Wretched Excess Dept: Mega-Rec-Rooms to Keep Kids Inside
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07.15.08
Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times
Back in the day, you told the kids to go play outside; the outdoors, the street, the park, they were the rec rooms. When they got to be teenagers, they went and hung out with friends. Some got into trouble; most didn't. Things changed. Even though crime rates have dropped to the lowest level in decades, cities like New York are as clean as Disneyland and bikes are cool again, Architecture professor Dana Cuff can say to the Times:
“There is a rise in home technology, all your friends are online, and there are far fewer safe, interesting public spaces to hang out in,” she said. “All of these things come together, and parents start creating houses within houses for their teens.”
So parents are paying big bucks to put in fancy rec rooms with big TVs and Wiis and pool tables. “The nice thing is that they all hang out in their space and do what they do and we don’t have to worry about where everyone is,” [Atlanta parent Beth] Fowler said. “There are drugs and alcohol and sex and a million other temptations out there, and I think the kids are often just as nervous as the parents are. Having a cool place to hang with friends under your own roof just makes it a little bit easier.”
"The Goldrings, a family in Pacific Palisades, Calif., created an indoor-outdoor cabana-style pool house for their two teenage daughters and their daughters’ friends with daybeds for sleepovers, a bath and shower, and a roof deck." Stephanie Diani for The New York Times
Peter Skarzynski has six kids, so I will cut him a little slack for wanting to give them a rec room, but "a pool table, Ping-Pong table, a Sony projector with a 100-inch screen, a popcorn machine, a PlayStation and an Xbox, and a full kitchen where the children often cook for friends. “We have kids eating over here, sleeping over here and playing all day here,” Ms. Skarzynski said. “It’s a priority for us to create a space where our kids can have their own friendships, their privacy and their own lives. It creates a lot less anxiety for everyone.”- that is a bit much.
All the statistics agree that our cities are safer than they used to be. Going outside and walking or biking to a friend means exercise. Bikes are now cooler (and cheaper to operate) than cars for a lot of kids. Cities have built new parks, museums and recreational facilities to keep kids active and healthy. Instead, parents are turning them into couch potato basement-dwelling morlocks to keep them in sight.
There were and always will be "drugs and alcohol and sex and a million other temptations out there"- learning how to deal with temptation is part of growing up. Throwing a rec room and a 100 inch sony and a Wii at your kids doesn't make them go away. What an appalling trend. ::New York Times
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Where Wiffle Ball’s a Crime There May Be No Child Left Outside
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I've been posting so much snark that I just wanted to state that I agree with you completely.
I'd wager there's a lot more sex happening in that "rec room" cabana than there is down at the mall.
So to sum that article up: instead of spending time with their kids...and teaching them NOT to do drugs, have sex (or at least have protected sex), and not get into all those other risky behaviors....people would rather build huge rooms for their kids so they don't have to be good parents?
I'm afraid that every single remodeling client (middle-class, Middle America) with children I've worked with in the past two years has put in one of these, on whatever scale they could afford. I watch the kids on my husband's sports team 'grow up' (perhaps I should say just 'age'?) in rooms like this.
The habit of sending kids over to friends' "adolescent playrooms" does have some positive effects - there's no public transportation or safe biking possibility here - but in terms of child development I just see that sort of easy entertainment in place delays age-neutral independent thinking and self-responsibility. In contrast, friends of ours have eight children, and the parents stand out not only because of the number, but because they really enjoy talking to the kids. There's no sense of 'run along, you're not interesting enough for me yet' as in many adults' lives - which I think is the real problem, whether the 'run along' is to the park, the mall, or the cabana-warehouse.
I agree with you but there childrens that like troubles.
About sex I think the problen started when we hide all about sex, I think there most be a way to let them know somthing about sex so they do not feel that we are hiding something.
This Modern world most be to spand the mind and less control, I urdestand there are people that they have to be controled.
I agree with the poster of this article and also with all the commenters' statements made above as well.
I have a friend with two children and she invites her friends children over for "play-dates" rather than letting her children find their own friends. She states that it's just safer and easier, but what does this do to her children's social development?
I don't have children, but sometimes I think our American society just doesn't like kids. We want to lock them up until they are 18 - out of sight, out of mind. We build few parks for them and the American suburbs is the most lonely place for a child.
In my small town of 50,000 we have 20 bars/pubs -no joke! The city was thinking of putting in one skate park, but no! All the adults were afraid all the juvenile delinquents would have a field day! What does this say to kids? You don't matter until you're an adult............
I have two teenagers and can attest to the fact that they are not welcome out in the community. Meet your friends at the park? No , the neighbours call the police and they get "moved along." There are no movie theatres in the community -- they all became big screen multi-plexes way out in the fringes where you need a car (or mom or dad to drive you). Commercial areas are now malls with no loitering rules. My kids were playing ball in the common area of our strata (townhouse condominium complex) and the nasty strata president asked where their parents were as they should be supervised. They were 11 and 14 at the time. Do they play outside now? Nope.
@Jessica : I so agree! I'm a teenager, and I live in the suburbs outside of Houston, and it's dreadfully boring during the summer around here.
I just recently moved to a larger home in a new subdivision and there's very few teens that I'd actually socialize with. Most of the other teens at my school live closer near the school and that area, more than a mile away from me.
Walking is awful in Houston heat, and the fact there's no sidewalks connecting subdivisions or businesses and lots. Biking in the suburban areas is a joke and a danger.
So unless you can drive (which I can't) you're stuck home unless somebody can give you a ride. Driving is your freedom from staying put at home. That's why I hate the suburbs, and why I can't just walk to a friend's house. Subdivisions and strip malls popping up and destroying the once lush woods makes me angry.
Ailsa, I agree probably more sex will occur if the parents are NEVER in the rec rooms, but when you drop your kids off at the mall, you never know if they are actually staying at the mall or going from their to a friends house. I think in the modern world with things being so accessible staying at home is the safest option.