Confessions Friday… on a Saturday
There were three words I really hated to hear when I was younger. I can recall the exact game I was playing at the time when they first invaded my ears:
“Go play outside.”
My mom uttered them inside our ghetto off-base apartment near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Allow me to wordsmith you a scene.
North Carolina is an odd place. In the American Civil War it was just a battlefield between the north and the south. It’s not quite hot all year round but it doesn’t get snow either. It’s basically purgatory.
They do have snakes. Copperheads.
Solid Snake. The deadliest snake. NC Copperheads are close though.
One of the most poisonous snakes in North America and they have a high density in North Carolina. In the projects we lived in there were runes of playgrounds, creeks, and tallgrass. Pretty much a haven for venomous reptiles.
Being to told to go play outside was a death sentence to a 7 year-old kid of my particular imagination.
Years later I’m an adult with a child of my own. We’re in Wisconsin. The most dangerous animal is… I don’t know a Bears fan.
I look forward to telling Colin to go play outside though. Why? Not because I believe in the enriching experiences of physical, outdoor fun. Because I want to have some freaking alone time to play my own video games.
Good. At. Parenting.