I can’t think of anything I learned from an older child that was actually true.
I’m sure child culture is changing, though I can’t picture it as anything new. it has to make a difference that so many kids here are never far out of touch with their parents anymore. Twelve or 15 years ago, I could go hang out and roam around town for hours, and all I was expected to do was call home periodically and say where I was. I found that onerous and often didn’t do it, and as a result, they couldn’t find me unless I was willing to interrupt the fun. My youngest brother was given a little walkie-talkie thing a few years ago and had to take it with him if he was going to the playground a few blocks away. He got a cellphone at age 12.
I’m with you, I think. I suddenly got profoundly reassured about this issue last night when I read in Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled about a Star Wars-themed children’s jumping rhyme that he says was popular in the eighties:
“Why do you bother me? Go to hell!”
“I am your destiny. Can’t you tell?”
“You’re not my father. Eat my shorts.”
“Come to the dark side. Feel the force.”
If that’s any indication, kid-culture is as alive and kicking nowadays as it’s ever been.
Now, could somebody please get that goddamn jingle out of my head?
I lament the loss of this as much as you do. I grew up in a middle class area. There was a park about four blocks away. I remember wanting to be old enough to go there, as it was filled with kids. When I finally could go I remeber being a little frightened. Not knowing how to interact with all the kids, particulalry the BIGGER kids. We lived in the park. First playing and avoiding the bigger kids, then becoming them.
Therre was a big corner lot on the way to the playground that was part of a historic site. It was fairly well tended. But no matter what they did, they couldn’t stop kids from curtting across on their bikes and wearing a path in the grass. I go back now and see perfect grass in that lot, with no path. I drive over to the playground and it is empty, no kids. Yet, the schools have the same student populations, It makes me sad for the kids. Everything is organized. Planned. I truly believe these kids are missing out on some important developmental stuff. Sure, they’re smarter than we were, meaning they know more at a particular age. But what’s the cost? I feel so lucky to have been a kid at a time when parents kicked kids out of the house if it wasn’t raining, in essence saying, go figure it out. But be home for dinner or they’ll be hell to pay.
I was born in 1961, and raised and have always lived in Michigan. I have no idea what the name of all the members of Paul Bunyan’s team were, and AFAIK I never when I was a child knew this, and since have forgotten it. And MI is in the Great Lakes region. It ain’t like I was raised in Hawaii.
My kids are six and seven. They are constantly amazed when they start singing playground songs and their mother can finish them. Though I am trying to convince them that some of those songs are supposed to be “kid secrets” adults don’t know about (if I have to hear “jingle bells, Batman smells” one more time I may lose it). There are somethings from my childhood that my children will miss - i.e. I don’t thing they play dodge ball any more in gym (and I’m not sad over that), but the same hand games, songs, and team picking mechanisms (“my mother and your mother were out hanging clothes, my mother hit your mother right in the nose”) all seem to be in use.
I’m waiting for my daughter to get old enough for cats cradle.
In my experience, King of the Hill has fallen away (I’d stop my kids if I caught them playing it - I may tend to be conservative in this fashion, but I also have a sister who broke a collarbone this way) along with Dodge Ball and my favorite (not!) from gym class - guarenteed to make my shoulders and elbow hurt even at seven “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Justin on over!”
The stupid songs, hand games (rock paper scissors, cats cradle, and clapping games), double dutch jump rope (watched twelve year olds do that this summer), giving someone a lift on your bike (seems more common in neighborhoods where not everyone owns a bike), and many of the games (kick ball, duck duck goose (or grey duck depending on what part of the country you are in), even the card game War) remain. Even things like jacks and marbles are obscure, but not unknown.
A girlfriend and I want to know how long you’d have to close schools for in order to make “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” disappear from the collective memory - it may be worth it.
