I have often wondered about the etiquette of letting your children climb up slides rather than go down them.
In my heart of hearts, I feel it probably isn’t the right thing to do. I sometimes wonder whether other parents are secretly judging me for not stopping my children.
But what else can I do?
The whole point of going to the playground is that I don’t have the energy to look after them. It is one of the few places where I can let them go largely unchecked, with relatively little risk of damage to themselves or property.
Besides, it seems entirely natural for little boys to want to climb up slides. Surely this falls somewhere within the accepted bounds of creativity we are supposed to nurture as parents.
Thankfully, on this sunsetting afternoon, I didn’t have to resolve the matter of conscience. Other parents were letting their children do the same.
Instead, what caught my attention was M1 helping M2 climb up the slide.
He showed him how to spread his limbs all the way out like a crab. M2 tried to copy him.
At first he couldn’t do it. He was too small.
But M1 kept cheering him on, and after many attempts they made it to the top.
Then they slid down.
And climbed back up.
And did it again, laughing.
This seemed strange because I thought M1 had grown out of slides.
Since turning seven, he has started declining playgrounds because they are “boring.”
Yet here he was, doing it all over again with M2.
I don’t understand slides myself.
I remember that going down a slide is supposed to be fun. I just no longer feel the thrill of it.
Is there something about the physicality of it that a child experiences and I no longer can?
Why does a little boy enjoy going down a slide?
Why does he lose the joy of it?
Why does it return when his younger brother is there?
Does an adult lose it forever?
The sun has set now.
Before I noticed, M3 had joined his brothers and tries to copy them. The two-year-old tumbles somewhat helplessly down the slide.
Suddenly I am reconsidering the original question of whether children should be allowed to climb up slides at all.
And I wonder what will change again when M1 turns eight.