Open Wide

I will admit this is not something I have to worry about from the viewpoint of a parent, but I live on a street where a lot of children live.  There are days I wonder when it became “fashionable” for kids to play in the street?  I’m not talking about riding bikes – I’m talking about actually playing in the street.

I do not remember playing in the street.  I remember riding my bike – and not being obnoxious about it.  We didn’t need to wear helments – we’ll we probably should have, but we didn’t, and I attribute that to the fact that we were safe on our bikes, and there were less cars on the streets when I was a kid.  We were taught that the cars on the roads of our neighborhood were given the right of way over us kids riding bikes.

Should we blame developers for this phenomenon of kids playing in the street, because I’m sure parents are telling their kids they shouldn’t be doing this?  Why blame parents – we all know they only have their children’s best interest at heart.  So it has to be a problem attributed to the developers of this country.  Those groups purchasing land to build more and more houses on, and not just a few houses but 50+ per development putting a McMansion on a postage stamp sized lot.

The house I grew up in was on at least an acre of land.  It was also a corner lot.  It was also a modest 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom ranch-style house.  My parents still live in this house.  I had what would now be considered a HUGE backyard, heck, a huge yard period.  So we had no need to play in the street…we played in our yard – in our back yard and we didn’t need a fence to keep us there either.  This us would be my older brother and me.

So why, now, do you see so many kids playing in the street?  Is it the smaller lot size and the amount of yard implements you see?  Is it that parents don’t want their yards torn up by kids playing?  Or is it that parents aren’t paying attention or just don’t care?

It cannot be the last thing, parents in my neighborhood seem to be paying attention and do care.  How do I know this?  Well, in the last few days, I’ve seen these little plastic signs popping up on the streets of my neighborhood that say something like “Slow, Children at Play,” and yesterday there was a cop sitting on my street waiting to catch someone speeding – and he did (No, it wasn’t me, Mom.  I promise!).  However, I have also seen the parents in the street playing with their kids – so they seem to be encouraging it too.

The thing that burns my hide is this…many of those parents complaining about speeding cars need to be certain they aren’t breaking their own rules.  Just because the child is in the car with you and not “At Play” doesn’t mean that you get to go however fast you want to go on the very same streets you are complaining about other people driving too fast.  “Pot, this is the kettle, you’re black!”