September 22, 2016 - 19:37
Princess Jefferson
When Play Was Play
In the Primary ages of our life, there is no distinction between fantasy and reality, all we know is that there is always time for fun. At early ages just about anything around you can become subject of models of your game, but what we don’t ever think about as children is why we play what we play or even the wherewithal from which it came; all we know is that the games we play fill that happy part of us known to childhood. The question that I pose is, when does play, stops being just play. Is it as you mature, or was does time for play just become expunged.
A class mate of mine describes her childhood ideals of play as follows:
I grew up in an estate where I was the only girl in a group of over ten boys. The rest of the girls were too young for me to play with. It is not that I couldn’t play with them, but my stern mother kept me insisting that I join kids my age. This was quite hard for me in the first few days but when I became accustomed to them, I could barely remember I was female. I played all their games, and they actually treated me as one of their own. We could run after each other in the police and robber game, play hide and go seek, and marble games. I even taught them how to hula-hoop. We went to the same elementary, and middle school, and learned in the same class. After class, we could run home and change into our home attire. We could then gather in a nearby land which had been left bare but we had turned it to be “our” field. When I date back to my child hood memories of play, I am filled with unfathomable joy. I can’t help but cherish the golden memories when play was play.
This text by my classmate ironically parallels, the story of my childhood. I too, relish on the days, when play was play. As you mature in age you began to realize that the scenarios you portrayed in your moments of play were events and actions that you had witnessed and did not really know how to make sense of it all. The elements that we used in our moment of play, contributed to the steps we take and/or have taken into adulthood. After reading an article entitled, “Kid Stuff,”, by Molly Knefel, it dawned on me that play is never just play.
The answer to my question came within the text: “In order for childhood to be carefree, it would have to exist in an entirely separate world from the adult one, full as it is of cares, some more immediately consequential than others.” (Knefel pg.2) This opposes the idea that my classmate and I share regarding the virtues of childhood play. The fact that we reminisce on our childhood for brief moments of joy regarding play, means that we feel that elements of play only exist in the pre-adolescent years of our lives.
An idea posed within Knefel’s article is, “Adults are fine at having fun, given the right circumstances, but kids do it automatically. There’s no such thing as “down time” with children… Children can barely stop playing, whereas adults need to make the effort to schedule it in.” (Knefel p.3). In other words, it is not the idea of play that my peer and I think about, it’s the act of fun within the play. As a child you never wonder when you will have the time to have fun, you simply do it. Children do not need circumstance.
In one of my classroom discussions, my professor asked the class to break into groups and do a skit, or reenactment of what you and your team members considered a fair representation of play. It could be a form of play that you did as a child, or it could be a form a play that you still do now in your young adult life. Within my group it was rather hard to come up with a skit of play that we wanted to do, because each of our childhood experiences all comprised of different things that we did for fun. For example, one of my group members was limited to watching the history channel and doing things that would contribute to her intellectual and mental growth as an adult. Therefore, her ideas of play included finding things in the form of investigation or pretending to be someone who held high social status in the past; whereas my ideas of fun meant riding my bike with my brothers, playing horsey or with my dolls. But one commonality we all shared in our childhood was the art of imagination and fantasy.
One group in our class did a skit on the ideas of play representing the age group of teens: one friend wanted to do what she had done in her childhood for fun, but another thought it would be best for everyone to play on their phones, and so they did. This led me to infer that as you get older the element of fun, which heightened your sense of play is diminished. Robin Henig says that, “play is the biological equivalent of a luxury item”, when the first thing to go when there is no longer time and use for it, which brings me back to the argument presented by Knefel, that as you age you simply have to find time for the very thing that pushed you where you are now.
I no longer hold my previous idea of play as a golden memory and ask when will play, be just play. I now realize that play has never stopped being what it, was but it is the individual who has shaped the concept of play. Play is what you make it, and also the time you put in it. For children, play is not play, it is simply fun.
Works Cited Page
Knefel, Molly. “Kid Stuff”. http://thenewinquiry.com. Accessed 20 September 2016.
Henig, Robin Marantz. “Taking Play Seriously”. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17magzine/17play.html. Accessed 20 September 2016.
Rein, Free. “Play”. Serendip. Accessed 22 September 2016