This is my weekly column for today’s Laconia Daily Sun.
Exercising the First by Doug Lambert
Tag, dodge ball and jihad.At what point will we ban childhood itself? While I’m all in favor of modern innovations like good helmets for children (and adults- if they choose) when bike riding and skiing, more and more lately, the notion of “child safety” just gets plain silly..
Consider the latest playground rules at an elementary school just down in nearby Massachusetts. The Sun Chronicle (www.thesunchronicle.com) reports in an article by Susan LaHoud that the eternal childhood game of “Tag is now out during recess at Willett Elementary School.” That’s right- students will no longer be able to participate in the improvised game that has more likely than not been played by young humans since the children of Adam and Eve first set foot on the Earth. The story reports that tag will join other fabled games like touch football and dodge-ball on the growing list of games prohibited during recess. Apparently, dodge-ball is too much of an “exclusionary and dangerous game.”.
The Sun Chronicle notes that such rules are not unique to this one school. There is a “growing movement against traditional games played by young children in school gymnasiums and playgrounds” in states around the country, including Wyoming, Washington, and South Carolina. Before long, these so-called “chasing” games will undoubtedly be known as quaint activities from the “unenlightened” past. Only trained professionals at some historic “living” museum like Strawberry Banke or Sturbridge Village will “play” such games..
Why is this? With child obesity becoming a more widespread problem, you would think that anything involving physical activity like running would be more encouraged. Hasn’t Gov. Lynch’s wife practically made an entire career of the issue? How can these games be allowed to be taken from the kids? Is it entirely because they’re “exclusionary and dangerous”? Or is it something else? You won’t be surprised, as I wasn’t, when I read the answer in the October 16th article: lawyers..
Of course this involves lawyers- or, more specifically, lawsuits. The reasons described are attributed mostly as “reflecting society’s increasingly cautious and litigious nature.” Naturally. “[K]ids would get too rough or run into each other, giving rise to parent complaints and threats of lawsuits.” Once again, the vaunted “threat of lawsuit” stops tradition dead in its tracks..
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While we insulate a whole generation of American children from simple fun games that simultaneously teach important life skills like competition, self-sufficiency and independent thinking, what are our enemies doing? As we admonish our young to quit potentially “dangerous and exclusionary” activities like tag and dodge-ball, what are our adversaries, sworn to kill us all, teaching their children? Do they let them play games involving some sort of “chase?”.
In the August 23rd 1996 “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” Osama Bin Laden had much to say about Muslim youth: “I say: Since the sons of the land of the two Holy Places feel and strongly believe that fighting (Jihad) against the Kuffar in every part of the world, is absolutely essential; then they would be even more enthusiastic, more powerful and larger in number upon fighting on their own land… To liberate their sanctities is the greatest of issues concerning all Muslims; It is the duty of every Muslims in this world. I say to you William [Defense Secretary Cohen] that: These youths love death as you loves life. They inherit dignity, pride, courage, generosity, truthfulness and sacrifice from father to father. They are most delivering and steadfast at war. They inherit these values from their ancestors.” Wait a minute- there’s nothing about the dodge-ball being “exclusionary”. What gives?.