Summer Days That Stretch Up to Dinnertime

The kitchen screen door bangs shuts behind me as I fly across the wet yard heading to the pond, my little sister trailing behind me. Her legs are half the length of mine; I can see her blondeness trying to keep up. It’s another summer day on Grenoble Manor Farm, and my great fortune is that Mom and Dad have rented this farm until we can find a permanent place. I hope it’s here, I hope it’s here, I hope it’s here.

It won’t be here; we’ll rent this farm for about a year before we have to move to another house on a busier road, no pond, a meager backyard, but a backyard nonetheless. Mom always insisted on that. She wanted her kids playing outside. I can still see her snapping o the TV before her indignant brood of couch potatoes. So we were forced to build forts, Barbie mansions, playhouses out of odd things we’d gather from our garage and at one house they rented, a chicken coop at the edge of the yard. We rode bikes, sprayed hoses, built obstacle courses and pretended we were in the Olympics.

For now, it’s early morning and a whole day looms ahead. Frogs, sticks, insects, muck, the matted muddy path around the lapping water, twining, reaching vines, a world of possibilities and us, my ‘lil sis and I in our outside heaven.

I’m here to advocate for summer days that stretch long ways to dinnertime. I’m not here to knock anyone’s proclivity for video gaming or binge-watching shows, but when it comes to kids, give me a rambunctious 8-year-old on a summer day mission in a worn-out t-shirt and shorts any day.

Give me the chance to wipe out a morning with no awareness of time. Let me run back home when hunger calls to slap together a fast peanut-butterand-jelly sandwich and gobble it down before racing out again, no questions asked. Give me a meager bamboo pole that can catch a fish that will wiggle oily and cold in my hand as I try to pry the hook from its hardened lips, toss it back, try again. Let me run to the stoney springhouse at the pond’s edge and use my weight to open the door, step over the broad, flat rocks set in mud; chilly respite from a smoldering July. Let me take in the cold reminder of olden days, stoney ones filled with ghosts and pilgrims and hoop skirts with wet hems hauling buckets of fresh drink to the main house.

Thought: Cell phones are expensive not only literally, but figuratively. Parenting changes dramatically when you have to babysit a device, enforcing safety, balance, good choice-making. It’s exhausting. With kids getting iPads and Smartphones earlier and earlier, consider this: the adventure of summer camp is more valuable to a kid’s heart than a phone in his hand. My sister and I wouldn’t swap our summer day adventures for anything. Think about that as you make plans for your kids for this upcoming summer. Planning time is ramping up.

Summer days spent outside is a healthy rite of passage for kids — and one that you actually need them to experience. Be like my Mom snapping o the TV in front of my siblings and me. We didn’t like it at first, but she pushed us out into the world where we discovered ourselves. I’ll take summer camp adventures of all kinds over the mindless scrolling found on TikTok any day. Oh, and I’ll take that with a s’more, please.