September 20, 2015 - 15:39
Childhood is typically characterized as a period of unfettered, carefree innocence. When we are children, the world expects less of us and we are bound to no serious obligations or duties. We laugh, we sing, we learn, and we play. We play with no limits, we play with ourselves and others, we play perpetually – in fact, playing is what we do in the majority of our time. When I was a child, the nature and extent of my play always correlated with my age.
From the moment I was born to the day before I started kindergarten, my life was a smooth and unbroken duration of play. Days and nights blended into each other, and there seemed to be nothing else I did but play. At this age range, play largely consisted of learning about or replicating the world around me. My older brother and I would make mud castles, giggle under pillow forts, race through sprinklers, act like firefighters, and pretend to be bear cubs. From sunrise to sundown, our young minds and bodies were wholeheartedly devoted to play.
Formal education began with kindergarten. Our play altered. Instead of learning about the world around us through play, we now learned concrete information. Highly structured games taught us simple logic, numbers, the alphabet, and the color wheel. To unlock a treasure chest, we'd have to multiply numbers. To save the princess, we'd have to spell the word "telephone." Play was interlaced with an incentive to retain information, yet it was still fun and we enjoyed it.
As we grew older, our play branched apart. My brother moved on to the world of action figures, plastic cars, light-sabers, and video games, while I glided into the realm of dolls, cutesy animal figurines, mini blenders, and jewelry bead sets. Occasionally, we visited each others' spheres -- I quickly learned the thrill of Guitar Hero while my brother taught me how to braid my Barbies' hair. But there was an unspoken agreement that we belonged to different planets of play. It was not an uncomfortable agreement. It was simply agreed.