the snowman

I'm sitting this morning, looking outside at the slushy snow on a gray winter day, watching two young parents making a snowman with their little girl (about 5 years old), because it is warm outside and the snow is such good packing it just begs for it.

As I was watching them play, I had a thought. I can safely venture that this family doesn't have a lot of money, as the parents are very young. Where I live is not a very affluent apartment building, and there are usually kids running around outside.

I began to think back, again, to my childhood. Playing outside, playing in the neighborhood is not only good for kids socially, gets them outside and lets them find themselves, it is also free. There is no video game console to purchase, no controller needed to experience nature. Could it be, simply, that those who are naturally letting their kids outside today are the ones with less money? If you don't have the $800 to spend on a Nintendo Wii, are you more willing to encourage your child to play outside, or offer them different opportunities to do so?

It is a question that just popped into my head, and I wonder if the next generation of kids in touch with nature will be the ones who grew up in the lower middle class, without access to the technology that kids have in their faces all the time in more affluent homes. Also, how can we reach those who do have more resources in their family and get them to allow their children to do the same things that the middle class parents thought of naturally?

For now, I'm just tickled pink to see that families still do things together and play outside.