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Kyle Hansen
'Fighting Insanity'
Adults just don't understand
By: Kyle Hansen
Posted: 3/3/08
Many businesses located near schools have signs on their doors posting rules that limit how many minors can be inside at a time or that require them to be accompanied by an adult.
On Saturday, I found a place that is the other way around.
Outside of San Francisco City Hall and across the street from the public library is a small playground, complete with monkey bars, a slide and a multi-colored, four-foot fence surrounding the jungle gym.
On the fence is a sign: "No adults allowed unless accompanied by children."
I saw this sign as I left the BART station and started walking to the hotel where I was going to be attending a conference. It was early for a Saturday and there was not a child in sight, just the usual homeless people loitering outside of the public library. I hurried toward the conference and forgot about the sign.
That evening as I settled into a stained, blue chair on a BART train for the ride home, my thoughts returned to the sign I saw that morning.
Why is it, I wondered, that once we are over a certain age, society tells us we are no longer allowed to have fun? Shouldn't we all be in touch with our inner child every once in a while?
It is good to take time out of our busy lives to play occasionally and maybe even pretend we are Peter Pan and never had grown up.
But there are some times when adults have a hard time with child's play - not because we are too old, but because we have to make things too complicated.
"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves," wrote French novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."
Yes, there are some simple things we cannot understand.
I spent last semester in Washington, D.C., for an internship. While there, I was able to go to a lot of community events for a local news Web site.
Talking to the kids was always my favorite part of the events.
I was assigned to cover a Christmas parade in a small town in Northern Virginia. I talked to a group of fourth-grade Girl Scouts waiting in the cold for their turn to walk through town to the tune of "Jingle Bells."
The girls were talking and laughing and having a great time, even though it was chilly, and the parade had not yet started. The girls' leaders were happy to be there, but did not seem too excited about the thought of doing it again next year.
"I think it is everyone's dream to be in a parade just once," said one of the leaders who was wearing a box wrapped like a Christmas present. "But just once."
The girls, on the other hand, could barely contain their excitement. One of them was dressed like an elf and was jumping up and down as she told me about the parade.
"You get to dress up and show everybody your costume," she said. "You have joy and happiness because you get to see your friends."
Maybe we can learn something from this little elf. How often do we get excited and have "joy and happiness" just from seeing our friends?
Such simple pleasures are around us if we will look for them. But we "adults" have a hard time with that. It is too plain and simple for us to understand. It takes a child to remind us.
Spend a few minutes listening to a child. See what interests and excites them. Find out what they think about the world. Let them guide you onto the playground.
Don't let the little fence and silly sign keep you out of the playground.
You might learn something new, and your inner child will thank you.
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