Gone are the days of youthful innocence and the joy of creating fun things to do...

September 3, 2025

By: Americae Primus

As summer draws to a close and children head back to school, I reflect on the season with a tinge of sadness. I didn’t see many kids outside, simply playing and enjoying themselves as older generations did in their youth. We used to spend entire days with friends, inventing games and adventures. Today’s children rarely go out to play or create their own fun, like hide-and-seek, riding bicycles, or having water fights with squirt guns, to name a few. I remember my neighborhood friends and me building ramps on concrete sidewalks to jump our bikes—without helmets, mind you. Those ramps weren’t the most stable, but we did it anyway, full of fearless enthusiasm.

Children need exercise, and back then, we got it naturally while having fun. We beat the heat of summer days with popsicles, water fights, or water balloons we hurled at each other. It worked wonders, keeping us active as we ran from balloons, dodged squirt guns, rode bikes for hours, and explored our neighborhoods and beyond. There was little worry about dangers like abduction, thanks to the “Mom Network.”

What was the Mom Network, you ask? It was the community of stay-at-home mothers who kept an eye on all the kids, ensuring our safety while also reporting any mischief to our parents. We’d eat lunch at a friend’s house, then dive back into our playtime, always making sure to be home for family dinner. Those meals were a time to connect—no cell phones, just stories about our adventures and minor mischief, with Mom and Dad chuckling at our tales.

Today’s children don’t experience this. Family dinners are rare, and kids are glued to computers or phones, rarely venturing outside to create their own fun. They don’t exercise their bodies or imaginations and struggle to understand how we thrived without devices. I’ve urged my kids and grandkids to put down their screens and use their imaginations, only to hear, “That’s not how things are today.” It’s a disheartening response.

A strong imagination is vital—it fuels creativity, problem-solving, and resilience, qualities that can lead to innovative solutions for the world’s challenges. As a Boomer, I worry that newer generations are losing this critical “muscle.” Without it, they risk being easily influenced, swayed by emotions rather than grounded in the realities of life.

Life is tough—it always has been and always will be. The only way to get ahead is to work hard on yourself and your goals. Nothing is owed to you except the chance to live between birth and death, and what you do with that time is up to you.

I’ll end with this question: Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently back then? Are you encouraging your children to nurture their imaginations, or are you letting them rely on the convenience of devices? The answer lies within you to do what’s needed.