The Go Slow Life and Unstructured vs Structured Play
The Go Slow Life, the foundation of which is intentionality and pause, is often contrary to modern life, at least where I live in one of the most highly-populated, Type-A areas of the United States. I overheard a conversation at the soccer field yesterday between two dads of second-grade boys: “I never expected us to be one of those typical families scheduled every day of the week, but here we are. But the kids want to do these activities so who am I to say no?” And in the next breath, “It’s a lot of ‘…But I just want to finish my fairy house castle!’ and I’m like ‘Nope, we gotta go! Finish it in 5 days!’ ” To me, that felt like a crime to childhood. Children learn by playing and sometimes that’s structured play such as on a soccer team and sometimes that’s unstructured play creating fairy house castles. I am by no means an expert on parenting or child development, but I believe you have to bring in room for both. Leaving margin for unstructured play is important to both adults a