Cribs Are For Babies. My 8 Year Old Need a King Mattress.

While I used to watch Saturday morning cartoons, today I decided to start my day with a little Cribs action on MTV. This week's episodes (yes, plural) featured teenagers with sweeter homes than I can ever hope to own. During this recession it's really great to see parents who have spent money to put movie theaters, tree houses, slides, and elevators in their homes along with other unnecessary, but still really friggin cool, items. Let me just get this out of the way before I continue: of COURSE I'm jealous that I don't have a secret passageway to equally secret rooms that hide pinball machines and 60" flat screen televisions. However, the theme of the episodes, at least the ones featuring 'real' children (rather than celebrities) seemed to be: how to keep your child from ever leaving the house.

I read an article a few months ago in the New York Times about how parents are creating havens for their children at home. Play rooms, video game areas, special toys, ice cream bars, pools, tree houses, go carts, everything to keep their children on the property. According to the article, and messages celebrated in the episode I watched, if your kid's at home, you always know what they're doing. Kids just running around the neighborhood building tree forts has been replaced by structured play time enabled by parental shopping sprees, and pre-fabricated tree houses all ready to safely be played in without any initial effort from the kids. Pick up baseball or basketball games at the local fields are no longer needed because Tommy has a full basketball court in his backyard. While some of this oppulence will probably be tempered by the economy, the fundamental nature of children's play time seems shaped by a new cultural rubric.

I'm not condoning simply letting your child loose on society without a care in the world, but the lengths to which these parents are spending money to cater their home almost solely to the needs of their children seems excessive; and in my opinion, accustoms them to getting everything they want in life, which at least right now, is not a reasonable expectation for anyone to have.