We’re a week into summer break at our house, and despite everyone in our social life, from church to school to the local gym, asking, “What are you doing this summer?” we’re doing “nothing.” Our nothings consist of pool time, movie marathons, cooking shows and cooking together, beach days, play dates at the park, hikes, BBQs, and sleeping in (if the toddler lets us).
I did not experience the social pressure of lavish European vacations or signing your children up for $1,000 a week (yes, a week) sports and science camps months in advance until I moved to Los Angeles 12.5 years ago.
Raised in Southeast Oklahoma, I spent my summers volunteering at the church’s VBS, tubing down the Mt. Fork River, and riding my bike alone on country dirt roads past logging trucks to see my childhood best friend at her house, four miles away. My mother did make me call her to let her know when I got there.
Although some children in metropolitan cities can’t have the same independent experiences I had as a child, it seems parents are coming around to the idea of letting their kids just be kids: dubbed “kid rotting” according to a New York Times article on elite parents in the tristate area forgoing intense science and art camps and sending their children to the couch instead.
One mother from an affluent neighborhood in NYC said of her six-year-old daughter, “It’s good for her to be bored sometimes. I remember being bored in the summertime, and it didn’t make me a bad adult.”
A generation of parents seems to be waking up to the idea that reading to children is good, putting down the phones is great, and not adhering to social pressures of resume padding and elite academics is going to be OK.
The desire to have every single moment of every single day planned out is unnecessary and damaging to children. Like adults, children have to acknowledge that even when things are planned, sometimes we have to pivot. Sometimes the boss’s demands change, sometimes there’s a weather delay, sometimes someone you like doesn’t like you back. Sometimes it’s good to sit with no plans and come up with something to do and engage with the world around you.
I say this as a mother who had a park playdate with my seven-year-old’s friend (all four kiddies came along), and when the 11-year-old whined, “What am I supposed to do?” I replied, “Count leaves or something.”
But, I’m also a mother who just wrapped up a Marvel movie marathon with them over the past week (we skipped a few; who needs to watch The Eternals?) and often lets my children take “redneck baths,” my name for a pool swim post dinner followed by bedtime.
The “boredom” can contribute to good ideas. Last summer, our oldest picked oranges from our backyard, dehydrated them in an air fryer, and sold them on the beaches of Malibu for $7 a pop. This summer, she keeps begging me to get a “real job” where she insists I can drop her off for hourly work at a business such as In-N-Out or Ralph’s. I’ve told her our government looks down on child labor.
Our 7-year-old wants to “swim every day” so she can try out for the school team this fall and has asked for a trip to Hobby Lobby to get cross-stitch projects and pastels to practice her shading. Our 5-year-old (the age of many of the camp-riddled New Yorkers in the New York Times article) spends most of her days playing dress up, coloring, and harassing her toddler brother. And the toddler boy, well, he’s chaos wrapped in joy.
Some parents assume that in order for their children to succeed in life, get into the high school of their choice and Ivy League institutions, and then achieve the best medical or law or tech job, they need to start working on their resumes now. Not true.
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As adults, we know that time flies. Our children need to experience it. They need to recognize that time is fleeting and it’s OK to sit for a bit and do something out of the ordinary. It’s good to recognize that in their brief moments of unrest or dissatisfied boredom, that too shall pass.
Boredom can give space for creativity, grit, ingenuity, pause, and inner peace. Too often, adults turn to their screens, to social media, to a podcast or television instead of sitting with our own thoughts and feelings. Maybe, if we skip the camps and let kids sit for a bit, the world will be better off.
Elisha Krauss is a conservative commentator and speaker who resides in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and their four children. She advocates women’s rights, school choice, and smaller government.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
