By Anna Rahmanan
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Just a few weeks ago, I used this space to wonder how many afterschools are too many afterschools for the kids. Turns out, I love them, although I do understand the need for relaxation, unstructured play and the occasional afternoon spent doing absolutely nothing. Today, however, I'd like to dissect another sort of children's outing, one that I've come to define as regular life.
Here's where the thought came from: last month, I took my 7-year-old daughter to her first Broadway show (Wicked, if you were wondering) and, the following morning, my husband remarked that she suddenly seemed bigger, more mature, more…not 7?
It wasn't the first time we'd noticed a transformation of the sort. It happens after vacations, for example, or weekends spent doing things we don't ordinarily do during the week: going out to a nice dinner, driving into Manhattan and simply walking around, even visiting a bookstore.
Read More on Family & Parenting
These aren't particularly extraordinary experiences. In fact, they're the sorts of things adults do without thinking twice about them. But I've come to suspect that exposing children to this kind of ordinary life, outside the carefully constructed universe of afterschools, playgrounds and kid-friendly activities, is precisely what growing up entails: doing things, experiencing things, being part of a world that doesn't necessarily revolve around them.
Not everyone agrees with me (as usual, I should add).
I have a friend who refuses to take his children out to dinner because they "can't behave." I must say that, whenever I've forced him to bring them along, they've certainly behaved better than my own children, so perhaps he's doing something right.
Related Story
Regeneration of Discontent
Related Story
Boston’s Accent Contest Offers an Escape From the Culture Wars
Related Story
We Have Sunk Into the Unhinged Era of Political Ads
His argument, however, is that taking children somewhere they don't know how to behave will inevitably put him in a bad mood, which will then prevent him from properly catering to their needs. Why put everyone through that?
Well, I retort, how exactly are they supposed to learn to behave in situations they've never been allowed to experience?
And therein lies what I think is a peculiar contradiction in modern parenting: we expect children to acquire the skills necessary to participate in the world before we actually let them participate in it. We want them to sit through dinner before taking them to restaurants, appreciate culture before bringing them to the theater, and develop independence while keeping their lives organized around environments specifically designed for them.
My own mother peripherally agrees with my friend.
"You guys were always home after school," she reminds me whenever she calls and hears my children asking (screaming) about what we're doing that afternoon.
Yes, mamma, perhaps you're right. I honestly don't remember, although I must admit that I now occasionally find myself wishing my children shared your philosophy, mostly because taking them out can be miserable. They complain, get tired, spill things, ask to leave approximately seven minutes after arriving somewhere they demanded to go to for hours.
Perhaps, though, that discomfort is part of the point. Not because parenting should be an exercise in suffering, but because children don't learn patience, curiosity, independence or how to exist among other people exclusively from being told to do so. They learn by practicing.
And, for what it's worth, the morning after Wicked, my daughter got out of bed without screaming, dressed herself for school and even completed her homework later that afternoon after a single protest rather than the usual rounds of negotiations.
Did Broadway magically transform her into a responsible member of society? Of course not. By the following day, we were back to screaming.
But, for one glorious morning, I caught a glimpse of the person she's becoming.
And perhaps that's what these outings really offer: not entertainment, not enrichment, but the chance for children to discover that they're capable of being a little bigger than they were yesterday.
For more on parenting, health and lifestyle, subscribe to The Good Life newsletter here.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines