Bubble Wrap

My parents’ constant reminder to settle down or slow it up a bit was the warning that I might crack my head open. As a child I had visions of a point of impact, followed by a crack spreading down my head, cartoon-style, until my head cracked in half like an egg and the insides came out. The sobering image proved enough to get me to calm down on multiple occasions.

When I was about six years old, I was at a birthday party down the street and the activity had reached that sort of free-for-all moment where there are no organized activities, but “Happy Birthday” has yet to be sung. And so the kids began running around, and literally began doing laps around the coffee table. True to form, I stayed at the table because there was cake there. And even at the tender age of 6, nothing could prove more alluring than sugar, flour and more sugar.

Suddenly there was a loud thump and when I turned around, I saw my friend Dannie and instantly thought “Oh, that’s what Mom and Dad meant.” She had cracked her head open, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. A few year later, in Dannie’s own basement we were playing “fair” where each of us had made up games for the others to play. One of her games was to do a cartwheel off of a chair and standing on the chair I went into cartwheel position and promptly dislocated my elbow. It was so incredibly painful that just remembering the event as I typed it out made me wince. “Get your mom, I think I broke my arm!” I shouted. Know how hard it hurts when you bang your elbow? It’s worse to dislocate it. Especially at the age of 9. They had to put me under just to realign me and I had a splint, followed by a sling and physical therapy just to regain use of my elbow again.

When I was a little older I remember sailing down the street on my bike (sans helmet), racing a friend. Suddenly a boy was in front of me on his bike. I put on the brakes but we collided and I went sailing, right onto the street where I got quite a few scrapes and bumps.

When we would miss the school bus growing up, we would just walk to school. All we had to do was cut through a park and walk about four blocks to get to the school. The park had homeless people and one route took us over a creek that didn’t have a bridge and so we’d have to jump across on rocks or tree trunks. We were preteens and would trek through the park and down the street on our own. Sometimes, we purposely missed the bus just so we could walk.

Which all leads me to this: how do kids today have any fun? It seems like we are one step away from wrapping them in bubble wrap. There’s no way kids today would get to walk through a park early in the morning and down the street to school. Or run around a coffee table. Or explore the woods like we used to. Or ride their bikes down the street at top speed. Or get into mischief.

Dislocating my elbow hurt unbelievably. I have no doubt that having her head cracked open was not pleasant for Dannie (yet she managed to do it again in her life). Scrapes, bumps, bruises, cuts: none of them are fun. But they’re a part of growing up. They make good stories. They build a little character. I’m all for keeping kids safe, but not taking the fun out of life. Me and my elbow survived. Dannie and her head are fine now. I have a few physical scars but that’s life. So without putting kids in danger, I think it’s ok to take off some of the bubble wrap and let them be kids. Hey, it’s fun.