Our second entry on Chapter 1 was written by Katie. She shares some nice insight into Elkind's ideas. Happy Reading!
Elkind describes work, play, and love as separate entities that can, one day, become intertwined and enjoyable in a state of “flow.” These separate aspects of our lives blend together when we are infants and slowly start to separate as we go through the life cycle. It is easy to understand how work, play, and love can be lumped into one category for infants. The reason why I say this is because infants work to discover new things and experiences through play. Love comes along as a support system as well as extra encouragement for them to play and work at the same time to keep on discovering their world.
Once children reach their school age years, play and love are seen as the main aspects of life. Children use play and love to become socially acceptable in their world. This is easily observable in a classroom setting. Some children will use play in order to become socially acceptable and the love, or encouragement, expressed by their teachers as well as their peers becomes a major support system instead of their parents.
Once adolescence comes along, love takes the reigns as children start to pay more attention to their social, and love, lives rather than their academic lives. If you walk into any high school, you will definitely see that this is a true case scenario. Some children often take on play as a main distraction from their academic lives and use sports or other recreational activities as their love interest. This is even portrayed in the media. Shows that are geared towards high school age children are often about socializing rather than making academics their priority. This is just how life goes. If a show were to come on television promoting studying, good grades and college acceptance, it would get extremely low ratings from its targeted audience.
When adulthood comes along, work, play and love all become completely separate things. This is something that I am experiencing first hand. I am 23 years old, taking my last class of my college career. I am obtaining a degree in Child Development and have considered school, and my actual job, to be work. On the weekends, I try to play as much as I can by simply hanging out with friends and having a good time. Love comes naturally in the form of my amazing boyfriend whom I have been with for about 3 years now. Of course, I love my parents and everyone in my family also; the love I have for my boyfriend is just a different kind of love and has taken on a slightly larger supporting role than my parents’ love. Towards the end of the first chapter, Elkind describes a feeling of “flow” between work, play and love. This is when all of these elements can exist in a very peaceful and enjoyable state of mind. I believe everyone will get to this point in their lives; it’s just a matter of time.
It was very interesting to read your take on work, play and love. It seems as we get older the longing for time to play becomes harder to define. When I was younger, I’d spend hours playing and everything was a game. My brothers and I would make a game out of housework. We’d pretend that our chores were all part of some big CIA undercover case and we were the spies. I’m now 35 years old with a family of my own, and having time to play seems to have taken a backseat. But, I do enjoy an occasional pedicure, which I define as my play time. Being in love is another one of life’s adventures. It amazes me how even love is put into different categories in our lives. Between having a full time job and going to school, I have little time for anything else. I sometimes feel that I am the poster child for the phrase “all work and no play.” I just hope that Elkind is right when he says that these 3 aspects of our lives can be intertwined because right now I feel like I’m being cheated out of one! Thank you Katie for your interesting perspective, every now and then don’t forget to play. Leslie Kelly
ReplyDelete