Stop Killing Our Childhood #2

A few months ago (maybe?) I posted about the upcoming DVD release of Cinderella III and Disney's passion for milking every possible dollar out of our fond childhood memories. Now, poor unfortunate children face a new evil trying to pollute the magic of childhood, the Code C. Far nastier than the Code Red featured in "A Few Good Men," the code C threatens the very existence of the most hallowed day for young children across most of the country, the Snow Day. Code C, though innocently titled, stands for Code Cyberschool.

At Queen Anne School in Upper Marlboro, MD, students are responsible for checking their class website throughout the course of a normal schoolday where they are assigned new homework and participate in online discussion groups. And yes, attendance is taken. Normally, I, along with the rest of the Stain Club, am a big proponent of education. But is destroying snow days the answer? They give children hope and a chance for unexpected freedom. Frequently, kids are being overloaded with scheduled event after scheduled event. Is this really in their best interest?

I have fond memories of Snow Days, going on adventures with friends. Epic snowball fights and sledding trips to seemingly unconquerable hills, which would continue until we were all happily covered in bruises, were the norm. Sure, I wasn't learning about history or literature. However, I was developing more intangible, but equally important, characteristics. Besting those hills or taking on a three vs one snowball fight helped develop a sense of independence and an appreciation for physical activity. Probably there are psychologists out there who could say I was expanding my interpersonal horizons, or something like that, through unstructured and unmonitored interactions with my peers. To me, those can be just as important and are necessary for a balanced childhood. Most importantly, why is it so hard to just let kids be kids?

Although I suspect most media coverage of overly sexualized kids and violent youngsters is more CNN fearmongering (I have the statistics to neither confirm or deny this), I do think there are times when society puts too much pressure on kids to excel and specialize way before they're ready. I'd like to think the reason I still have fairly diverse interests now is that I had the luxury of frequently changing my mind then. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a marine biologist, geneticist, President, teacher, professor, professional tennis player, lawyer, and more. Like all kids though, what I wanted most was to wake up in the morning and have my mom tell me it was a snow day.