By the title, "The Decline of the American Lawn", I thought it was going to be an ode to eco-purity--planting mower-free ivy on your lawn, or some Zen combination of sand and rocks. But no, Tom Vanderbilt in Slate gets exercised that kids are littering the landscape. With their plastic junk. The article does note lawyers killed off common playgrounds without recognizing it's the same liberal nanny state impulse that they are now employing complaining about other people's yards. If they want pristine wilderness move to the pristine wilderness. But no, they want well-manicured, tasteful yards (close to urban amenities)--not just theirs, but their neighbor's.
This brings me to recall the behavior of one of my friend's neighbors. Newly moved to
the village, this neighbor picketed another on the subject of their roof--actually walking up and down in front of their house with a sign. He wanted them to retain the slate they were replacing as it was aesthetically pleasing. It was also very expensive, and so the homeowner invited him to pick up the tab. This liberal busybody would rather picket than talk, and his neighbor as a person was of little interest to him.
I sympathize with the nostalgia for lilacs and secret gardens. The older my kids got, the less I tried to organize them. Kids do need time just to be. Just to wonder. But most moms aren't home during the day and kids don't roam around the neighborhood as they used to--they are involved in "enrichment activities" or sports, or at day care. This is a consequence of lots of individual and family decisions made amid the societal soup of the day. It perhaps does not occur to Mr. Vanderbilt that having play equipment in the yard allows moms to work at home and still keep an eye on their active brood. Economics are an issue to some you see.
Children are noisy, and messy. They are not a punishment, but a blessing, most appreciated perhaps in our own old age, when they are grown and we become noisy and messy. And they take care of us and love us, if we are lucky enough to have given birth to them and appreciated them.
UPDATE: Noemie Emery on the Hillary switch from victim to scrapper:
Liberals love victims and want them to stay helpless, so they can help them, with government programs; while conservatives love those who refuse to be victims, and get up off the canvas and fight. Hillary may still be a nanny-state type in some of her policies, but in her own life she seems more and more of a Social Darwinian, refusing to lose, and insisting on shaping her destiny. If the fittest survive, she intends to be one of them. This takes her part of the way towards a private conversion. She is acting like one of our own.Don't lose your heads, conservatives. Go with Rush on Operation Chaos if you want, but remember this--super-nanny is not repudiating the nanny state, she's just fighting for the right to run it.
P.S. A little local color, reported by the party organ of the People's Republic of Evanston. Nice touch, starting on May Day, their--what could loosely be described as journalists-- vanguard fanning out. Can't let the facts get in the way.
Posted by Anne Leary on May 3, 2008 9:02 AM
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