Safety Is Bad for Our Health

REFLECTING ON THE ANXIOUS GENERATION

Our 18-month-old son is throwing a plastic ball over the second-floor banister to my wife below, who throws it back up. Graham goes to fetch it, panting like a pug, shrieking with laughter. He loves this game, so we play it often. 

I am not enjoying myself. 

Instead, I’m thinking about whether he might make a break for it and toss himself down the stairs. I’m thinking about the potential for splinters from the banister. I’m thinking about the pitcher nearby that he might pull down on his head. I often feel like Double-Take LeBron around Graham—half of my brain (or more) is constantly running the odds on how he might hurt himself, or break something, or both.  

What I’m saying is I’m basically LeBron.

THE KIDS ARE ALL HAIDT

By now you’ve probably heard of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, a stunning takedown of what “phone-based childhood” is doing to us. It’s threatening to be the most influential book of the next few decades. Even if you’ve never heard of it, it’s going to reshape the world around you: social media policy, schools, playgrounds. TAG was required reading for all faculty at the school where my wife teaches. Virtually all schools (and a fleet of startups) are trying to figure out how to ban smartphone use without cutting off parental access in case of an emergency. 

I didn’t think I was the target audience or research subject for The Anxious Generation. As parents, we’re years away from Graham having a phone. As a human, my brain was (debatably) fully cooked by the advent of the like button. Turns out I was wrong, and I’m maybe already screwing up Graham with my overconcern for his safety, phone or no phone. But The Anxious Generation didn’t bum me out. Instead, it was like a diagnosis and treatment plan for my anxious parental brain, immediately improving how I relate to Graham, if only in my head. 

The book’s basic premise is this: Kids need risky play to develop – the kind of play where there’s uncertainty, challenge, and the possibility of getting hurt. But we’re not offering kids enough risky play IRL; and they’re taking on too much risk online.

The boy in the bubble.

SMOTHER MAY I?

Haidt’s claim is that “safetyism” – a belief system that puts children’s safety way before their development or autonomy –  has run roughshod over culture for the past 30+ years. One example that hit home for me is that modern playgrounds have been engineered to minimize litigation, injury, and fun. 

Personally, I can go all ‘old man yells at cloud’ when I think about the number of new playgrounds that have gotten rid of swings altogether. By not trusting kids enough to use an effing swing set, we’re raising kids who don’t trust themselves. Haidt goes further to say that risky play isn’t just fun for kids, it’s vital – like food, water, shelter or love. 

It’s so tempting to specially engineer my son’s life so that he can’t hurt himself (or smash our lamps). I didn’t want Graham to run down our sloping driveway, wipe out, scrape his knees … and hands … and face … and bawl his eyes out. (I swear!)  But that bit of risky play was probably needed for him to grow. Because if I tried to prevent him from wiping out, he would overestimate his abilities (you don’t have to check your speed if someone always catches you) or I would start to underestimate him (he can’t handle a fall, he needs me). 

I dare you to tell this face you’re coming for his swing sets.

TAKING A LEAP

Now when he’s doing something where my gut reaction is to swoop in, I’ll ask “Is this risky play?” And if he’s not about to throw himself off a cliff or drink poison, I say, “Carry on, you beautiful little hurricane,” lowering my anxiety in the process.  

But it’s not just that I’m stopping myself from intervening too early. I’m more likely to notice the good, the method to his madness. He’s not just pulling heavy books off a shelf, he’s mimicking us, stopping to open each book, pretending to read like a big boy.

Here’s what I’d like Haidt to go deeper on: How does safetyism mess up the parents? Because I’m sure living every moment like I’m trying to stop Graham from falling down a storm drain will make me a member of the anxious generation, too. But we can both opt out, if I give Graham the chance. 

Back up on our balcony, Graham did bolt right for the stairs, still shrieking with laughter. I sprinted after him, arriving just as he stopped at the top of the steps, sat, and started climbing down all by himself for the first time. 

Thankfully, I wasn't there to catch him. 

TBH he’s really good at falling.

* * *

Post-Script: You maybe noticed that I didn’t resolve the issue about Graham breaking things. Because I can’t. He’s a toddler and it’s fine and it drives me crazy and maybe one day he’ll stop and and would someone like to buy us a new lamp? 

Sandcastles & The Creative Process

I like to build big sandcastles. I shovel up an 8-foot pile of sand, carve out terraces, stack faux-medieval turrets on top, dig in tunnels, and dig out moats. It takes all day, and the final product looks like Chichén Itza and Minas Tirith had a sand baby. 

This started when I was 15 on a family beach trip with my friend Matt. That family tradition came to an end about a decade ago, but I couldn’t quit the big sandcastles. One year I forgot the shovel, so I drove to the nearest hardware store and bought a new one. I’ve tried to read, or play petanque, but I just want to build. 

What I’m making is essentially a big, dumb piece of public art. And in my sandcastle fugue state – which feels like a runner’s high – I find myself drawing out parallels between sandcastle building and the creative process. 

At first, it’s mostly digging. 

Kids will approach to ask “How did you do that?” I lift up the shovel and say, “It’s easy. You just need a big shovel.” What I mean is that most of the work isn’t technically difficult, but you do need a basic tolerance for shoveling sand. 

Every creative pursuit has its own brand of drudgery, and if we can’t tolerate it, we probably won’t get very far. Whether that’s shoveling sand, or pushing pixels, or writing the same idea 100 ways, or asking strangers what they think about lettuce, if you don’t like the tedious parts, you probably won’t ever get to the transcendent parts. 

People will roast me and/or tell me that what I’m doing is pointless (but not forever). 

I am an adult man, at the beach, holding a construction-grade shovel. I probably deserve to be roasted. When the mound of sand is somewhere between knee and shoulder height, middle-aged adults will walk by and toss off quips like, “Anybody tell you you’re on vacation?” or, “You digging your own grave?” 

I’m ready with a rejoinder like “Just trying to find my glasses.” They usually walk off smiling, warmed by the glow of our cute verbal sparring, unaware that they’re the tenth person to hear this joke. But as the castle comes together, the comments generally shift from friendly-ish shade to bemused awe. Which is nice. 

When it comes to ‘art appreciation’, kids >>> adults. 

Kids have no qualms about saying ‘amazing’ or ‘that’s so cool.’ Adults undercut an impressed expression with “How long did that take you?” (Teenagers rarely say anything, and turn away quickly if I see them looking.) 

Again, I’m an adult man building a sandcastle, so it’s not like I need/deserve the praise, but it’s funny how freely and unselfconsciously kids can offer it. I’d like to be more childish in the way I praise the work I admire. 

When I wake up, my castle will be destroyed. 

For years I seethed at the silly, destructive impulse that led people to level my sandcastle at night. I imagined the vandals as teen boys heavily identified with Joker and Deadpool. But it turns out it was probably beach cops. Kids or cops, either way it’s the law on most beaches that sandcastles need to be kicked down so that hatched little baby sea turtles can make it to the little baby sea. 

These days when kids come by to say something nice, I’ll tell them they can destroy it that night if they want to. Later, watching them from the house, it looks like Godzilla, et. al leveling the castle, laughing hysterically. 

(The lesson here, I guess, is about our first client being Mother Earth and the unexpected joys lurking in a restrictive brief.) 

The sandcastle can’t really be destroyed.

This is partly literal: a big ass sandcastle can only be stomped down so much. There will be a solid mound surrounded by loose sand to start from the next day. 

Working on campaigns these last few years, I had to remind myself (and sometimes others) that something not making it to pitch day doesn’t mean that was work wasted. Because the next time we’re called on to make that thing, we’ll do it faster and better. 

Some of us – Shakespeare and The Daniels, for example – get to make transcendent work seen by everyone. But most of us make work that is site specific, ephemeral, and seen by few. It only exists in the world until the tide takes it, or the comms budget runs out. And that’s enough. It doesn’t have to last the test of time, or even until tomorrow morning. Especially if it’s a sandcastle.

I will never really understand what my work is to other people. 

Once complete, people start taking pictures in front of the sandcastle. Not with me, they’ll just pose in front of it. I always wonder how these photos are captioned on social: 

“Found this cool sandcastle in Lewes!”

Or is it, “Look what this idiot wasted his time on in Pawleys Island!” 

Or do they just take credit? 

Maybe next year I’ll ask, but I’ll bet they look at me like I have blood on my face. 

I will never tell anyone what this really means to me. 

Occasionally a precocious child will venture onto my existential beach, asking, “Why are you doing this?” I don’t answer honestly. I say, “Why not?” or “Just for fun.” Now that I have a toddler, I’ll say, “Once it’s finished, my son will use it as a slide.” (True, though that was his idea, not mine.) 

Why am I doing this though?

Maybe because the real-world work I do is squishy. I love the certainty of a pile of sand becoming a sandcastle. 

Or, I just like moving my body in this particular way. 

Or, it creates joy where earlier there was just a pile of sand.

Or, maybe ADHD? (Eh, the beach would be end-to-end sandcastles.) 

Or, it feels like responding to the beauty of the ocean with some beauty from my own hand. 

Nah. 

Any reason I come up with sounds too silly or too grand for what it all actually means to me. I just want to build a bigger, prettier one next time.

I hope you like it, too.