Time to pop the bubblewrap

No more flashlights under the chin, please.

There are children in the audience who might be scared.

It was with considerable distress and disappointment last weekend that I came across another chapter in the contemporary bubblewrapping of the American childhood. A puffpiece in the Saturday Strib cited a nationwide survey of “camp professionals” that in nearly a third of American summer camps sitting around the campfire telling spooky ghost stories is now a prohibited activity.

I imagine water fights, wedgies, snipe hunts and tent-stake raids are also on the list of prohibited activities. Never underestimate the ability of well-meaning adults to take the fun out of being a kid.

Yeah, these folks who’ve made child’s play their profession tell us there’s good and righteous reason behind the ever-lengthening list of things youngsters ought not be up to. Fireside ghost stories might scare the sensitive among the little darlings, give them bad dreams, keep them up at night, and we all know children need their sleep… Huh? Not at camp they don’t. Any adult who was once a kid at a proper camp remembers well putting sleep off until the wee-est of hours, telling tales, plotting pranks and generally dissing every adult in authority. Sleep is what you did the day after you got home and there was nothing better or more interesting to occupy the time.

So this is where we’re coming to. Adults afraid kids can’t cope with a pimply-faced 15-year-old junior counselor’s rendition of “The man with a hook for a hand?” And if badly told campfire tales put kids at risk, hadn’t we best put out the fire as well? Carcinogenic smoke, inhalable micro-particulates, not to mention the obvious risk of a curious child reaching in to pick up a glowing coal. Besides, consider the uncertain nighttime lighting, uneven pathways, exposure to disease infested insects and unknown risk posed by the chemical concoctions used to ward them off? For safety’s sake, wouldn’t an indoor LED display with and educationally sound, goal-oriented presentation be much preferred?

Well, it would probably help put the kids to sleep, I’d credit it that far.

But there’s more to being a kid than being safe. Growing up, bruises and skinned knees were neighborhood badges of honor, evidence that the walking wounded had attempted something a bit more difficult, a bit more risky than ever before. We bonded over our Band-aids, telling tales embroidered by heroism, adding a few feet to the tree we’d fallen out of; a bit more speed to the bike when we hit the patch of loose gravel; a few thousand more individuals to the hive of yellow jackets we’d stumbled into.

We learned from our mishaps. Learned that gravity was unforgiving and the laws of physics didn’t’ require a cop or principal to be enforced. We learned that what we wanted to do and what we were able to do were often different things and it was invariably wise to determine which was which before committing to an irreversible course of action.

And we learned from each other. Learned how to pop a wheelie; how to sneak into the movies; how to smoke a cigarette; how not to get caught. We learned to rely on each other, trust each other, keep each other’s secrets. We learned adults weren’t often all that bright, that some rules were meant to be broken … others meant to be obeyed.

True, we probably lost some sleep wondering if the rustling outside the tent was a murderous escapee or a fat toad making its way through the fallen leaves, but when morning dawned and we found ourselves still among the living, there was a small sense of triumph. We’d won and were a bit braver and stronger and smarter than we’d been the night before.

Just try to spook us now.