Dangerous

I preface my following remarks by saying that I enjoy TV and movies alot. I think it is funny to see the backlash against electronic entertainment that is gaining ground. In this article the opening salvo bristles with hostility against electronics:

well armed in the battle against childhood boredom, with a bedroom arsenal that includes a computer hooked to the Internet, a DVD player, two Game Boys, as well as an Xbox and a GameCube.

It is not the fault of electronics; it's the fault of disapprovniks who shrill at you for letting your kids run around your yard or neighborhood and parents who knuckle under to them. Conn Iggulden, whose book is sweeping through my various reading circles, says this:

Conn Iggulden said in an e-mail message that he routinely received correspondence from parents who yearn for a “return to simple pleasures,” which seems to stem from “potent forces, like the realisation that keeping your kids locked up in the house on PlayStations isn’t actually that good for them; or the appalled reaction of many parents to a health-and-safety culture that prevents half the activities they took for granted as kids — and that they know were important to their growth and confidence.”

Sis and I were talking about this the other day, about how we ran around everywhere together on our bikes as kids - without helmets. I was letting my own children ride their bicycles and tricycle and scootie-scoot around the flat part of our driveway. The sun was shining and the breeze was blowing and they were having a grand time. A adult from down the (dirt) road where our house is situated filled me in on her disapproval that the kids were helmetless. It was as if I were telling my kids to walk through a construction site without a hard hat, or ocean kayaking without a life vest.

Ann Althouse references the skads of outdoor games she used to play:

Here are some of the thing we found to do outside (none of it taught by an adult): octopus, swinging statutes, tag, freeze tag, two-square, four-square, "Mother may I," red-light-green-light, Chinese school, monkey in the middle, leap frog, jump rope, Chinese jump rope, hopscotch, hide and seek, crack the whip. We also invented our games that we played at recess. I remember one called "jail." There was one called "Horsemasters," based on the Disney show. And I somehow got a lot of people to play a game I came up with based on a book I liked called "The Little Witch."

Sis and I played Statue Store, kind of a cross between freeze tag and used car salesman lot.