Did Your Parents Play with You?

I recently took my kids to an indoor playground, the kind with hard plastic tunnels, foamy ladders, and twisty slides that spit you into a colourful ball pit. Within 10 minutes of arriving at the venue (and immediately feeling overstimulated), I found myself army crawling through one of the tunnels just so I could follow my kids and fit through the maze.

I wasn’t the only parent squeezing through this play structure or wading through the ball pit that day. Almost every adult there was an active participant. And even parents who opted to have their feet firmly planted on the ground were mostly engaged with whatever their kids were doing.

If we’re at a park, my husband and I are pushing our kids on swings and driving Tonka trucks through the sandbox. At home, we’re ordering coffee and muffins from their make-believe cafe, making music on their toy piano and xylophone, and assembling whole cities with Magna Tiles and wooden train tracks. Nearly every hour that my kids are awake and not in daycare or preschool, we are playing with them. Yet I can’t recall a lot of times where either of my parents played like this with me.

My parents weren’t opposed to playing with us – well, maybe my dad was until we were old enough to partake in more “civilized” play like board games – but they weren’t actively trying to engage with our playtime every minute. Most parents in the ‘90 were like this. Some might call it “free range parenting,” while others might say it’s just letting kids figure it out themselves.

In the summer after breakfast was finished, my mom would simply open the door to the backyard and tell us to go outside. We were free to grab skipping ropes, rollerblades, and devil sticks from the storage shed to entertain ourselves, ride our bikes down the alleyway, and hop the fence to our neighbour’s backyard to jump on the trampoline when they were home.

During my fort-building years, I’d gather sticks and fallen branches from around the garden and build myself a pretend home in a bushy area of the yard. My mom would watch us from the kitchen window, and only occasionally come outside to referee an argument or offer a snack. Sometimes, though rarely, she told us to put on sunscreen.

When we were inside, if we weren’t playing in our rooms, we were usually in the basement family room or “play room.” It was there that we’d build Lego cities, watch Disney movies on VHS, dress our Barbies and brush the hair on our Troll dolls, and do gymnastics moves on the couch “beam” and “vault” while the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta aired on the TV in the background. My parents mostly hung out upstairs, either cooking in the kitchen or doing some other house chore, or just sitting and leisurely reading a newspaper.

As an elder millennial who started having kids “later” in life, something I’ve thought about often is staying healthy and fit enough to keep up with my young kids. I’m not just talking about being able to run around a field and throw or kick a ball (without throwing out my back); but being able to army crawl through playground tunnels, provide piggybacks and horsey rides, and to do the odd somersault or cartwheel when I’m trying to impress my kids. I understand when people talk about the “benefits” of having kids young, although I think I’m in better shape now than I was in my 20s.

Since I can’t turn back the hands of time, I might just have to take a cue from parents in the ‘90s and do a little less, especially as my kids get older. I could take them to the playground, but watch from the sidelines with a coffee in hand, or send them to our basement to play and only intervene when needed. Heck, I might even leisurely read a newspaper.