I remember every house in the village of Burlington, Indiana having a rusty burn barrel out back. Everyone burned trash without worrying about toxins being released. Grandma's barrel rested on concrete blocks, a square opening cut in the lower half, so ashes could be shoveled out, and used in the garden. My uncle and I (uncles close enough in age to be brothers) would play war, watch the burning post-bomb trash. No worries; we knew the dangers of fire, how to safely light a match. Sometimes we made elaborate scenes in the cooled ash; pot metal army figures carefully placed around leftover bits of glass and tin.
Children's freedoms have declined since I was a girl. Maybe the world is a more dangerous place, but children seem overprotected. I wonder about the long-term outcome, as far as creativity is concerned. How will this affect the arts on all levels? Nothing compares with wild exploration, digging a hole, discovering creatures in the clouds, riding a bicycle without a helmet, feeling the exhilaration of wind in your hair.
* Burn Barrel by Matthew Daub
Yes, they are over-protected, the world is always a dangerous place, but in my neighborhood we were a community and looks out for our and other kids, now no one knows their neighbors and don't trust anyway.
ReplyDeleteI live in a community though and here the kids can go and play - old fashioned and rural. You can see girls riding their horse to toen, talking on their cell-phone, how cool is that? (Lilo)
Ah, yes. The burn barrel. This is an excellently penned musing --- you can write short stories, too, Tess!
ReplyDeleteEven the cotton wool overcoat has now become redundant; so many kids just sit in front of games machines all day. Luckily out here in wild country, they still ride horses, muck about in the tree house, and run with the dogs. Maybe it's just the new way to sort the men from the boys, or women from the girls.
ReplyDeleteI live in the middle of Los Angeles, on a fairly urban street, meaning I can walk around the corner and buy coffee, groceries, drink wine, visit a gift shop, etc. But my children have grown up here and ride their bicycles around, the go from yard to yard and play ball in the street. They conjecture about the weird dude who lives at the end of the street and wonder why the wall that is perching so precariously on someone's house hasn't fallen. I think children's imaginations, if allowed, continue to run wild and believe it's somewhat of a fallacy to state otherwise. While I agree that we were "safer" or at least perceived to be so, I haven't noticed any shortage of adventure and exhilaration in my boys and would maintain that living in a culture so diverse has given them more insight, tolerance and knowledge than I had with all of my "freedom" in the sixties and seventies.
ReplyDeleteThis is good to know. I am a bit out of the loop as far as children are concerned, since mine are adults, and as of yet no grandchildren. From my outside perspective, those I see seem to be electronically dependent.
DeleteThe "old" days are great for remembering the fun we had growing up. But to say that today's youth are being deprived is, in essence, to wish time to stop. They too in their time will reminisce about their "god-ol'-days and decry the fact that their children are doing different things. Today's youth look back on the Dick Tracey Radio watch as arcane or if they are kind, or precursor of todays much more advanced technology.
ReplyDeleteChildren are imbued with imagination no matter the time into which they are born. They will always explore and invent. We, the Elders, are given the chance to enjoy both the past wonders and witness the new. We just have to look at the new world through the glasses of wonderment that we view our past.
I, too, grew up with burn barrels, My kids missed that, or not. But we did burn leaves in the fall, and they now wish their children could experience the same nostalgic wafting of dry leaf smoke, Alas, the world marches on and we can only stand and watch or jump on for the ride.
Certainly time will tell. I hope this surge of readily accessible information works to their advantage, and that creativity will continue to bloom.
DeleteEvery generation eventually feels that they had the best of times. Whether that's true or not, I hope the kids of today will look back on their early years with at least some affection.
ReplyDeletethought provoking post. Here in England the government decreed that thousands of new houses need to be built, and many of them will be created on green land taking away open spaces where children once roamed and grew up surrounded by nature. What few empty spaces there were in towns are being filled with houses as well. We all need freedom places to run when we are small - and to walk when we are old.
ReplyDeleteWe still dig in the dirt, and sand, and luckily have some country-ish stuff out here. We moved here in 1989, already folks were told no more burning. Please don't tell anyone, some do, not us, although my fire pit gets things every now and again .... The old drum out back in my then childhood home (Michigan) we always burned everything. There wasn't such a thing as garbage trucks coming to our houses either!
ReplyDeleteamen
ReplyDeleteEven though a helmet saved my life as an adult, I wouldn't trade having the wind in my hair for all my formative years,. Beautiful post.
ReplyDelete