Lord of the Flies.....

     

A mini version of Lord of the Flies is playing out on the playground. While unnerving to me, it isn’t going unnoticed as a ring of parents nonchalantly stroll around the perimeter. It feels like a 1960’s spy movie. We are lurking, I am pretending to walk the dog, that one “looks” like he’s taking out the trash. Another parent seems to be intently inspecting the tailgate of his truck. A mom pushes her daughter on the swing but all of us are really just observing the unfolding mele. Why is this noteworthy? Because none of these parents are rushing in to stop it. No one is calling anyone else’s mom because someone made fun of their child’s hair. No one is calling the teacher because their daughter was pushed over during tag. No principals are being involved because they are pointing nerf guns at each other. It is unmitigated, childhood bliss, with all the dirt that accompanies it. Skinned knees because someone didn’t use the slide appropriately, 3 seconds of a hurt feeling because someone experienced defeat. Stained t-shirts from falling down “dead” on the grass over and over, no adults needed to call fair or unfair.
             

    My heart skips a beat as my son points a gun at another kid, pulls the trigger and yells BANG! This is exactly the behavior we have been trained, and in turn, trained kids not to do. I wait for the other child to scream and run home, instead he falls down “dead”.  Just as the unspoken rules dictate, a pow or a bang and your dead. You have to lie down for 1 minute. No adult told them that, they worked it out on their own, just as they picked sides, and boundaries and created the intricate plot to go along. Kids from 6 to 13 are playing together harmoniously. No one telling them they can’t play, it’s not right, or it’s inappropriate. I am torn between what is “right” and what is healthy. 

     I call Jacob over and ask about the game. "It's great, one kid didn't want to be a zombie, so we told him he could watch or be some other thing. He sat down with a gun for a minute and the next he was up playing. Now he's a Zombie too." Totally self regulating. 

     Don’t misunderstand me, I am still your good ‘ol bleeding heart girl. Gun control, anti-bullying, don’t hurt each other’s feelings girl. But, having spent the last 13 years writing up reports for the most asinine childhood offenses has made scenes like this a bit refreshing. Where is the line, have we crossed it? How far back? When do kids get to be kids?

And then, Aiden comes over.

“Mom, we are playing cowboys and Native American’s! I got to be a Navajo, I got em all!”  The paradigm has shifted. They have found a way to make the inappropriate appropriate. Until tomorrow anyway.