Childhood: now and then

Last weekend, my kuya told me that he had to buy another PSP soon…his two sons, Ean and Eao, were always fighting over the single PSP they had (I don’t even have one!). I looked in shock! I mean, I can understand why they bought Ean one, he was 7 at that time (he’s 9 now). But for goodness sake, Eao is just 3 years old! What would he need a PSP for?!? And kids! What are they doing these days? They are so advance in technology that they’ll be saying “CAT5e 100-Mhz patch cable” before they can recite our national anthem!

When I was young, I had only a few toys. But that doesn’t mean I had a miserable childhood. On the contrary, I had a very happy childoood. This was for the simple reason that I had many friends in our neighborhood, and our playground would be the whole neighborhood. Imagine playing taguan (hide and seek) in a neighborhood with streets (pity on the taya)! Our patintero would run across a whole street! And when someonehas been tagged, it takes a while before everybody becomes aware of it. We never run out of games to play…taguan sardinas, piko, tumbang preso, agawan base, monkey-monkey, langit lupa, baseball, and many more. Not only that, we played in the rain, rode our bikes to the next village, and had campouts at the park! For us, play meant outside our houses, on the street, from morning until night! So much fun!

(photo by Carolyn P. Villasanta)

I pity kids these days. While our generation was out there, playing with our friends on the streets, kids today spend their playtime inside their houses, alone with their PSPs and computers, playing with someone (maybe someone thy do not even know) who is at his/her own house. Technology has brought us so many benefits, but this certainly is not one of them. Kids need physical relationships (not the one adults have). Friendships made by kids in a neighborhood are one of the strongest friendships one can have, don’t you think? I bet most of us have kababatas with whom we are still friends up to now.

As of now, Princess Wendy will have to wait for maybe 10 more years before she gets her own computer and PSP.