Growing up in a small town in the Seventies meant we got to do lots of stuff which it’s hard to see my own city-dwelling children doing today. I think it’s worth writing these things down so they can complain about this when they’re older.
I mean things like…
- Building a den in a nearby park out of disused paving slabs and corrugated iron
- Riding a mile up the road on our bikes to have a packed lunch in the old oak
- Spending most of the summer holidays in a state of war with a gang of children round the corner. We made bows and arrows out of sticks, scornful of the story of The Boy Who Lost An Eye Like That.
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July 13, 2006 at 10:00 pm |
[...] As a parent, I can identify with the insights. I grew up in a small town in the 1970s and enjoyed far greater freedom than we seem to be able to offer our own boys living in a 21st century city. [...]
October 16, 2006 at 11:59 am |
You’re just being too middle class.
Mumsnet has frequent horrified postings about children who are allowed to play out by themselves, and it’s almost always on council estates.
September 29, 2008 at 3:47 pm |
You should bring them to play at Kentwell then! Or have you been coming and I’ve just been missing you? Piers used to have a ball!
September 29, 2008 at 4:18 pm |
Hi Fiona,
Great to hear from you. We haven’t participated since 1998 (I think!) but did visit on the August Bank Holiday. I think our eight-year-old would definitely enjoy a 16th century childhood, but the six-year-old would miss his DVD collection too much :)
Matt
September 29, 2008 at 6:43 pm |
You might remember me. You might remember my son Nick; you might remember Laurel. Well, their (joint) children are now playing at Kentwell, and I’m so glad of it – children who have taken part there grow up different from those that haven’t had that chance. Tilly, aged 3, has made a good start, taking a header into the scummy pond last summer!
October 6, 2008 at 10:59 pm |
[...] Graphics post, Ben Terrett effortlessly segues between my two preoccupations of the moment – agonised middle-class parenting, and the superiority of mobile web over fixed. How could I [...]