I had some time today and wondered what kids these days are up to. I went outside to walk and watch them, and saw no children on the streets. Where were they? Simple: internet cafes, PlayStation cafes, and the like. Seeing that, I want to say this to all of them:
If in your childhood you never:
Ate Altın Çikolata and flattened the wrapper between your notebooks,
Got scolded for playing Atari because the TV might break,
Blew into an Atari cartridge to make it work,
Caught fish in the Balık Oyunu water toy,
Played cops on the street with a bead gun,
Fought paper-cone wars with a pipe gun,
Scraped çatapat fireworks along walls as you walked,
Played on a Game Boy (we did not have real Nintendos, only cheaper clones, but still),
Collected soda bottle caps (and if trains passed near home, flattened them on the tracks for extra fun),
Got K’Nex from the newspaper (we barely knew what they were for; now we see what you can build),
Ate Meybuz and dyed your tongue every color (reusing the pouch for juice or Tang was another option),
Dug a pit in the street to shoot marbles (best storage: 2.5-liter cola bottles),
Chased a spinning seed hoping it would not stick in a tree (landing in the grumpy neighbor’s yard was worse),
and if you did none of these, I say you never really had a childhood. Being a child means coming home at the evening call to prayer with a big appetite, not starting hide-and-seek in summer until night falls, chasing the mosquito fog truck, playing street games, finding tomato-and-cheese in bread the sweetest meal, and lighting up when fries appear at breakfast. Being a good child’s family means pulling them out of the traps they are in today. If we want creative minds to grow, we should not leave kids parked in front of computers and PlayStations from an early age.
