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Protective parents, busy schedules leave children little time to savor season The last bell on the last day of school sounded the start of summer vacation. It meant family visits to the lake. Trips to Grandma's where my siblings and I learned to swim by getting tossed into the deep end of the pool. But mostly, the summers of my youth were mine to stage. I transformed myself when no one was looking. Into Wonder Woman. Into a famous chef of mud pies. Into an Indian chief leading a rain dance. I sprinted inside for lunch. Got scolded for leaving the door open to air-condition the entire neighborhood. And then ducked back outside until the third or fourth cry that dinner was ready. "Carefree summer" wasn't just a cliche, it was a way of life. Kids today aren't the sole architects of their own summer adventures. If they're allowed to run amok, they could run into trouble. If they miss out on summer camps and play dates, they'll miss opportunities afforded their friends. Many must be watched and accounted for by someone because both parents or a single parent must work. The "free" part of summer is shrinking, and the "care" part is growing. A University of Michigan study found that while organized activities grew, free time decreased from 40 percent of a child's day in 1981 to 24 percent in 1997. And that's not enough free time, said 25 percent of youth ages 8 to 17, according to the 2000 Roper Youth Report. Time spent in day care, preschool or school programs jumped eight hours per week from the early '80s to the late '90s. And picking up the slack for children during the summer are day and overnight camps --- summer camp enrollment has grown eight to 10 percent each year since 1992 --- and organized sports, in which participation from 1981 to 1997 more than doubled to five hours plus a week. Parent Judy Rushin wonders if she will ever allow her two children to roam unsupervised, as she did. "I would like for my kids to be able to do that somehow," she said. "To somehow go where they felt they were not being watched." Rushin, 42, eyes her children, Anna, 5, and Ben, 3, bobbing in the Candler Park pool. Children squeal about sharks on their kicking heels. Parents sing, "No running, no running, NO RUN-NING!" Rushin raced through the woods in Chastain Park with older brothers during her childhood summers. "We were just like 'Lord of the Flies,' " she said, referring to the book about young boys stranded on an island with no adults. "We were savages. It was wonderful." But somewhere out there, there are real sharks and real savages, Rushin knows. People who would snatch a 14-year-old Utah girl from her bed at gunpoint. Though crime rates have fallen, horrible things happen to good people every day, cable news seems to tell us every few minutes. So children are watched. So they don't swallow the pool water and get E. coli. So they don't wander into shady Internet chat rooms. So they don't ride their bikes on streets clogged with cars. Still, kids by nature can't help but have fun. A look at the Candler Park pool is evidence of that, though their worldliness is surprising. "We weren't really fighting. We were arguing about politics," said Rhiannon Price, 12. She and a boy stand dripping in their bathing suits and point prunish fingers at each other. "She lost," said Nick Hoffman, 12. "She was talking about oil and petroleum and how we're killing people on account of it." "I was just explaining how we put the Taliban in power," Rhiannon responded. Rhiannon's summer days are like that: long, wet, happy hours debating world affairs at the community pool. If Nick had his way, he'd pack his summers with amusement park trips. After some thought, he added, "and set up a center where kids could play with animals while waiting to be adopted." Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld would be pleased. The psychiatrist and author of "The Over-scheduled Child" says kids need summers to daydream a better world. "Our country's financial success is rooted in people who have done their own weird thing in their own weird way," he said. "Look at Bill Gates." But because of two-parent working families or single-parent families or even the desire to give children a head start, children's summers these days are booked with "enriching" activities, he said. There's nothing wrong with camp, play dates or organized sports, Rosenfeld emphasized. The exception is when children's summers are so booked they aren't allowed to flex their intellect and creative muscle. "Given an opportunity to get a little bored, children develop a world of their own," Rosenfeld said. "And that's the world that enriches them and society for the rest of their lives." Traci Switzer, 35, is less philosophical as she sits poolside munching a summer dinner of pretzels, juice and fruit with son Ryan, 6, and daughter Mazie, 3. Ryan loved art camp, enjoyed zoo camp and will likely have fun at circus camp later this summer. But she understands the need for children to have free time in much the same way adults need it. That's why from now on, Ryan will only attend camps that run a few days a week, a few hours at a time. For both their sakes. "We need time to chill and hang out in our pajamas some days and decide what we do as the day goes on." Away from the coolness of the pool, on the edge of the Edgewood community, Gail Snipes, 41, said she'd like to send her daughter to camp but can't afford it. She quit her full-time job to become a part-time baker this summer so she could watch her daughter. "Back in our day, I wouldn't have to stay home." Some camps were free. Relatives were nearby and neighbors looked after your kids like they were your own, she said. There's nobody in this time of fences and home security alarms that she can trust to watch her daughter but herself. "She's starting to have boys call her now," Snipes said of her 14-year-old daughter. "And that's fine, but I want to keep an eye on her. " Back at Candler Park, a father pleads with 5-year-old Anna Rushin to remove herself from the pool. Her mother and little brother have already started for home. He yelled "five minutes" 20 minutes ago. "They have no concept of time," Robert Rushin said.
I know. I remember. She's just another kid. Trying to squeeze a few more minutes of fun into a fading summer day. Pretending as she dives under again and again to be a mermaid or a master diver or a dolphin.
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