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Just Being

The loss of unstructured playtime for children is a real tragedy as this article notes. The problems persist long past childhood I think if the kid grew up with all of their time planned and accounted for with someone watching over. Comes a point when the child becomes an adult, they cross all the toll-gates that were defined for them since birth and come out the other end of college completely lost. No one has plan for them in the real-world. It is expected they will figure things out on their own. I can't count the number of kids I know who are now there on that other side after years of every minute of their life properly planned. 

They pick up whatever is in front of them and latch on to it without thinking too hard if this is the thing for them. I believe that ability to introspect is a function of having had plenty of time to let the mind idle growing up, doing things without any plan or structure for no specific outcome. Random thoughts and questions come to a child's mind during such free-flowing periods of time. Some they may resolve on their own - come to conclusions right or wrong. For others they may ask the trusted adults in their life for an answer or an opinion. 

I would have loved for J's childhood to have been far less structured than it was but there is a reality that goes with raising a kid alone - it forces structure, discipline and planning just to get the job done. I envied parents who were not compelled by their life circumstances as I was to structure their child's time. Interestingly enough, many of those parents did not take advantage of what they had whereas I tried to eke out something free-form time for J every chance I got.

I instilled into J early in life that anytime she had free time with nothing to do, she should think about what kinds of things make her happy, energized and excited. What can she do to help others in meaningful ways. What would she be eager to plunge into first thing in the morning and stay with tirelessly not noticing how much time had passed. The big secret to having a good life is when that passion is discovered and a person can make a living with or around it. She does not know the answer yet but I am happy to see her thinking and coming up with a lot of interesting ideas - some she will pursue no doubt, others will be noodled over and set aside or discarded. This was the best I was able to do in lieu of being able to give her the dream of lazy summers doing nothing useful - just being. 

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