Why We Need Children in the Midst of Life Itself

My brother and I used to fight over who got to sit in the window seat on airplanes. We wanted to be able to look out. The world from 30,000 feet was an amazing thing. And it was all right there through these portholes with double panes. We weren't the only ones. Nearly everyone lucky enough to be seated by a window watched the world from this unique perspective, at least during take offs and landings.

Today, I still tend fly with my shade open, but most people close them the moment they're seated. I've become aware of this because my fellow passengers have actually asked me, if I'm not actively peering out, to close my shade. I understand that for some people the constant reminder that they are traveling in a metal tube suspended at the edge of outer space is nerve wracking. But most make the request because they're planning to get some sleep or the glare washes out their device screen.

I was born in 1962, right in the middle of the so-called "golden age" of air travel. This is when jet engine aircraft with pressurized cabins became commonplace enough that middle class people could take advantage of this awe-inspiring amazing technology. It was new and exciting for everyone. Today, commercial air travel is old hat, except when it comes to young children: air travel still excites them.

Curmudgeonly adults tend to only notice the kids who are having a bad day or the crying babies, but when I look around, I see children who are every bit as excited as we were as everyone was when I traveled as a boy. They're at the windows asking questions about every detail of what they see going on out on the tarmac. They pepper their adults questions about everything. Once on the plane, they keep the shades open . . . then closed, then open, the closed again. Same with their tray tables. "I have my own little table!" "I got a magazine!" "The arm rest goes up!" "We're moving!" "We're going up!" "We're up!" "I can see houses!" "The cars down there are tiny!" "We're flying in clouds!"

Most adults I know today talk about air travel with a cynic's sigh. They gird themselves for hardship. But these children, if we allow them, remind us that what we are doing is still awe-inspiring. It would be enough if all they did was remind us that there is good reason to be excited about living, today, right now. It's something that most adults miss as they spend their days in places where the presence of children is frowned upon, if not outright banned. Indeed, most of society misses this as young children have been more or less relegated to their homes, school, and a handful of other places designed specifically for children.

For most of human history, children were part of every aspect of life, participating in the hunting, gathering, farming, commerce, cooking, and manufacturing. That was their education, learning alongside their elders. Were they underfoot? Did they cry and fuss? Did they run around and behave boisterously? Of course, they're children, they did all those things. They were there to remind the adults that the emerging present moment is the best time to fully engage life itself. To laugh and cry and feel.

Because they are so much newer to the world, young children serve as societal novelty detectors, finding something new in the commonplace. We see it every time we watch a child make a toy of a bottle cap or a stick. We see it when they make treasures of pebbles or maple leaves. We see it when they discover new possibilities for things we've long taken for granted. Having young children in our lives helps us see the new possibilities in the everyday. They paint rainbows through our grayness.

Likewise, their curiosity, their thousand questions, forces us to focus on providing answers. So often, adults, in their hurry, are dismissive -- "Because I said so," "That's just the way it is," "The sky is blue because it isn't green" -- but when we take the time to answer respectfully, we deepen our own understanding of the world by putting what we know into words. And often we discover that we ourselves don't know the answer and we can then join them in their wonder.

In this, early childhood professionals are the lucky ones. We know to keep the shades open on the plane, to appreciate the magic of a leaf, and to wonder at the shape and size and heft of pebbles. I often wonder how much different the world would be if we didn't segregate our young children into pink collar ghettos and instead included them, as they deserve, in the midst of life itself.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 15 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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