Play

     I have been thinking about how my siblings and I played as children. Hours were spent outside in the fields behind our homes with neighbours and friends, pretending to be explorers, pirates or even mums, dads and kids. On weekends we would leave in the morning, clean and full of breakfast, come home for lunch and go out again until suppertime or sometimes pack some grub to take with us and come home when we were hungry again. We climbed trees, jumped over ditches, ran around and shouted to one another. Outside voices (although no one I knew used that term then).
     Now a play date (or whatever they call it for older kids, a hang out) can consist of jumping onto your iPad or iPod, or whatever you have and playing together in a virtual world where a ghosty creature is your creepy enemy and you work together to elude him or find him or I don't know what..... It might be raining outside and then I can understand it but when it is sunny outside and you'd rather be indoors, yelling " GRAB THE BUCKET!" or "HOW MUCH FOOD DO WE HAVE?" in an outside voice, inside, then I just don't know. The funny thing is that I thought that it was a building game which would be beneficial and that it would only be played when someone was so bored that they couldn't see straight. Wrong and wrong.
     I am not against computer games. I myself play "Words With Friends" although I usually lose especially if I am playing a childhood friend and neighbour from Beaconsfield that I haven't seen since the 70's. (That's a long time!) And I had a " Four Pics, One Word" thing for a while but I got over it after about a week. Okay, maybe two.
     Anyway, I now have this out of my system. Play is different now that it used to be. I know that I am showing my age, and that it is considerable. I only hope that kids don't forget how to play outside or grass stains, scratched knees and daring feats of bravery will become a thing of the past.