Let Kids Be Kids

Teenagers build an innocent wiffleball field, and some adults get upset:

After three weeks of clearing brush and poison ivy, scrounging up plywood and green paint, digging holes and pouring concrete, Vincent, Justin and about a dozen friends did manage to build it — a tree-shaded Wiffle ball version of Fenway Park complete with a 12-foot-tall green monster in center field, American flag by the left-field foul pole and colorful signs for Taco Bell Frutista Freezes.

But, alas, they had no idea just who would come — youthful Wiffle ball players, yes, but also angry neighbors and their lawyer, the police, the town nuisance officer and tree warden and other officials in all shapes and sizes. It turns out that one kid’s field of dreams is an adult’s dangerous nuisance, liability nightmare, inappropriate usurpation of green space, unpermitted special use or drag on property values, and their Wiffle-ball Fenway has become the talk of Greenwich and a suburban Rorschach test about youthful summers past and present.

At a time when more elementary schools are banning tag, soccer, dodgeball, and touch football, it seems that we are increasingly unwiling to let children be children. As a local newspaper editorialized on the wiffleball issue:

“Back before we lost our collective minds and began shrieking with horror at the thought of kids having fun on their own (as in not part of an official league or otherwise organized activity), they used to do things like find a vacant field, turn it into a makeshift diamond and spend glorious hours in the summer sun,” the local newspaper, Greenwich Time, wrote in an editorial in support of the youths on Wednesday.

I wish I understood the cause. Perhaps it is the fact that nearly all educators in America today are women, who are generally more prone to ban physical or violent activity, even if it is a necessary part of growing up (especially for boys). Perhaps it is America’s litigious legal system in which people can win millions of dollars for being stupid or being in an accident that was nobody’s fault. Perhaps the Baby Boomer adults in the wiffleball example have become increasingly selfish and care more about their peace and quiet than about the ability of children to have some innocent fun. I’m sure there are many culprits.