The Idle Parent

Long morning this morning, we got out at 9am to get gas before the Mother Goose Storytime at the library, and then we went to Old Navy at 10 to buy some super cheap duds (hello $2.50 flip flops and $2 camis!?!). I found myself not sure what to do with the rest of the morning before naptime at 1pm, so we headed to the park after I checked the temperature gauge on my dashboard. As it only read 88 degrees, we headed there.

First let me say that the park is not my favorite. Oliver doesn't really know what to do with himself because he wants me to play WITH him and to be honest, climbing around a playscape with a 14lb baby strapped to my chest in boiling weather is less than fun. He gets bored, I get grumpy, and we leave, usually within the hour. I have been reading several different sources about letting kids be kids, leaving them alone to pursue the joys and pitfalls of the world and living without being there every moment of every second of the day to catch them when they stumble. The idea is, kids NEED to stumble, they need to mess up and get dirty and fall down to learn how to get back up again. Falling is half of the fun and failing is most of the journey!


So, having read all of four chapters of the three books I want to read on the subject (listed below), I wanted to try an experiment. I would sit in the shade with the baby while Oliver explored his world. I would not freak out that I could not see him. I would not worry that the mother over there was judging me for letting him slide down a slide alone. I would allow him to interact with children of all ages and work problems out for himself. If he called for me, I would go, but once I helped him with what he wanted, I would go back to being an observer.

Guess what happened? He. Played. Let me go back to say that the child has rarely played by himself for longer than 5 minutes since the baby was born. I guess some kids regress with sleep, or peeing (did that too) but his major regression was play. He climbed to the top of the playscape, he slid down the slide repeatedly, he found a place where he could scare every parent in the park by swinging over a 4 foot drop, he ran over to some 7-8 year olds who were pretending to play restaurant with the twigs and rocks and ordered a pie (no joke, the kid asked for a pie). Eventually, a nosy parent went over to where four kids of varying ages and sexes were playing sweetly and politely together and ruined all of it by hovering and wondering why this long haired hippie boy was without parent.

So, Oliver lost interest and asked to go to the creek that runs behind the park. All three of us waded in it a bit, until Oliver got his shorts wet in the water and started panicking because he knows "wet pants=time to go immediately" but I assured him that he was okay, that the water getting him wet was not the same as pee getting him wet. After a while, I sat down on a rock, happy as a clam to watch him try to catch fish, poke at the moss with sticks, watch leaves go down stream, toss rocks into the creek and finally, find a "wand" that he would turn me into a baby bird so he could feed me worms.

While the kids played with a very nice, albeit boring and plastic playscape which was quickly heating up in the sun, Oliver poked around in the bushes barefoot with his poking stick and walked in a creek. Just by breathing, I was able to allow him to discover the magic of a summer day with nothing to do and no where to be. He played for almost two hours in that way. When was the last time your toddler did anything for two hours?

My only regret? I didn't bring a book. No really, the hard part about being an "Idle Parent" for me isn't really the idea that he is going to get hurt. My house has far more things that can kill him than the tiny part of wilderness we found today, but it was the eyes of other parents. The women who don't let their kids play alone, who hover and cajole and say "no" constantly. They are worn out and feel I should be too. I felt like I was being a terrible mom just by enjoying the day and letting him enjoy it without me structuring his playtime. I felt more relaxed at the end of our trip than if I had taken a nap. Best part? It was the best parent I have been in a long time, and all I did was sit, watch and enjoy my children.

Books to read on Idle Parenting/getting back to nature

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
The Idle Parent by Tom Hodgkinson
Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy