I love the old television show Twilight Zone and one of my favorite episodes is entitled “Kick the Can.” I love this episode because it is so nostalgic of my youth. I have always said that if I wrote a book I would call it The Last Generation of Kick the Can. My generation seems to be the last one which actually played games like dodge ball, tag, jacks, hop scotch and kick the can. Kids today are preoccupied with technology; they love video and computer games. The only video game I remember growing up with was Atari, a very primitive version of today’s games.
I never really got much into the arcades when they started popping up around my old neighborhood. I was content to continue playing jacks. When my own daughters were younger, I had an embarrassing moment. I have always kept my childhood jacks in a small box in my dresser drawer. One summer day I decided to take them out and play with them on the porch; I used to be pretty good at jacks. Two of my daughters happened to come outside and see me playing with the jacks and remarked, “hey mom, what is that?” I felt so embarrassed. I could not believe that my daughters had not heard of jacks before. I felt that I had let them down by not passing on this small tradition and teaching them this simple game I played so often as a child.
Like many parents of my generation, I spent much money buying my daughters everything “I didn’t have” while I was growing up, not realizing that I was doing them a disservice. By giving them all of those extra “things,” I destroyed a part of their creativity. When I was growing up kids made up their own fun. Our parents were not able to afford expensive toys so we made up simple games. But, it was different with my daughters. When I would ask them to go out to play, they would say, “what will we play?” I would ask them to make up a game and they could not think of any. Some basic things we learned as children have not been handed down to our own kids.
The children of Israel found themselves in a similar embarrassing situation. Somewhere along the way they forgot to pass on their beliefs and traditions to their children. The Bible records that “there rose up a generation that did not know God” (Judges 2:10). When they looked at their younger generation they realized that they did not possess the same values of their forefathers.
The best thing we can do for our children and grandchildren is to teach them our values and traditions. These lasting pieces will die with us if we do not take the time to teach them now. It is my endeavor to do as much as I can to reverse this. So next time your child or grandchild says, “let play the Wii!” take them outside and teach them how to play kick the can.