Lost Boys

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing…” – Peter Pan

My daughter gave me a beautiful, hand calligraphed print of that phrase for Christmas. It features a pirate ship, also beautifully calligraphed, and is signed, “from your Wendy and the Lost Boys.”
It was a particularly special gift because it was a sort of commemoration of how I raised my kids, and a statement that, at least my daughter, was glad things had been that way.

Our home was always more like the Island of Lost Boys, than a well-run British flat. There was no nanny, not so many rules, lots of pets and friends over, and plenty of sweets. I made sure it was a safe environment, but beyond that, chaos often seemed to have the upper hand – which was fine with me.

You see, I believe kids are a little like weeds. They thrive under a bit of neglect, which in this case means simply, not being tended to (and scheduled) all of the time.

I grew up in the early ‘60’s, before there were video games, IPODs, DVD players, text messaging or LOTS of scheduled activities for children to participate in. Back then, most of our moms stayed home, and we spent our after-school and summer hours roaming the neighborhood, creating our own games and fun. Back then sugar was okay and learning to amuse ourselves was a requirement.

I applied many of the same rules as my kids grew up in the early ‘80s. “No TV after school, no electronics or TV at the dinner table…play outside, A LOT…no avoiding human or family contact with headphones and such….and, sugar, in moderation, is just fine.” I wanted my kids to learn to experience life, and all of its’ challenges and adventures – without the buffer that the constant use of electronics or chronic over-scheduling can bring…

On car trips my kids did what my brother and I had done – play games, stare out the window, taunt each other subtly enough that the parents wouldn’t be alerted, and pass the time imagining things…the motto being, “What would the Lost Boys do?”

Time in quiet places, like church or the library was spent drawing and dreaming and sucking on Lifesavers. There were no tiny computers or DVD players or IPODs to help pass the time…We were simply there, in the trenches of quiet time together, without the isolation electronic devices seem to impart on the families who rely on them so heavily.

The point is, I think children these days are missing out. With all of the activities their parents enroll them in, and our society’s growing tolerance for the near constant use of electronics, kids are left little time for playing and imagining things…

It makes me sad to see the kid in church, on his tiny computer game, earphones in place, oblivious to the magic and wonder of the stained glass windows, the preacher’s low voice, and the organ’s majestic tones.

It makes me sad to see the flower girl in a wedding so tied to her tiny DVD player and the movie it’s playing – a movie she’s seen 500 times – that she misses the fun of being with the big girls on the wedding day, watching the bride and getting really excited about dropping those petals along that aisle.

It makes me sad to see teenagers so tied to their IPODs, that they are virtually not present at family events, dinners and holidays…

What we create - when we schedule our children so heavily and allow/encourage them to be so constantly in need of entertainment - is a culture devoid of imagination and unable to amuse itself during the down times – and, life as a grown up certainly has more than its’ share of down, tedious, or simply un-amusing times.

Too many of the grown-up children of today are unable to focus on the task at hand - no matter how well-paying and important that task might be. At work, I see them texting, and instant messaging, and surfing the web and it annoys me. Can’t they just “hang up and drive?”

Something very magical, useful and real gets lost when we no longer encourage, or indeed, expect our children to be able to create their own adventures…Back in the day, the Lost Boys could imagine their thin soup was a magnificent feast…My children could become astronauts on the moon, while riding in the backseat of a car…Somehow, it seems now, the adventure, spontaneity, and joy of life gets scheduled or Video-gamed away…

A few weeks ago, I was taking photos of a family for their holiday card. The little girl, age four, wouldn’t smile – not for anything. Finally, in exasperation, her mother sent her upstairs to “look at (her) personal responsibility chart” and “remind (herself) that today’s responsibility was to smile nicely for the photos.” My heart just broke. No wonder that child can’t smile. She’s got the weight of the world on those tiny shoulders – at the age of four!

“‘Pan, what are you?’ Hook asked huskily. ‘I’m youth. I’m joy. I’m a little bird that has broken out of an egg,’” Pan replied…Isn’t that what we want for our kids?

Nowadays, Pan might’ve been so busy with his I-Tunes that he wouldn’t have even heard Hook, let alone replied…And, how sad is that!