early as 5 or 6. They were not family mascots; they were necessary members of the economic unit.
So, maybe here’s the question: are adults really mourning the disappearance of play from kids' lives—or their own lost childhoods? Yes, this generation will have a different relationship to play—and we hope it is not one which confused play with entertainment (more about that later). . . So perhaps this generation will tell us what it was like to be consumers from a very young age. But they will tell us in their own way. It is an essential nature of humanity is to consume; but it is also essential to transform.
Comments
I have noticed Chance absorbed and serious, engaged with his cars, say, and more often these days engaged physically, trying to climb up steps or stand on a scooter. (does that count as play?)
Seems to me what you describe phoebe doing might happen with the digital generations, too, with their analog blocks and legos but also with the computer, as they explore and use it and figure out ways to use it that we never would have. just a hopeful guess. maybe they'll use their imaginations to turn the consumer culture we feed them on its head.
kind of like the bad kid in the pixar movie who reassembles doll parts in weird and terrifying ways. but maybe not blowing up the dog?
i bet caveman kids and babies in the 1500s played with rocks and sticks (or, ate them, if they were C's ancestors) and pans and whatever they could... at least until pressed into service by the farm or the industrial revolution...
This past rainy weekend, he had a friend sleep over, and for a good 18 hours, minus a few hours of sleep, they played. There was some chess involved, and an hour or so of Nintendo, but their play was mostly imagination stuff. They use the basic outlines of the stories and characters that drive their consumption (Star Wars, Pokemon, the new-found Bakugan)and play old-fashioned make-believe, sometimes nearly shouting over each other to have their contribution to the story be heard as the original stories quickly become unrecognizable. I don't think Tillio and his friend were necessarily smiling, but they were having pretty easy, creative fun. There were no melt-downs or blow-ups. It wasn't the work of infant/toddler/preschooler play, when kids first learn how to operate their bodies, how to move objects through space, what effect others can have on the universe. Maybe by age seven the early lessons are paying off, and the parents who spent hours on the floor making the Thomas train engines repeat the same tired skits and hours more trying to talk down biting and sobbing 3-year old frenemies can finally just sit back with a book or a margarita and reap the rewards (assuming they didn't just decide to start all over with an infant!). Of course, the parents who didn't spend those hours are probably reaping similar rewards, too.
Anyway, I have read those reports of cities (NY?) higher play coordinators to patrol playgrounds and help kids learn how to play. And I do fret over Tillio's stuff obsession and compare it to my own childhood. Why in my day, way back in the 1900s in Pennsylvania (as I keep prefacing my diatribes to him) kids got maybe ONE Lego set all year long! And if your household had an Atari, well, it could probably only be used to play Pong! But now that he's at a more independent stage, the way he spends his free time doesn't seem that drastically different than how I spent mine.
Interesting to consider the arc of play from 1-plus year-old to 7-year-old and what the trajectory is. The whole notion begins to get fuzzy the more you stare at it--like the outline of the sun.
I'm interested to hear about Tillio's active imagination merged with his incipient consumerism. It'll be fascinating to see how this dialect plays out, to see how/if he transforms the role of consumer, as I suspect his generation will. . .
Play Patrol!? Really??