Calling Back the Playdough

A few weeks ago I kicked off my summer fun with a short retreat to Calistoga with a friend to soak in some rays and enjoy the many mud baths and mineral pools the wonderful town had to offer. As we soared blissfully on the swings in a local park, I could see the sun set and clusters of kids racing their bikes down quiet streets lined with big white houses complete with wrap-around porches (Yes, this picturesque and rather cliche suburbia does, in fact, exist, contrary to my previous idea that this sort of scene only happened in Lifetime movies).

I began to ponder my own childhood summers, and images of four-foot-long lanyards and cardboard signs reading "Lemonade- fifty cents a cup" came rushing into my mind. However, when I have asked my eight-year-old cousins what their favorite type of lanyard is, they can only answer with puzzled expressions or, "a what-yard?" How things have changed since the days kids could trample through a park with authentic wooden structures that provided castles, dungeons, spaceships, and even a sorority (what can I say, the Legally Blonde craze hit me at a young age). Some may say these magnificent wooden creations have "evolved" into the new, shiny, plastic structures that cover the playgrounds today, but I beg to differ. For some reason receiving a piercing shock on your pinky at the end of a slow and bumpy ride down a bright, yellow side does not compare to a well-deserved splinter from a terrific face plant while racing through a wooden dungeon to escape a fire-breathing dragon. Or how about the endless adventures provided by sandboxes, digging for buried treasure or hiding your own time capsule deep down past the Indian mud? Who will find the Pokemon card or macaroni bracelet you buried so well in sandboxes, which are slowly become extinct under the new and "safer" spring-board mats and blacktops that have swept playgrounds across the nation?

I could blame this gradual destruction of young creativity on a mass overdose of Nintendo Wii, but to be fair, the video game phenomenon has made babysitting pretty easy money when gabby teenage girls such as myself can text or flip through a magazine while restless kids battle it out in virtual boxing or Rockband. However, the guilt that has built up inside me for feeding the, not to sound harsh, but, death of imagination for these kids, has definitely overcome the relaxing job aspect. I miss the days of trying to guess whether my six-year-old neighbor's playdough creation is a turtle or a squirrel just to hear her cry with exasperation, "Come on, Julia, it's a unicorn!" I miss forcing kids to cut their stacks of fifteen books in half before "Lights out." Obviously my childhood was by no means media free. I'll be honest, I was (and still am) a die hard Nsync fan, and I definitely preferred to wake up on Saturday mornings and watch cartoons than memorize my multiplication tables. No, I did not make my own dolls out of corn husks and twine (except once at a very bizarre birthday party), but I did own dolls that came without a story line or a matching hot pink Mini Cooper. My playmates and I set up tea parties for the unique character we created each day, while now I find myself breaking apart little girls fighting over who gets to hold the Hannah Montana Barbie and who is stuck with Lindsey Lohan at the High School Musical Pool Party (complete with a plastic Jacuzzi and tiny raspberry spritzers.)

I am not saying completely shield our youth from a few harmless cartoons. I understand that this is a new generation filled with technological advancements that should be shared with youth. For me, it is not an issue about the brightness of young minds, but about the imaginations of a large fraction of today's children that just seem to be steadily weakening. In fact, recently while chatting with a parent and family friend, I was informed that many teachers throughout the Bay Area have noticed that although each incoming class seems to have more gifted cellists and Jujitsu prodigies, every year the students are less independent. Children need to create their own adventures and journey alone through enchanted forests to successfully find the hidden castle. So I say push kids to run wild through the sand, cut off their Barbies' hair, and keep their picture books stacked high. How can we tear away the genuine creativity of youth in a world where we are only allotted a limited amount of time to play and think freely before fear of judgment and influence of the real world kick in around seventh grade? Unless we nurture imagination, we are trapped in a world with no hope to move forward. In a world of problems that doesn't seem to be getting any easier, we will turn to the adults who once battled dragons and swam with mermaids to creatively find solutions.

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