
Children are suffering a severe deficit of play - martythemaniak
http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/children-today-are-suffering-a-severe-deficit-of-play/
======
martythemaniak
Having grown up in the late 80s in an East Block country, this article
resonated very strongly. Growing up in that place and time was akin to 50s
America - no cable, consoles, arcades, VCRs or handhelds. We had TV, but it
only had the single state broadcast channel which played only one cartoon.

The only thing to do was play which we did prodigiously - I was part of a
large mix-aged group (6-12 kids, 5 years age difference) and we would play
everything (sports, house, building things, demolishing things, raising stray
animals, foraging fruit, fighting other kids). It was a great childhood and
neither I nor my childhood friends (most of us are still friends, even across
continents) would trade it for anything. Interestingly, it was almost the same
childhood my mom and dad had.

My sister (the de-facto leader of our group) now has children and their
childhood could not be any different - constantly shuttled from home to school
to organized activity. Play only for a bit under heavily supervised conditions
(ie, birthday party at another kids house) and filled to the brim with
tablets, phones, computers etc.

I feel very bad for my nephew's effective lack of childhood, even more so
because it seems that doing something differently is a big social taboo. My
mom, siter and I have talked about this, and my sister described being almost
powerless - who would they play with? Where? What are other parents going to
think? etc etc.

When I go to places like rural Belize or small-town Costa Rica I see kids
still playing and I wonder if that's not the best place to raise a small kid
(4-10 years old).

~~~
chez17
I always find it interesting that nobody mentions this. Your generation, and
the ones before you, destroyed and defunded parks, they built malls over open
land, they made 100% safe unfun playgrounds, they turned America in the the
most litigious country in the history of mankind scaring anyone from allowing
anyone ever to make a mistake or get slightly hurt, you buy your kids more
screens than books, and then at the end of the day you wonder aloud why kids
don't play as much?

* That was a proverbial you, no you specifically OP.

~~~
L_Rahman
Part of the problem is that the race for college has been pushed earlier and
earlier as admissions has gotten more competitive.

Admission rates for colleges have been dropping across the board, for top tier
schools even more sharply. When success in life in large part is still defined
by one's undergraduate institution you can see why parents would focus on that
at the expense of everything else.

I'm not a parent yet, and am not planning to be in the near future, but I've
been thinking a lot about parenting now that I'm fully out of my childhood and
it basically seems to come down to a bunch of tough compromises.

~~~
squidfood
As a parent of an 8-year old, I don't think this is it at all. I think it's a
couple things.

1\. Cutbacks of "scheduled creativity" time at school. This is a HUGE one. In
the 70's, my school had an art class, music class, plenty of PE. Now, that's
hugely, hugely cut. If I want my kid to do art? music? sports? (she wants to,
after all). After-school scheduled activity time!

2\. 2 working parents. We're pretty free range, don't need to hover over
playing kids, but we need to be within walking distance (at home down the
street, or whatever). Juggling that "freely" as opposed to strictly-set
activities? Much harder. Even if you get 1 afternoon free a week, there aren't
other parents to trade off with.

3\. Basically, chicken-and-egg. If my kid doesn't have anyone to play with
because they're all off at activities, better to have them doing these
activities with their peers than sitting at home bored and idle (not that some
down/idle time isn't good, but there can be too much).

Can't think of ANYONE in my peer group who's worried about college for their
kids yet. Maybe in a couple years.

~~~
hosh
I think the 2 working parents in combination with commutes and non-walking
friendly neighborhoods killed it.

~~~
jleyank
YMMV. I went to school in mid 70's and both parents were working when I was in
HS and before. As others have posted, I was unsupervised. Could ride a bike
to/from school for 20-30 min etc. Not sure what all changed but the things I
read now suggest its way different than when I started. I hesitate to say
people seem younger but they do seem nastier and more self-focused. We had
stoners and grinds and everything in between. I seem to recall sex. And the
drug stories are legendary. Maybe the parents are trying to prevent their kids
doing the same?

Which, of course, does wonders for the forbidden fruit aspect of things. Oh,
and we had computers too. Big, slow things but they were there and just as fun
to play with. But their relative rarity forced us to be social to a degree.

I'll go back inside so you can play on my yard now :-).

~~~
hosh
As I mentioned, it was two working parents _and_ the move to surburbia. (Well,
I said non-walking-friendly neighborhoods, and didn't elaborate). This was
what changed.

These suburbs, often designed after 1950s, were designed for car travel,
rather than walking or biking. Many suburbs are designed with streets as
fractals, often without sidewalks. It might be a "safe" subdivision, but there
was a real risk in being run over by cars. Kids living in suburbia had to be
driven everywhere for activities.

It's no coincidence that the kids growing up in that environment and coming
into adulthood have increasingly moved to gentrified neighborhoods (the ones
designed for walking). There has been a decline in buying cars. Whether that
means allowing the kids to have free play remains to be seen. (But I suspect,
things like the popularity of the books, _The Dangerous Book for Boys_ , _The
Daring Book for Girls_ are indicative).

------
notacoward
So are parents.

I'm not complaining for myself, because incomes among programmers give us much
better options than most people, but I really feel sorry for people in the
middle class. Two parents working to make ends meet doesn't leave a lot of
time/energy for them to play either by themselves or with their children.
That's part of why kids get dumped into organized but relatively low-value
activities; it's the only way the parents get a break between waking and kids'
bedtimes. Unfortunately, it's not good for _any_ of them, or for society as a
whole.

~~~
Tichy
True, but what puzzles me is that few people seem to object to that state of
affairs. Maybe it is just that TV is that good at soothing emotions, or people
are already used to being worker drones from their childhood?

~~~
shrikant
"Temporarily embarrassed millionaires" syndrome?

------
diminoten
Having grown up in the 90s and 00s, I disagree. I had _tons_ of time to play,
and you know what I did with it? I played. Outside at first, then video games,
and I _still_ play now and then when I find time.

I've got a 13 yr old brother and a 10 yr old sister, and they play.
Anecdotally, this article is bunk. Kids play still, even if they are getting
shuttled off to various practices.

As a counterpoint to the rise in mental illnesses in children, isn't our
improved ability to test for illness, and our increased willingness to
diagnose mental disorders as much at play as any other cause?

In the 5 or so minutes it took me to read this article, I can't help but think
of this as yet another example of, "my childhood was great, the next
generation lost something!" that can be seen _throughout_ history. I'm no
expert, and I know nothing more than a layman does on the topic, but in my
limited experiences, I've found no such suggested problem.

I guess I just want my experience to be added to the data pile.

------
route66
Yes, it's only an anecdote, one of these which this kind of article provokes;
nevertheless it summarizes the content nicely.

I was giving guitar lessons some 20 years ago, among my students a well-
mannered and friendly little, maybe seven years of age. Being a bit shy he did
not tell much about himself, but he did not study much and I tried to find out
if he was bored with me or the instrument.

"It's just, that I do not have so much time to study. I also have recorder
lessons on Thursday and I get some extra private lessons because it's not
going so well in school"

As he continued he revealed a stunning package of forced child labour
extending into the weekend. Keyboard lessons, swimming, soccer (training and
competitions), judo (also contests every second weekend). Not a single free
minute.

Halfway the year he stopped. On the time of the guitar lessons his parents had
scheduled regular counselling with a psychologist.

This happened 20 years ago (in the Netherlands). While we tried to find a
kindergarten for our oldest sun two years ago, we learned that we could opt
for mathematical and English training in some of them (we live in Portugal
right now).

I understand that parenting also means: offering your child a future. For some
this means: education, keeping them busy, making them competitive as early as
possible. Not having done "the best" for your child: a nightmare, a failure!
But often doing your best is: having trust, do nothing and let things grow. No
need to hack your children.

------
MrVitaliy
It's virtually impossible to correlate decrease in "play time" and increase in
suicide rates apart from his anecdotal evidence.

Just because kids don't play the same way you did when you grew up doesn't
necessarily mean they're doing it wrong.

Tomorrow there will be a study suggesting video games are a better
intellectual stimuli for growing up and yield lower rates of accidental death
in children.

~~~
VLM
A little bit more specifically, the exact failure mode is in properly
identifying that mammals that are prevented from playing in multiple animal
studies pretty much turn into complete F-ups when they become adults, and
properly scientifically documents that human kids are prevented from playing
more over the years while perhaps coincidentally mental illness levels have
exploded in children.

So the specific failure mode is proving that totally F-ed up lower mammals
equates to suicide in human teens. Probably the only really scientific
conclusion you can gather is that forcing human kids (aka mammals) not to play
screws them up horribly.

Well, I'd love to sit here and debate with my HN buddies but as you know the
only hope for a middle class lifestyle is being in the top 5% so I gotta take
off and helicopter my 2nd grade daughter from Violin lessons to Chinese
lessons to Lacrosse League practice otherwise she'll never make it into
Stanford.

Note I'm kidding, I don't even let my kids join organized sports, although we
participate in totally dis-organized sports (aka, actually fun) at the park a
couple times per week. My son's actually getting good at hitting a baseball,
although no one keeps score.

~~~
konstantintin
why would you not allow your kids to play organized sports?

~~~
VLM
And I hate to reply twice but the other thing was organized sports =
responsibility responsibility responsibility. Pay your dues. Buy your uniform.
Responsible for getting your name and number on your uniform. Do your 10 hours
of "volunteer" groundskeeping after the games. Which kid (aka parent) is
responsible for the water bottles today, and which kid is bringing the snack
this week. Make sure you show up at 5:47 on wednesday on the dot or we'll have
to forfeit. You're responsible for 2nd base, I don't like being 2nd base, too
bad you're responsible. You're responsible to wear the proper color sweatpants
with your uniform shirt or whatever it was. All a bunch of totally non-fun BS.
Nothing to do with play or fun.

In comparison, disorganized sports at the park is awesome, your only
responsibility is not intentionally hurting another kid.

~~~
mrexroad
seriously?

organized sports were nothing like that for me during the late 80s / early
90s, nor are they like that now for my 7yo and 5yo boys. baseball is the same
now (in california) as it was for me growing up on the east coast. soccer is a
little different, but that seems more b/c of it's sheer popularity in these
parts.

only difference i really note is that they're a little more strict about
parents not helping out as assistant coaches unless they fill out a background
check and attend a single training session for tips on coaching children of
that age group. i don't object to either.

my boys love the sports they play.

note: they play at the recreational level, not competitive.

~~~
dragontamer
I grew up in the 90s.

Organized sports were mostly a fun thing until high school. In High School and
above, sports became deadly serious (scholarship, scholarship,
SCHOLARSHIP!!!), but before that it was almost simply playtime. I don't
remember ever being stressed about Soccer or Track and Field.

Even in High School, Track and Field remained a "fun" sport for me (I can't
fathom why anymore, but I remember enjoying running in the rain, and up/down
stairs and everything). It was pretty much "stay at your own pace", since
there were so many people at different skill levels.

I can imagine organized High School play to be stressful for a teenager, but I
can't fathom being stressed about any sport before then.

------
lifeisstillgood
look it's simple - there is a combination of fairly simple factors:

    
    
        l - parental distance (length)
        t - parental distance (time)
        F - Lord Of the Flies coefficient
        d - diversity of other children within reach
    
        TotalPositivePlay =   (l x t )
                              --------  raised to power of d
                                 F 
    
    

in short, if a group of parents take their children to a park and can see them
a hundred yards off for an hour, only have to intervene once to stop them
bullying the snivelly kid, and almost every race, creed and class are
represented in the kids - it will be a great day out.

So build for open or natural spaces, with good lines of sight and minimal
killers like cars, allow parents the time to relax and realise its ok for
Jimmy to run off for an hour because the shopping can wait, and then let them
teach kids not to follow their instincts but actually respect others smaller
and weaker then them, we might get over our fears.

yes we lean too much to DVDs and so on. but two weeks ago my kids and I
painted cardboard dragons, picked blue series from a bush, ran off and hid in
the woods, fell off swings and slides, made two meals and fought with foam
swords. oh and I felt I just put them in front of the TV all the time.

lighten up FFS. Cars, commuting and the easy lure of the TV has hurt how we
bring up children - but they also don't feel isolated, bored, or unprepared
for a rapidly changing new world.

but yes, lets cut back on the organised activites and just to to the park more
often.

------
peterwwillis
Sigh.

Without proper nutrition, they won't develop properly, to say nothing of being
able to play. I know it's unrelated, but it seems like everybody wants to
ignore the pink elephant in the room that American children aren't getting fed
well enough. Plenty of research has shown malnutrition causes a host of issues
in children that can affect them the rest of their life[4].

22 Million American children are on food stamps[1]. Keep in mind that 90% of
those food stamps are redeemed by the third week of the month (the average
meal per person comes out to about $1.50), and more than half of food bank
customers (who come back at least 6 months out of the year) are food stamp
recipients[2]. So families already can't afford to feed their kids on
subsidies alone. On top of that, the cuts this November in SNAP will make that
existing shortfall more drastic.[3]

I guess I just wanted to remind people that we're ignoring some bigger picture
issues here, probably because they're difficult and uncomfortable. Sorry.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
fix/wp/2013/07/11/th...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
fix/wp/2013/07/11/the-fight-over-food-stamps-explained/) [2]
[http://feedingamerica.org/how-we-fight-hunger/programs-
and-s...](http://feedingamerica.org/how-we-fight-hunger/programs-and-
services/public-assistance-programs/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-
program/snap-myths-realities.aspx#) [3]
[http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3899](http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3899)
[4]
[http://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/family_home/family/childcare/C...](http://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/family_home/family/childcare/Children_Childcare/Malnutrition+Impairs+US+Childrens+Health+Behavior+Says+LSU+AgCenter+Food+and+Nutrition+Expert.htm)

(my apologies to the international folks for having to read this rant; your
children are probably better off than many of ours)

~~~
john_b
I don't think the author would have any objection to your points. But
malnutrition is, to a large extent, an economic problem stemming from the fact
that, in most Western countries, healthy foods are generally more expensive
than unhealthy ones. The author is describing a problem that is largely
cultural, and which requires an entirely different approach to solve.

------
famo
Kids need some or all of the following things when growing up:

\- a creek or open stormwater drain to play in, be careful during rain \- a
field big enough to experiment with golf in without killing someone \- a
covert campground as a base to launch fire cracker attacks on the local youth
group \- somewhere to do wheelies without being hit by a car \- abandoned
stuff to explore, the older and dirtier the better \- a haunted looking house
to be scared of (containing an elderly person who occasionally appears at the
window) \- a beach, island or isthmus, to play Robinson Crusoe on \- some dirt
to create a marble obstacle course in \- a hoop and stick to make running more
useful \- a local cop who will make you do chores for trying to steal dinner
from the local prawn farm \- cane fields to get lost in \- loose rules to a
handful of sports \- a tall tree with branches overhanging a river to tie a
rope swing to \- some kind of farm nearby where one can meet a horse, cow,
goat or sheep

I'd also like to suggest a trampoline, but I'm keeping it out of the list
because you have to buy it. It is imperative though for the early stages of
learning to do somersaults in mid-air.

Thinking of all of these things from my childhood makes me somewhat lament the
fact that I now live in a tiny apartment in Sydney and hardly ever leave the
city.

------
Florin_Andrei
Not my children.

Thanks to parental controls, they have two hours of access to the flickering
rectangle during week-end days, and 1 hour Mon-Fri. Even that seems like a
lot. But anyway, that's it.

Once the OS kicks them out of the session, I "kick" them out of the house
(metaphorically, but on a jocular/stern tone). Go and do some mischief
outside.

~~~
tedks
Great, I'm sure they'll have a lot in common with their peers and a wide
familiarity with their generation's culture when it comes time for them to
interact with people whose lives you don't control.

As someone who also was forbidden to engage with popular culture (for vastly
different reasons but essentially the same effects), I think it's great for
children to grow up alienated and unable to connect with their peer group.
This forces them to develop as individuals rather than as cogs in the machine
of society.

~~~
tcskeptic
A total allowance of 9 hours per week is hardly being forbidden to engage with
popular culture.

~~~
tedks
It means they'll know one thing. They won't have time to get into anything
else. Every day, they'll have to make the decision to play the one video
game/watch the one TV show they know they'll like, or take a risk on something
new. They'll choose the safe bet every time. This means they'll not be the
Amish kids, they'll just be the kids that are really obnoxious about Power
Rangers, talk about Power Rangers all the time, wear only Power Rangers
clothes, but have never seen any other shows or played any other video games.

It's a great strategy if you're trying to breed risk-averse, close-minded
social outcasts.

~~~
tcskeptic
This is entirely contrary to my experience. My kids have slightly looser
controls in the summer, tighter during the school year and it just doesn't
work like that. My kids watch a range of stuff, have a range of friends, and
all have skinned knees from playing outside _with their friends_ which seems
not to be a trajectory of social outcasts. I will remind my daughter who
currently has a shiner on her forehead from trying (and ultimately succeeding)
to do a trick on her rip stick that she should be more risk averse. In my
experience coaching, the kids with no media limits are either from poor
families or are the real dullards of the group.

------
dugmartin
I guess my kids didn't get the memo. They had an early release today from
school today and are in the backyard building a teepee out of sticks with a
friend and playing a game that apparently involves a lot of running and
giggles (at least that is what I hear inside in my home office).

My oldest did ask if she could play Minecraft as soon as she got home but I
told her no and that she should go build something real (I guess that is where
the teepee idea came from).

------
kyberias
Wait. Does the author offer any evidence for these claims: "What I learnt in
my hunter-gatherer education has been far more valuable to my adult life than
what I learnt in school, and I think others in my age group would say the same
if they took time to think about it."

Just "thinking about it" proves this?

~~~
jamesaguilar
You have to dress "get off my lawn" up a little, or else no one will pay you
any attention. The irony of "think of the children not getting enough outside
time" coming from these guys, self included, who spend too much time
commenting on Hacker News won't escape the astute observer either.

------
cyanbane
I always return to the question of: "Is the shorter amount of time for outdoor
non-directed play _bad_ or just _different_ for my kids (compared to my
childhood)?".

This read failed to convince me of the former. That being said, it did
convince me to pick up the author's book.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its a change; unprecedented in the history of mankind. So don't accept it
blindly. Nothing about the makeup of humans prepared them for a childhood of
over-supervised planned activities and a near-total lack of open-ended peer
interaction.

Its a bigger risk to just blindly forge ahead with kids addicted to chat,
sugar and the internet.

~~~
VLM
The Greek Spartan child rearing model, at least for boys? Historical documents
would have mentioned if Spartan men turned out completely screwed up compared
to Spartan women... probably. The ancients certainly enjoyed playing the
compare and contrast game with the Athenians and it never seemed to come up in
the numerous differences.

Also the model probably breaks down into its not terribly clear how
oversupervised Spartan boys were. Its still probably a historical model worth
considering.

~~~
sologoub
I wonder if the militaristic upbringing served to remove the narcissism. An
army requires a lot of cohesion and sacrifice. How well they were socially
adapted, probably mattered less in a militaristic society.

------
unimpressive
I played until the other kids stopped coming outside to play. Even then I
still played a little, riding my scooter around the neighborhood. But after I
ran out of friends where I lived (They either got sick, moved away, or decided
they were too cool for me.) I got bored sitting by myself outside and started
trolling the Internet or playing video games more.

Grew up in the 2000's.

------
Asterick6
This is a nice article. I think this longform format provides a lot more
substantial and stimulating topics/content than any other online websites or
digital magazines. This (Aeon) and Nautilus
([http://nautil.us](http://nautil.us)) are probably the only two online
magazines that are worthwhile to read.

------
eli_gottlieb
Hell, I'm an adult and I suffer a severe deficit of play.

~~~
VLM
Hackerspace = adult playground.

~~~
AznHisoka
a place where you get no exercise, are surrounded by testosterone, and get no
Vitamin D doesn't sound like much of a playground :(

~~~
VLM
The closest one to me, which is still way too far away to actually join and
use, is "famous" for inventing the idea of putting giant electric motors in
kids car toys and then driving them around ridiculously fast until they break
or hurt themselves. Bunch of people hanging out socially and mostly screwing
around accomplishing nothing but having fun, sounds like "play". I suppose it
depends a lot on which hacker space you hang out at, there probably are boring
ones.

------
hoffcoder
There is this oft-repeated idea in modern culture: do what you love, and love
what you do. But how do you find your passion? How does a person know what to
aim for in life? I think it is the extra curricular activities that you do
which determine if you'd find your passion. All the time that you spend in
tinkering with stuff, reading books, playing games, hanging out with friends
after school is the time you could find that. It is true that those passions
change with age, but with any luck and a good teacher / parent) those passions
could become your vocations. I remember the intial scene of the movie 'Spirit:
Stallion of the Cimarron' and realize that childhood is that time when we are
free to experiment, unfettered by society's rules.

Schools teach us how to be disciplined and work hard, but a creative and a
critical mind requires more to survive. It requires an atmosphere of similar
kind of people, a place to keep on practicing its creativity.

------
EGreg
The classroom should be inverted. Each kid should get an ipad or some other
tablet, with lessons delivered at home from a marketplace of "best courses"
that the schools purchase. Every school day the school could have quizzes to
tedt whether the student learned the previous day. If they missed some topics
or nuances, they'd get it fixed later that day in smaller classes with more
individual attention. If they got everything they can just go home and enjoy
the day.

The motivation for kids to learn would be that they won't have to be stuck in
school all day (and be accused of having ADD) and they won't miss out playing
basketball wrh their friends if they learn everything the night before. It
also makes them practice autonomy, self-direction and time management, and
lessons by a really good teacher can be delivered to hundreds of thousands of
kids instead of 30 -- with multimedia. In addition, kids would be able to
paude it, grab lunch with friends, study with friends, etc. And yet they'd
still practice being accountable but on a day-by-day basis so the price of
"failure" is low.

School should be for social collaboration, remedial help, and practicing.
That's where the tutors should be, not at home. Home should be a place of
comfort and learning. The internet contains so much information, and by
integrating lessons with tablet computers, kids get to develop modern habits
of researching stuff online. They might even learn to manage the ADD that
comes with being on a million sites at once. If they get restless they can go
play basketball or explore and do something physical outside.

Such a school will not happen, sadly, because the goal of schools is to act as
a daycare center to keep kids occupied most of the day -- while both parents
work. This is what "a good economy" looks like?

This is the kind of school I'd like to send my kids to. Sadly the closest
approximation right now is homescholing.

~~~
betterunix
"a marketplace of "best courses" that the schools purchase"

The last thing we need is more attempts to shoehorn market-based approaches to
education into our schools. Ignoring the matter of corruption among the school
boards that would choose such courses (take a look at how textbooks are
purchased for comparison) and the matter of politcally motivated interests
that would undermine whatever market you manage to set up, we do not need the
sort of close-to-the-margins, race-to-the-bottom, divide-and-conquer-the-
customers approach that markets produce in other fields. Markets produce the
kind of results that evolution produces -- sometimes beautiful things,
sometimes disgusting things.

Higher education has already been undermined by market-based approaches. By
focusing on what students are willing to buy, universities have lost sight of
their academic mission. You see it in CS departments, where tough courses are
watered down, where theoretical topics are pushed aside to make room for
vocational training. You see it in humanities departments, assuming you can
even locate them. You see it in the money spent trying to make schools look
like suburban malls during a time when library hours are being curtailed to
"save money."

I would also be wary of creating a monoculture, where the most popular
curricula become universal and everyone comes out of school with the exact
same way of thinking about the world. There is something to be said for
encouraging some amount of diversity in our education system -- which is what
happens when teachers develop their own curricula.

~~~
EGreg
What's better, having courses delivered at home which are specifically created
because of an incentive (money, wide distribution, etc.) with great production
values, or having a huge proportion of the students be exposed to subpar
courses delivered en masse in a classroom where everyone takes the same notes,
and if they go to the bathroom or skip a class they miss something?

If there's a particular math lesson that was specially designed to teach kids
in an awesome way, e.g. by an expert in teaching micro-steps one by one (and
possibly be tailored to each kid through interactive features) ... why
shouldn't more kids have it? Of course you should videotape it, and distribute
it to as many kids as possible. And all this is possible, far more cheaply
than paying an army of math teachers -- some worse than others -- to deliver
"lectures" to kids sitting still 8 hours a day in class.

------
adventured
I had that childhood in Appalachia in the 1980s, while still having a TV / VCR
/ Nintendo. During the day my mother would kick us all outside however, so I
spent most of my time in the woods playing, or shooting hoops in the driveway,
or playing wiffle ball and so on. Usually weekend nights were dedicated to
video games, and daytime was for being outside.

Interestingly however, in the last 15 years apparently the area where I grew
up has seen a substantial decline in participation by children in sports and
other activities. What caused that? I can only think of three possibilities:
1) decline in parenting 2) obesity and or diet 3) cheap, plentiful digital
gadgets (or a combination). Parents seem to be almost universally allowing
their children to obsessively play with smart phones, tablets, etc. And many
parents I know buy their kids big screen TV's for their rooms and video game
consoles.

------
Patrick_Devine
I try to let my kids be as free range as possible. They don't watch any tv and
organized play is kept to a minimum. I think it works pretty well, however any
problems that come up are usually due to other people freaking out.

Either I get a lot of "you don't let your kids watch tv?!" type comments, or a
random stranger will freak out because my kids are not tethered to me. I've
had strangers stop while walking/riding their bike down my road and ask my
daughters (the oldest is five) where they live while I'm working in the garden
in the next yard over.

I honestly have no proof that raising kids like this is any better than
letting them watch media or be in organized activities all the time. My
reasoning is mostly based on how I was raised. I loved it and feel like I
turned out reasonably well.

~~~
jes5199
I love the free-range kids movement, and if I have kids I'll join it,

but I really don't understand the no-TV thing. When I was a kid I filled my
room with televisions and computer monitors, and I watched two tv shows while
I listened to top 40 radio while I alternated between playing Mario Bros and
writing Pascal programs. It was the magic formula for helping me think
clearly.

As an adult, I live in a no-TV house and I work in a quiet room on a single
laptop, and I can never concentrate as well as I did back then.

------
MichaelMoser123
My daughter was at a Democratic school in Israel last year, and things did not
work out for us quite well for us.

One problem I see that they don't like to discipline any wrongdoings, the
proper way for that is for the collective to decide at the 'commission for
discipline''; my daughter was in constant terror of being referred to the
'discipline commission'; kids who where more violent generally ignored this
threat, as a result there are few means of handling/discipline real offenders.
In a way the result that stronger and more rowdy kids are favored and so they
tend to impose their will on others.

Another problem is that somehow humans always build hierarchies, so there is
no such thing as a egalitarian society, even in grade A. So unconstrained
'Bullying Betty' again tends to get her will against all others; now if her
parent is a teacher in the institution than that will somehow get 'bullying
Betty' another head start; In our place I could discern several hierarchies,
somehow at the center there always were the kids whose parents worked at the
institution.

Also kids tend to compare themselves to others, even if there are no grades
they will create their own distinctions;

Now another major problem is that still kids will have to get some input from
grown ups; the requirement to learn how to read and write will put you in
front of a teacher; the teacher in our case would have to handle a loud class
where every pupil would be on a different level ( they can walk out of classes
), I think the teacher in our case was not up to the task; now of course the
results were blamed on our daughter; interestingly once she got out of the
institution my daughter started to learn well.

So for me, as for other similar cases at our school the bright idea did not
work out; We put our daughter into a general school, and she was thankful for
the change, she does not look back;

I would say that the ideal of democratic schools is similar to the ideal of
Communism: the ideal sounds great, but the implementation always turns the
idea into shit.

------
pintglass
We have two problems:

1\. Forced activities (sports, music, dance, etc.) and having to drive and fly
all over with kids for these activities. These activities do not let kids
imagine or have long amounts of free-play, though the arts aren't terrible in
that regard, and they do foster relationships which might help your kids make
friends to go play and have free time. So it is a trade off.

2\. Too much homework. When homework is 3-4 hours a night in elementary
school, something is wrong. If you are a strict homeschooler that has the kids
working 24/7 or have kids in a private school where they spend 3 hours doing
homework too often, talk to the teachers, and if that doesn't help, consider
public school.

------
c2prods
I'm fascinated by how schools methodically kill any sense of creativity. The
OLPC team once conducted an experiment where they left a few tablets to kids
who didn't know how to read nor how to use a computer. Yet, in 5 month, they
learned how to hack Android and enable stuff that had been previously disabled
by the OLPC team (I believe for security reasons, some sort of parental
control). What this example illustrates is how schools create clone workers
rather than hackers. And I strongly believe our society needs more hackers, as
they apparently are the only ones to be able to foster our world's
development.

------
ianb
Coincidentally I just came upon the term "Concerted Cultivation"
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerted_cultivation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerted_cultivation))
which describes the modern middle class typical parenting, the very thing that
leaves kids with little time to play. Working back from that you get to the
book _Unequal Childhoods_ which contrasts middle class and working class
parenting
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unequal_Childhoods#Parenting_St...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unequal_Childhoods#Parenting_Styles)).
I find the contrast interesting:

" _Concerted Cultivation_ : The parenting style, favored by middle-class
families, in which parents encourage negotiation and discussion and the
questioning of authority, and enroll their children in extensive organized
activity participation. This style helps children in middle-class careers,
teaches them to question people in authority, develops a large vocabulary, and
makes them comfortable in discussions with people of authority. However, it
gives the children a sense of entitlement.

" _Achievement of Natural Growth_ : The parenting style, favored by working-
class and lower-class families, in which parents issue directives to their
children rather than negotiations, encourage the following and trusting of
people in authority positions, and do not structure their children's daily
activities, but rather let the children play on their own. This method has
benefits that prepare the children for a job in the "working" or "poor-class"
jobs, teaches the children to respect and take the advice of people in
authority, and allows the children to become independent at a younger age."

\----

When contrasted against Achievement of Natural Growth it's not so surprising
that parents have decided to take another path. Simple romanticism about the
past isn't really that helpful. Just kick the kid out of the house and let
them play? People talk about the lack of peers that aren't similarly scheduled
up, but I see kids all the time who are left free... and I'm not comfortable
with how those kids are developing in that environment. Not that they aren't
fine playmates, but it's not a kind of parenting I would want to imitate. And
a lot of the efforts pushing for more structured time (more afterschool
activities, full day kindergarten, universal preschool) are directed towards
those kids that need it. But of course we all get washed up in it, even if
increased structure is only needed by a segment of the population.

There are other models. Consider for instance _Tools Of The Mind_
([http://www.toolsofthemind.org/](http://www.toolsofthemind.org/)), a
preschool program that has shown surprising success. It incorporates a lot of
pretend play, but adds structure to that pretend play. But it's not
authoritarian structure. Adults are really important to children, we have a
lot to offer. We can enhance play, get kids out of ruts, enhance the
environment, help kids match up their desires with productive paths of
learning. Which also means giving them independence at the right time. And
sometimes at the wrong time. And sometimes kids need to be understimulated.
But it's not that simple.

From the article: "You can’t teach creativity; all you can do is let it
blossom. Little children, before they start school, are naturally creative." I
don't buy that. _Teaching_ creativity might be going a bit far, but it can
absolutely be nurtured and inspired. Children, when just left alone, DO NOT DO
WELL. I know just interjecting myself in a kids play for 30 seconds, at the
right time, can considerably improve the creativity of their play. My nephew
has been pretty into playing with blocks lately, but kind of repeating
himself. I started making a bridge with a ramp, and he's been obsessed with
those forms for the last few days, trying new configurations, larger
structures, bridges across corners, all sorts of stuff. Real creativity, he's
not just copying what I did. But he needed a little inspiration.

Do you just let kids work out all their problems between each other on their
own? Sometimes kids work things out well. Sometimes they fight, often they
bully, sometimes they are deliberately cruel, or depressingly meek. Setting up
a bunch of rules is a bad solution too. Never hit! Now you can't play fight
with paper towel rolls. And you can't learn how to interact physically without
hurting each other. Always share! Or: always ask before taking! Or: turns! But
sometimes one kid _really_ wants something, and the other kid just happens to
be holding that thing. Or sometimes a kid is just immitating, they ignored the
toy until they saw someone else enjoying it. But the negotiated response is
more sophisticated than any rule. Ask, trade, offer, come up with a creative
way to both play with the toy. Acknowledge that not all kids communicate well
with language, but body language is often more than enough to work on. But
this doesn't happen on its own. As the kids get older, they don't communicate
constructively on their own, or resolve their own conflicts, _but they can do
those things_. They need help. Not rules, not structures to define their
interactions, but they need engaged adults (or older children).

I don't really disagree with this article. But it's a critique that lacks
empathy with the parental decisions that got us to where we are, and it does
not respond to the concerns those parents have had. I think there's a way to
achieve both, parenting isn't a choice somewhere on the line between two
extremes, there's no limit to the number of novel and engaged choices
available to us.

~~~
dgreensp
A good preschool will teach everything you mention, while letting kids play
pretty much 100% of the time, with just enough adult interaction to provide
structure and guidance. It exists and no one campaigns for it to be longer or
stricter. Preschool is not the problem, and I don't think it's the subject of
the article. It's ages 4-18.

I don't remember any lesson that adults were to be questioned and authority
challenged in my preppy, over-scheduled suburban upbringing. Mostly I just
internalized the value of sitting, shutting up, doing what I was told, being
smart, getting the right answer, and laboring constantly on meaningless work
products.

You've identified the useful 10% or so of school and used it to argue against
a straw man of no school and an idle life.

~~~
ianb
The kids in my life are young at the moment, so I'm biased towards the
experiences at those younger ages – and certainly more poisonous structures
lurk as they get older. On the other hand, I'm not sure why you think I'm
talking about school. The article is mostly not about school, and my reaction
isn't about school, it's about the hours outside of school.

And no, preschools do not generally allow children to be physical with each
other, and they tend towards rule-based conflict resolution instead of direct
engagement, which are some of the specific examples I brought up.

------
ausjke
Excellent article, can't agree with it more. What can we do about this? Home
schooling them? Move to countryside and telecommute for job? I can accept
either of the options, but the sad truth is that, we can not find the right
communities for kids to do non-constructed play anymore, as everyone else is
doing what the article describes no matter where we go and what we do. The
only option is probably to have many kids so they play together within the
family, while moving to countryside.

------
MichaelMoser123
Children play less on their own, because they MUST be controlled; on every
level of society the level of control is tightened, everything must be
regulated by some authority.

Eric Schmidt is right 'surveillance ... is the nature of our society'

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/13/eric-schmidt-
go...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/13/eric-schmidt-google-nsa-
surveillance)

Maybe its just that society is becoming more and more authoritarian ?

------
hownottowrite
[http://archive.org/details/playman00groogoog](http://archive.org/details/playman00groogoog)

------
speeder
This is awesome.

My early childhood I was more free, the school had less rules and structure,
and more importantly, I had loads of free time that my mother let me spend
with my friends that lived in the same building.

I remember how we learned not only physical stuff, but also theoretical one,
purely out of curiosity, like one night where we all sat on the ground, and
wondered why the sky was blue even at night. (resulting into a couple of us
that knew how to read go read books, so that then we could impress others with
our newfound knowledge, resulting into everyone learning why the sky was
blue).

Also, when I was around 5 years old, I had a female friend on school that I
grew very close, we became natural leaders of our class, we were the most
intelligent students (not hard when your class has 8 people, the female friend
was asian, and my parents gave me lots of books since before I could read),
the most playful ones (when others wanted a new game, they would ask us to
invent it), and although individually we were the usual bully victims (since
we were the nerdy types with glasses), we two were respected, other kids
looked to us to what to do when shit happened (like when one girl got hurt by
a bee, me and my female friend quickly figured how to carry her from the place
where she was, and find a adult, and ice).

Also I visited her home a couple times, and although I was very young, I might
say that I DID saw her as someone I wanted to be with the rest of my life.

Then the first grade came, it was in a huge school (I moved from a school with
80 students to one with 7500 students), my parents told me (correctly) that
now things would be "serious" and that I would start to learn how to work (I
guess, "work" as in be in a corporate environment).

Although I changed schools many times after, some things were constant:

First, I did not gave a fuck for whatever the school taught, my first 2 years
(first and second grade) teachers saw me as the stupid kid (because I never
finished my copy of the blackboard, getting distracted by other things, and
also because I frequently failed to finish my tests on time, both situations
would result into me being berated, and then me crying), when I learned to
"play along" instead I became the genius (ie: all tests I had the maximum
score), not because I learned what teachers taught me, but because I already
(before first grade) had as hobby read the school books the fastest as I could
(I love reading, sometimes I spend 3, 4 hours daily reading wikipedia, or
everything linked here in HN), and because I disliked getting berated for not
copying stuff or not doing homework.

But that time, I also learned that the other kids were NOT my friends, they
were competitors, they were people to crush, destroy or annihilate, with
better grades, or just go and punch them in the face when they piss me off and
I will get away with it, because if I avoided that, they would do with me...
Until the fourth grade I was bullied heavily (well, I was bullied until I left
university), but on when I reached the fifth grade I started to learn that
being cruel, being fearsome, destroying other people, made them bully you
less... I still could not bring myself to throw a rock into a girl head (like
some guy in my seventh grade class did), because I thought that going to
downright evil was not the day, but doing any bullying that would not get
teachers worried, was worth it, like sabotaging other people, setting them to
fail, usually all that as revenge, never first strike, because then people
would come for you, but revenge, ooh, that was sweet. The sweetest one was
kicking a guy mouth in the middle of a group photo (all students of the
school, lined up in a ramp, with all staff of the school looking, the guy was
annoying me the entire day, and decided as final trick of the day, steal my
hat and make me lose my balance so the photo captured me in ankward manner,
and I decided that the best course of action was kick him in the mouth so hard
that made him tumble down the ramp, and made all girls run around screaming in
panic).

Only about 4 years ago (I am 25) now I started to realise how all this is
fucked up, I became a sort of psycho, in my final school years I envied the
columbine people and wanted to do the same...

Now I am playing catchup, my first kiss I was 23 (at 23 years old, is the
first time that I felt for a girl what I felt for that one when I was 5/6), I
left college realising that if I had not joined it in first place and instead
took a job, I would be better at the job and would have more money (currently
50% of my money is to pay debt, and my net worth is deeply negative), and I
have no friends (except one of the guys of the building I lived when I was 5,
IF I can really consider him a friend, it is already 2 years that I don't
visit him), at weekends I have nothing to do but stay at home or see my SO,
when I need money for my startup, there is noone to ask, when I want to play
split screen multiplayer games, there is noone to ask either, board games is a
family thing only, and when former school people come to talk with me (usually
because they need me...), I still feel really weird (ie: I feel lots of
things, among them desire to revenge, fear, desire to murder them,
ressentment, frustation...).

I feel like if my life between 8 years old and 20 years old was non-existant,
like a black hole in my history, something that left more negative things in
me than positive.

I wish there was a way, to do it all over again, to learn how to have friends,
to have playful time with people I can trust, to not have this stupid debts,
to not be unhealthy like I am now (I only learned how to eat properly
recently, I am struggling very heard to get my weight below 100kg, I did
managed to reach 99kg last year, but I am 118kg now), or not be weak as I am
now (not having much physical play means I struggle to carry everyday items
with my arms sometimes, my dad that never went to the gym and is a engineer,
can carry stuff much heavier than I can, my grandpa is always much stronger
than me, if he wants he can lift me! also he never went to the gym, and his
hobby right now is lottery statistics, he spent most of his time of the day
writing numbers in a sheet).

My first girlfriend broke with me after I told her I would not send my kids to
school, no matter what. (in Brazil this is dangerous, since it is a crime and
government DO arrest you if you refuse to send kids to school).

I feel like mandatory "education" is one of the most evil things you can do to
a kid.

I DO prize some sort of schools, but only if the kids WANT to be there,
because a school where schools don't want to be there, they use their time
ruining the day of those that want. (ie: when a teacher DID managed to get my
attention, usually talking about physics, someone else would be throwing
erasers at the teacher, or kicking my chair, or hiding my backpack, or
atheists stealing my bible and playing soccer with it, then calling themselves
rational and reasonable...)

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Thank you for sharing this story.

Have you read any books by John Taylor Gatto or Charlotte Iserbyt? If not, the
entire compulsory school agenda will be swiftly illuminated once you do.

------
malkia
Growing up in Bulgaria (I was born 1976) I caught the last years of
"communism" (there was never such thing really), but I caught a lot of good
time as a kid.

A lot of the classic bulgarian kid movies were about kids roaming the streets
of the city, village, forest, etc. For example the whole family goes to a
tourist resort, beach, and then you see kids of different ages going together
somewhere.

One of my favourite shows as a kid was Verano Azul (spanish - Blue Summer)
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verano_azul](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verano_azul))
- it was very popular on Bulgaria, and it also reflected the kind of play we
used to have in there.

One of my other popular shows (Blake's 7, we did not had Star Trek back then)
- was also very popular - outside we would play as characters from the show -
like Zen, Oracle, Blake and other characters from the show. Sometimes few,
othertimes dozen, and few times we were like 40-50 kids gathered from group
ages from 1st to 8 or 9th grade playing together (bullying was all the time
there I guess, I've never noticed it seriously - it wasn't an open concept,
neither taboo - more like unknown thing - that just happens and you deal with
it. It's different now that you know it, and have a child on your own, and
live in USA - like me).

As kids, often we would go to the nearest construction site (usually high-rise
building in construction) and do stupid things. It was the norm to fight with
sticks - plastic or wood, throw stones, rocks at each other - and almost
everyday come with blood here and there (no big deal, I survived).

My biggest adventure by far was, when me and my one year older cousin (he was
6 or 7 then) took the road to walk from one city (Chernomoretz, Bulgaria) to
another (Burgas) - here is the route on google maps -
[http://goo.gl/EfRMsK](http://goo.gl/EfRMsK) \- It's 26km - and we walked,
took some bus, did a lot of stupid things (bent signs, ate stuff that we
should not do). But overall had pretty good time. We started off like
8:00-9:00AM in the morning, and showed up at my grandparents apartment
somewhere in afternoon. It was all because I thought we need an important
plastic truck which was there.

Then with my other grandma we went couple of times to her village in the
summer, and there I would roam the village, river, forest (
[http://goo.gl/8HyhbQ](http://goo.gl/8HyhbQ) ) - and come back late at night,
sometimes 10:00pm, sometimes 2:00am - and I was 2nd or 3rd grade.

I guess she was afraid, but one thing she knew, or kind of expected it - is
that other people if told that I'm lost would look for me, scorn me if they
had to.

In short: I had respect of everyone bigger than me, and everyone else too. The
situation in USA currently is that the first time you open your mouth against
some kid to scorn him, and you might end up in prison. And that might be the
right thing to do... But it's very unhelpful, since the kids no longer respect
you.

It's quite different now with our son (soon to be 6) - he grows much faster
than me emotionally, intellectually - he asks things that I would've asked
much later in my kids' life. On top of that he's supposed to start his real
life working much older than me (if he's willing to finish uni/ etc.)

Got the "Dangerous book for Boys" and would seen read it to him. I have to
learn some american stuff after all (for example I do only understand the
rules of soccer and basketball) :)

~~~
VLM
Bulgaria in the 80s sounds about like suburban Wisconsin in the 80s.

One interesting observation is that many women (such as my mom) were stay at
home moms or part timers at most. Despite Mom being around all the time, we
roamed pretty wild. Modern standard is to have both parents work AKA latchkey
kids, etc. First guess would be without Mom (and neighbor Moms) around, kids
would go totally wild compared to old days. The opposite has happened, which
is interesting. I know when we drove our mom nuts, we would be deported to the
park, and we were hardly the only kids to drive our moms nuts and end up
playing in the park.

------
tudorw
[http://fairplayforchildren.org/](http://fairplayforchildren.org/) has a lot
of good play related resources, it is a very small organisation so go easy on
the site!

------
zwieback
The pendulum is swinging back already. I think this article is a few years
behind the trend. Also, the idea that US schools are just about testing,
testing, testing is a bunch of Quatsch.

------
FoeNyx
slightly HS : I find it difficult to start to read an article when the first
image caption has such a blatant error "In the country of Le Grandes Meaulnes"
( vs
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Grand_Meaulnes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Grand_Meaulnes)
)

(but then I remember it's hard to master a second language and that this
comment is probably full of 'blatant' errors)

------
Havoc
Countries with a billion USD Lego budget would go a long way in saving many
social evils imo.

------
armenarmen
in my neighborhood growing up, from time to time a parent would come and try
'coach' us during pickup football games. At this point about 1/3 of us would
quit playing. Buzzkilling.

------
tedks
The author makes a good point and seemingly provides good data to support
their thesis, but it doesn't overcome the bias I have against several argument
templates which are almost always wrong:

* Idealization of "hunter-gatherer" societies -- this is the root of many a fad diet and self-improvement methodology, but whenever I'm faced with a choice of doing something a hunter-gatherer would have done or doing what I can do now in modernity, I almost always choose modernity. Medicine, sanitation, pooping indoors, and not dying at 20 is very appealing. The "freedom" afforded to people in the past is a great attractor (as a communist in undergrad, I'd frequently hear how people in pre-industrial societies rarely worked, and how THAT was the inflection point where everything went to shit). But ultimately, most of us agree the future is better than the past.

* Argument ad Evolution -- Evolution frequently produces working machines, but it nearly never produces optimal machines. No architect would design a building with one central support structure, and no camera-maker would occlude the light sensor with a wire. Most of the advances of human society have come from disregarding evolution and the "natural" order of things, not from adhering to them.

* "____ cannot be taught" \-- in this case, creativity. Artistic schools have existed for millennia; whole areas of modernity are dedicated to creatively solving problems, and it would be very surprising if there were really no verbally expressible heuristics or even systematic exercises that lead to a person subjected to them becoming better at creating ideas. I'm not sure what the measures used in the article are, and am skeptical of them because good measures are hard to create. But I can note that society as a whole remains fairly creative, and that we haven't descended into a pit of Idiocracy as of yet.

As with most things, it's likely that some combination of the two approaches
is correct. The current educational system and parental culture could probably
use significant overhaul, but it's also not currently based in very much
science. It's likely that whatever optimal solution exists relies on brain
machinery created by evolution, but the way that machinery is honed will be by
a process that has never existed in nature (similar to how the fat-creation
process is honed by hyperstimulating foods). I would personally like it if the
best way for education to happen were by a process that was fun, engaging, and
centered around the autonomy of learners, but that may not be the case, and
I'd rather have well-educated and capable future generations of humans than
have humans that are as similar as possible to their ancestors.

~~~
mikevm
> Medicine, sanitation, pooping indoors, and not dying at 20 is very
> appealing.

IIRC, the low life expectancy of hunter-gatherers is mostly due to the high
infant/child mortality. You can see similar life expectancy graphs in several
animal species. Basically, once you reach a certain age, you have a high
probability of living up to a decently high age.

Regarding "Medicine, sanitation, pooping indoors", well, all of these became
problems because of the Agricultural Revolution, where people lived in densely
populated areas together with their domesticated animals. Diseases slowly
spread from the animals to the humans, and the density and lack of
sanitization increased mortality by helping disease spread quickly. The
Agricultural Revolution also forced humans to do back breaking jobs for which
our bodies were not built for (working hunched over in the fields, or carrying
heavy weights on our backs), and shrunk our varied diet into mostly eating
grains and grain-based foods.

So I think you should probably re-think your poor view of hunter-gatherer
societies.

~~~
tedks
People always quote this, and I always wonder why it makes any difference.

People in hunter-gatherer societies weren't "more healthy" than we are (as you
imply in a later comment). Most people in hunter-gatherer societies died as
infants. I don't consider that healthy, and I consider infants people.

 _On average_ , most hunter-gatherers died at 20. In reality, virtually all
hunter-gatherers died at 0, and the few that survived might live to 60.

Again: this is the "things were better in the past" / "evolution is always
right" argument template, and it's virtually always wrong.

~~~
mikevm
It makes a difference because people assume that it's been a constant
improvement ever since hunter-gatherer times, and it probably wasn't. I'm
saying that the quality of life for most people probably went downhill ever
since the Agricultural Revolution, and what humanity has been doing ever since
was trying improve it using medicine, science, sanitization, and more.

I'm not saying that the hunter-gatherers were healthier than we are _today_
(note my use of "might've" in the original post), but evidence shows that the
lives of people in post-hunter-gatherer societies was worse.

Life expectancy went up considerably only in the very recent past:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time)
[Note the reduction of life expectancy in the Neolithic (agricultural
revolution).]

Anyways, I'm not an expert on the subject and I don't have the energy to start
going through papers and digging up more rigorous data.

~~~
tedks
How can you say quality of life has gone down when most people from hunter-
gatherer times died as infants?

Dying as an infant would be a pretty shit quality of life in my book, I don't
know about you.

