Dialogue: Imagination eroding from toy-laden youngsters

By ROANNE PARKER

Ah, Christmas. I am so shopped out that my wallet is emptier than a Benedictine monk's address book. And that's just after the secret Santas at the office.

I can barely stand to look at the children's wish lists. Master 10 has every kind of video game on his and I am going to have to buy him nice healthy sports equipment in spite of it. Call me contrary, but I cannot bear the thought of him on the PlayStation when it's sunny outside.

The kids these days, I don't know what's wrong with them.

In the old days when I was a wee nipper we used to spend a great deal of time pulling weeds out of the garden to make food for our dollies. We had a hut in the back of the woodshed complete with a few pots and pans and a much-prized container of solidified beef stock powder, which we would scrape into the weed concoction we cooked up. There was always plenty of water slopped in and we had a special jug to collect it in if we could ever get the stiff old garden tap to shudder into life. The veggie garden offered lots of rhubarb, but from memory the dollies didn't like it much.

My sister used to spend many hours in the walnut tree that had to be climbed via a treacherous ladder. This consisted of odd bits of wood held on by one nail, and each bit would seesaw worryingly as we ascended.

It never seemed to worry Jen too much; she loved being king of the world up there. I often felt close to God up the tree, like he was right there with me, and one day I was even moved enough to promise him I would always be good and never tell a lie.

Over the back fence there were horse stables with a few ponies and in the summer lots of accurately named horseflies would buzz into the house and sit around lazily waiting for me to suck them up the vacuum. After I had obliged I would have to spray some fly killer up the hose after them or they all streamed out again when I took it apart to put it away. Ah, what fun.

So what about now? There is a big block of flats next door to our place, and the children who play in the thin strip of garden that runs along the other side of my fence are outside all day and into the evening, shouting, "My dad's bigger then your dad" in engaging accents that bring the sounds of India through my windows.

My own children, however, look askance at me if I suggest it might be nice to play outside for a while. "But there's nothing to do out there," they say. "You come and play, too," they say.

I hear my mother's voice coming from my mouth as I counter with exasperation - "Oh, just go and play" - which makes me think perhaps we needed a shove to get us outside occasionally, too. And mine do go, but they need a jolly good jolt from the cattle prod I keep handy by the front door for the purpose.

Is it because the garden is stocked with swings and a tree with a decidedly un-dodgy ladder and a super-size trampoline that there's nothing to do in it? Have we taken their imagination away by making toys that need none?

It takes no imagination at all to play cooking in a child-sized kitchen complete with realistic microwave and dishwasher. The one my girls had even had a cordless phone hanging off one side so they could pretend-chat to their friends while they whipped up dinner.

There is no need for a pre-schooler to sit on the lawn and poke around for bugs now because there's a pint-sized picnic table with four chairs and a stripey umbrella just for them. I, however, have memories of long afternoons sitting on the concrete path warmed by the sun, and corralling the ants and those other tiny red-dot thingys that scurried around.

I propose to buy more outdoor toys so it could be that I am not helping. Even when I try hard I still can't think of a moment when they have the space for some peace and quiet with themselves, much less with God. Is it time to declare a toy-free house?

But they are children, and it's Christmas after all. I plan to have a happy and stress-free one, sitting under a blazing pohutukawa somewhere.

I wish you the same and, as this is my last column for the Herald, I would like to say thanks for your company over the year. It's been nice to know you.