Thoughts from the Play Place

I'm not uncomfortable getting on the floor and crawling around with my boys, pretending to be a horse or dragon or 'wrestling king.' I've been on many-a kiddie ride and playground, too, and I can find fun in all of it (with or without the kids, I admit).

Enter the Play Place

From the road, the only intelligent vantage point, a play place seems something like an aquarium. It looks a bit like a new-in-the-box hamster maze, maybe. At this distance, it is only a quiet glass room tacked onto a tacky restaurant. This is the safe and sane distance I kept from such places for forty years. I did not have to go into one to know what was inside, for every time the door would open to the play place, I could hear the chaos, the screaming, the noise, noise, noise! I used to wonder what would lead a parent to subject their child to such a place.

I have since been able to confirm, on all counts, that these places are loud. On top of that, they may not be so sanitary, either. Once I saw a kid with a bulging diaper leave a brown streak down the slide. Another time, our son reported a pool of vomit. Sometimes kids crawl from the tunnels red-faced, panting, bleeding, crying...

...but most always, they emerge laughing. What I mistook for noise is the shrill laughter of crazed kids having a good time. While it might seem demeaning to put a child in this environment, I've witnessed some great play ground ethics and values in practice. Children are not generally just bumbling through the tunnels like rats; they are instead exploring, forming teams, playing hide and seek, racing...in short, they are playing.

Just yesterday (and not for the first time) I kicked off my shoes and followed my son inside. I studied his fascination with every turn and contour. I reveled with him over our ascension to the heights of the maze. I watched his face as he zipped down the slide on this belly, myself right behind him. Though he does not yet say much, he was loving every minute of it, and his laughter said it all.

I also was an intruder. Sure parents (myself included, once in a while) invade the play place to retrieve a child now and then. A rare few, like myself, might be found inside actually playing, but we are so rare that the kids don't quite know what to make of us.

Initially, I feel like Jane Goodall. I'm not sure if it's okay to make eye contact. I don't know their social norms. I cannot fit in, no matter how playful I become, for I am three times their size. Sometimes, due to my bulk, I cannot navigate the tubes as quickly as they do, and so I worry they will become annoyed with me. The squealing and laughter is amplified within the plastic tunnels, and it seems as if it is now an alarm sounding my presence. The constant thundering of knees and feet are now the beat of war drums in my ears.

Here's the interesting part: it's obvious that they are surprised to find me in their world. At first, they don't quite know what to say. It's only a moment, however, and then they are inviting me to chase them, asking me what's up ahead, wallowing past me...in general, accepting me. Like little ambassadors, they show me old french fries and holes in the walls of their den. They tell me all about their experiences at a variety of play places. A boy apologizes for not wearing socks.

Like all my encounters with children, I am again impressed by their civility and acceptance. I suppose someone on the street would see it as a herd of kids crawling over some hapless grownup trapped in the bowels of a hamster maze. From the street, or even in the restaurant proper, or even from the floor below--from any distance--one misses the whole thing. Being accepted and loved by them may involve a little slobber and sweat (and later, some aching muscles) but it is a whole and complete acceptance into their wacky world.

We could learn something from them.