The Golden Age of Giving Up

When kids are young, parents and caregivers feel the need to be around them all the time. This is so that the toddlers won't get into anything dangerous, or accidentally walk out of the house and down the street, or try to give themselves a bath. And before you laugh, in my house growing up, all three of those things happened with one kid or another within a short period of time, before anyone realized the kid was missing.

At some point a decision is made, and the child can suddenly play by himself. He has the freedom to go outside in the yard if he wants, or to play in one of the upstairs rooms while I make a lasagna.

The boys have had a number of friends over as part of our "Oh, No! Summer's Over!" scramble to have fun. I don't plan anything. I just let the kids run around or play upstairs, checking in periodically, and other than that I just let them be.

I was patting myself on the back for my laid-back parenting style, letting them develop their imaginations, get some exercise, and have some good old fashioned fun instead of either video games or structured 'play." Way to go, me! And I realized a lot of it had to do with the age my boys are at this particular moment. Still young enough to want to play pretend, and not too young to be out of sight unsupervised.

Parents. Here is some free advice: never congratulate yourself. There is always a catch.

Mine was when I realized there was black marker all over the inside of the boys' closet. And when someone decided to make a frog trap with peanut butter and a box, by placing a box on the front stoop with a lump of peanut butter on the bricks next to it. Which melted in the hot sun and because a lump of slimy... Do frogs even eat peanut butter? Also, someone decided he needed sugar for this trap, and sugar was sprinkled all over my kitchen counter (previously clean.) Also, there was an incident with a huge stick hitting someone in the eye while they were playing a game called "Invasion."

The result was that, forty minutes after patting myself on the back, I asked the boys if they wanted early screen time. Just so they'd sit still and stop... doing... what they were doing.