The world we made for them

Last modified: Friday, April 11, 2008 8:08 AM CDT

The world we made for them

By STEVE BATIE / Lee Newspapers

LINCOLN, Neb. — It is a matter of faith - and complaint - among my taller friends that my shorter friends don’t play outside as much as they once did.

Kids of today, the grumbling goes, spend way too much time watching television, playing video games, yakking on cell phones and messing with computers and not enough time chasing butterflies, climbing trees and playing ball.

All that ignores the fact that when we were kids we switched on the tube at 6 a.m. and only broke away from it when threatened with having to walk to school because we’d missed our ride.

(Kids could walk to school then, safe in the knowledge that murder, mayhem and pedophilia had yet to be invented by “Law & Order.”)

Of course, we didn’t have the other electronic options that our offspring have at their disposal. No video games for us, nor computers. No cellies either.

And although most of us had television, most of us had ONE television. So if the taller people wanted to watch Lawrence Welk’s champagne bubbles burst, well …

Maybe it’s no surprise we spent a lot of time chasing butterflies, climbing trees and playing ball.

It was also a more kid-friendly world then.

While there was the occasional grump who would lay claim to any ball that bounced onto his sacred sod, most of the adults recognized that grass was simply a surface soft enough to fall on.

And although the neighborhood was criss-crossed with fences, they were all woven wire fences of the sort that just begged for a child roll over them.

No one complained if we played ball in the street. The only admonition was to “watch out for cars” - not to play elsewhere, just to watch out.

There were parks and pools and playgrounds and vacant lots (which are a lot like playgrounds, but without a touch of civilizing influence). We had trees to climb into and railroad tracks to walk on and ditches to jump over.

Sadly, that world is gone.

A child in a tree is cause for adult hand-wringing nowadays - and frantic calls about insurance coverage. Grass is nurtured and babied while babies are penned on the patio. Fish flash silver and gold in rock-strewn water gardens hidden from prying eyes behind high fences.

Not a single tire hangs from a single limb of any tree within a mile of my house.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. We built this world of crash helmets and elbow pads, and we can change it.

Perhaps more than their other senses, touch makes children aware of their own bodies. Materials such as water, sand and boulders, as well as the plumes of ornamental grasses, are fun to touch.

Use them.

Every flower or garden plant offers at least three sensory characteristics: fragrance, color and texture. Lamb’s ears and juniper, lemon balm and peppermint, strawberries and rhubarb - each is a tiny gateway into the wonder of nature.

Plant them.

Ordinary bluegrass is the toughest groundcover you can grow. Tougher even than running feet and tumbling bodies.

Allow it.

Paths are an invitation to explore, and one that twists among planting beds, crosses a bridge, changes in texture (from gravel to wood chips to stepping stones) is an invitation to adventure.

Design it.

A tree needs little more than a platform the size of a bathroom door and a rope ladder to become an arboreal playground. And a thick bed of mulch makes for a soft landing.

Build it.

Send your home repair and remodeling questions to: HouseWorks, P.O. Box 81609, Lincoln, NE 68501, or e-mail: houseworks@journalstar.com.