Household Word
Get Out Of Here!

I think that starting fires with a magnifying glass on the sidewalk and pulling the wings off Japanese beetles in the back yard is better (and infinitely more educational) than fiddling around with a joystick or watching TV inside the house. But my kids aren’t really interested in entomology or arson. They’d rather use the computer to play Snood or send coded instant messages to their friends (g2g, POS – that’s "got to go, there’s a parent looking over my shoulder" in my daughter’s tribal language).

This is not the childhood I envisioned for my kids. I imagined them catching tadpoles in the local creek and romping in the back yard with golden retriever puppies. I did not picture them holed up in a dark room shooting aliens, downloading demonic pop music from Aimster or watching The Osbournes.

Especially not in June.

Although I’m on a year-round campaign to get my kids to turn off the television and step away from the computer, I’m at my most maniacal when it’s nice out. This year, I am even contemplating a moratorium on TV and computer games that would last from Memorial Day until they go away to college. Maybe then, they’d play outside.

When we bought our house eight years ago, my husband and I were concerned that the yard was too small to fit a climbing structure, a basketball hoop and a soccer goal. We shouldn’t have worried. None of the kids ever play in the back yard. In fact, they don’t even know where the back yard is. That’s because unless there’s a blackout, they’re playing on the computer or watching TV inside. But things are going to change this summer. My kids are going to play outdoors.

Yesterday, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and my three kids were hunched over the computer in the den. I marched into the room on a mission.

"Go outside," I ordered as I clicked off the computer monitor.

"But there’s nothing to do outside," my daughter muttered. "It’s boring."

"Can I bring the laptop outside?" the youngest queried.

"NO!" I was getting mad. "When I was a kid we didn’t have computers. We played outside with sticks."

"Gee, that sounds like fun," the 8-year-old noted sarcastically. His eyes never left the blank screen.

"It was," I said. "Besides, you’re going to burn your retinas if you keep staring at the computer. Go outside."

"Do we have to?" they pleaded.

"Yes."