Time is passing. Here is a simple, specific reminder to parents of younger children: play more games with them. Now. And especially in summer. I will not be melodramatic and say “before it’s too late.” Indeed, in the most important things we can always start again, at least in some sense. But I do say: be intentional now and lean into what you have been given, for time is passing.
I will share here an autobiographical story and reflection I wrote less than a decade ago. I cannot read it now without crying…
The question broke through the pleasant fog of dozing off on the couch on a Sunday afternoon. “Daddy, do you want to play statue?”
“Uh. Well. What’s ‘statue’?” I was buying time; though indeed I did not know what statue was. The response was something of a blur, the way children quickly explain the rules of a game that they find clear and obviously fun.
I was facing one of those classic hard decisions. What exactly would it mean to say: “Sorry, I don’t have time right now.” On Sunday afternoon. Sure, I could be honest: “I don’t really feel like playing a game right now.” And sometimes that will be the answer if I am simply too tired or really need some space.
But I think that right priorities would dictate that I say yes more often than I do. Especially on Sunday. And especially in summer.
Well, in this instance the next thing I knew I was in the basement, and we were playing statue. When you’re ‘it’ the others try to move toward base whenever you’re not looking. When you look at them, they stand still like a statue. If you look away, they can move. If you see them moving, they have to go back to where they were and take one giant step backwards.
Peals of laughter. And I mean peals. I thought to myself: I almost missed this.
Is there any more clear way to say to our children “I simply love being with you” than to play their own games with them?
And how good it is for children to have adults give them a pattern of how to play well: everything from being a good winner and a good loser to offering gentle and kind correction. “Raphie, are you quite sure you really saw me move?” (It’s up to the person who is ‘it’ to say whether he turned in time to see you move or not.) Yes, children need to learn to play without adults. But playing with adults is a great way to do so. What a joy it is (when it happens) to hear them playing among themselves, and correcting one another, or praising one another, as they have heard an adult do to them.
Recently the children have been on a Hide and Seek kick. What most strikes me in this perennial classic, especially with younger children, is the tension between not wanting to be found and wanting to be found. There is something primordial at work here, in all of us. And everyone knows that it’s most fun when Mama or Daddy are playing, right? [Here ends my account from a few years ago.]
I just asked my grown up and somewhat grown up children what their favorite games were from years ago. Answers included flashlight tag, ghost in the graveyard, hide and seek (especially in the dark), building forts, and kickball. Of course there are countless others according to time of year or age of children: checkers and backgammon; scattergories and trivial pursuit; soccer and volleyball; marco polo; alphabet in the car and twenty questions.
We all need games. By definition games are a ‘non-serious’ activity, but they still have a serious place in life (precisely in their non-seriousness!). Yes, adults will at times engage in their own games without the young. But the young need us—all of us, whether parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, or just friends. Especially in a world marked by alienation, disconnection, and loneliness, they need us to accompany them. And an irreplaceable and endlessly rich—and sometimes even fun!—way of doing so is to join them and simply be with them, in their games. ~ ~ ~
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My dad commuted to & from the city, but, especially in the hot summer, he never denied time with my brother and me. Being baseball kids, it was always having a catch. I was far from a perfect dad, but I always remembered that. So, when I‘d get home and my daughters wanted a catch or to knock a soccer ball around, I couldn’t resist. And those were some of life’s best moments.
“Hey dad, wanna have a catch?” – Ray Kinsella to his dad, John, in Field of Dreams.
There is something so iconic and special about ‘having a catch,’ isn’t there?
Playing games with your children is undoubtedly a good thing, but I honestly can’t ever remember playing games with my parents and I don’t think any of my friends did either. Maybe card games a few times.
Your observation, Steve, makes me reflect: I wonder whether in past generations there was less playing of parents and children together because in the home they shared so many other ordinary times together–especially in work, and a deeper leisure. I find myself thinking that playing together takes on a special significance today when it is so difficult to find good contexts in which to ‘be with’ our children. Another quick thought: Wendell Berry says that in traditional, productive households, one of the main forms of play was ‘playing’ at the work that the adults were doing.
As kids growing up in the 70’s and 80’s I feel like kids played with other kids and parents did what parents did. I have very found memories of playing all sorts of games with my peers day in and day after school before homework and dinner and on weekends. Summer days were filled with all sorts of fun and activities again amongst my peers. I don’t think anyone even minded that are parents were around or not. This was a time when most women still were home and not in the workplace per se. My parents were always present to my sisters and I and especially my father who was the man that encouraged me to carry on our families hockey tradition. For my own kids as youngsters we did spend time at the local playground the library hang out in the kids section and helping dad with projects in the garden and especially helping me shovel snow..I l learned early on with 3 boys only 7 years apart to be sure to leave them plenty of snow to shovel to their hearts delight., so I guess my model would have been closer to the Wendell Berry’s assumption. Which I saw in my own parents attitude towards playing with their children and in turn became my own with in our household. I believe it serves us well because as our children came of age getting animals and having a homestead was an easy transition. Thanks as always John for your work of putting these reflections together that some weeks are a cause for reflection and some weeks we get to remember the found memories life had presented us with. God bless!
And thank you, Teddy; I always really appreciate both your reflections and your memories–which of course also blend together. As with Steve Cherry, I think you have a really good point here. It goes to show that there are various ways that parents can be present to and involved in their childrens’ lives. May the Lord help us and all parents to discern how to do it in the concrete circumstances of life today.