“Mom, you never take me to the park!” These were the enlightening words my five year old shared with me this weekend.
I have always been amazed at how easily we parents can lose sleep over a simple comment. And here I am losing sleep. And I feel guilty. Sure, I take him lots of places! Yes, we do a lot of fun things together! But the instant stirring of guilt in my gut made me evaluate my reasons for avoiding the park.
I even said something to my husband about it, also adding that parks didn’t seem very safe anymore. “Surely, you aren’t feeling guilty for trying to keep him safe?” he asked incredulously. But I do. Because something in my gut is telling me that it is more good intentions that keep my child from the park.
I guess you could look at it like this. We, as parents, are over-worked and under-paid. We want our kids to have fun, but we want to enjoy them having fun. We don’t want to be scared of what they may pick up. We don’t want to worry about who might try to pick them up. We don’t want to be on our child’s heels the whole time they are playing.
Places like Chuck E Cheese are great and require so much less intervention than the park. Does that make us lazy, or scared? But, one could argue that our children are missing out on the importance of playing outside, using their imagination, and getting some sunlight and exercise. Some of our children get this in their backyards. Some of them are happy with that. But we don’t have a swing set. So, playing in the yard has lost it’s interest in my house.
I can’t help but wonder, what would happen if the good moms and dads in the world set aside their fear and took their kids to the park. Would the good people of the world once again reign supreme? Would we be still outnumbered by the evils in the world? And would we conquer the guilt of not taking our children to a park, only to be saddled with another guilty feeling?
