Well, we’ve made it. Finally, it is May, that glorious month that lies on the cusp of summer. Mild weather, bursting flowers, and new leaves appearing on the trees. It is a month of excitement as the end of school draws near. A month of relief as rainstorms become less frequent. And, for the past decade, in our family, it has also been the month of playgrounds.
Wooded playgrounds, school playgrounds, playgrounds by the beach. For years, we visited all of them.
After preschool, I’d take the younger children. Then, after elementary school, I’d return with them all, my ears filled with their soundtrack of laughter and excitement as they mastered the monkey bars and flew down the slides, ran into friends, and jumped on swings, eager to see who could pump the highest.
On weekends, we’d all visit our local playground together, usually at the end of a long family walk. Every time we’d draw close, the kids would take off running, eager to be in a place where they could run free and be themselves.
For almost a decade, I’ve looked forward to these trips. I look forward to watching my children’s joy as they let their creativity flow, organize games like “floor is lava,” and declare themselves explorers as they scale newly dropped piles of fresh mulch.
Playground time was a happy time. It was a time when I could play with my kids and also watch from afar. It was a time when we could make memories together out in the sunshine without a schedule or authority figure telling us what to do. And yet, this year has been different. We haven’t been to our local playground once.
We haven’t scaled piles of mulch or groaned when they disappeared, the freshly laid woodchips filling the air with the smell of earth. We haven’t seen whether they’ve repainted the railings or added new equipment. I haven’t seen if that family of deer we stalked last summer is still living in the strip of woods separating the playground from nearby houses.
No, we haven’t done any of these things. And not because my kids have all outgrown playgrounds—they haven’t. My kindergartener still loves them, and all three of my kids would still swing on those monkey bars if they could. Instead, our lack of playground visits is due to one thing: no time.
With my youngest in kindergarten, all three of my children are now involved in multiple afterschool activities. Music lessons and sports practices dominate the schedule, and our afternoons are no longer filled with carefree walks to the park but with stressful carpools and ever-changing schedules, complete with group text chains that threaten to blow up the carefully orchestrated plan of the day at any moment.
The field is too wet, so we’re moving practice to the batting cages. There’s a conflict with the timing of this game, so we’re changing it from Wednesday to Thursday. Sorry, but we can’t practice at 4:30. We’re switching the time to 6 p.m. instead.
The messages arrive rapidly, spurring a flurry of my own texts to babysitters and fellow parents as I figure out the best way to get all of my children to all of their activities. Often, all the driving means whichever kid doesn’t have practice that day is forced to spend hours in the car shutting around the others. And weekends? Well, they exist solely for more practices and sporting events.
Lost is playground time, our creative, innocent play, and those long family walks.
And I cannot help but mourn this change, for me and for them. Last year, we said no to travel baseball to give our eight-year-old son a little more unstructured time. But this spring, he has baseball five days a week. My youngest is booked with activities on three. Is it great watching my youngest discover softball? Yes. Do I love seeing my son continue to grow in baseball? Of course. But sometimes, when I walk by the old turn for the playground, a turn I once made multiple times a day, I cannot help but wonder.
What are my younger kids missing by giving up their playground time?
What games would they create if they had time to explore on their own? What animals would they discover if they had time to stare into the woods? And what tangents would these take us on at home? What flowers would we be researching or bugs would we be discovering if we had time to stop and look at the beautiful spring exploding all around us?
As a child, I loved spending time outdoors. I also took music lessons and had time for sports. Somehow, all these activities existed in harmony. There were sports days, music days, and days when all I had to do was collect salamanders in the woods.
I wish my kids had more free days and we didn’t spend so much time in the car. But for now, the schedule is packed. This spring, we will continue without playgrounds.
Yet, come fall, I already know I will do things differently. I will schedule less. I will fight for a free afternoon. And I will spend that time walking my younger kids to the playground.
Because soon enough, they will grow up. Like my oldest, they’ll reach middle school, and sports practices will take over for good. Playgrounds will no longer excite them. And while I know I will be there excitedly cheering, proud of their new achievements, I don’t want to rush them along right now.
Instead, I want to try to create that harmony I remember. I want to have sports days, music days, and days spent at the playground. I want to give my kids a modern childhood that includes a little less structure, a few fewer carpools, and a little more time to learn those lessons we can only master when we break away from the schedule and let our creativity and curiosity flow.
It’s time my kids deserve. Time that will allow them to learn about what interests them outside of the classroom and away from the sports field. It’s time that will allow them to grow in ways they can’t when they are governed by others.
And it is time I am willing to fight for—for them and for us—because all of us are happier when we have a little more time for playgrounds.
