"Sometimes [my children] don't seem able to operate in an imaginative world. ... If, like the four Pevensie children (two boys and two girls) of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, they were sent off to the countryside to avoid the Blitz, my children might well have to be marched, under protest, to the room with the old wardrobe and shoved in among the coats; it would be hard for them to grasp how an entire old house, filled with unknown rooms and corridors, might become a world of unlimited play." - Michael Chabon
Of everything that overwhelms me about becoming a parent - which I will, officially, in just over three months, if all continues to go well - this reality is the most depressing. Is it even possible to raise kids capable and desirous of inhabiting imagined worlds for hours at a time anymore? I mean, if Michael Effing Chabon would have to bribe and/or force his kids to become princes and princesses of an entire kingdom populated by twee fauns and talking rodents, what hope is there for the rest of us?
These questions provide one of the central themes in Chabon's new-ish volume of essays, Manhood for Amateurs. I originally checked it out of the library for Nathan, something to add to his stash of suddenly fatherhood-heavy bedside reading. But I dipped into the first essay on my dinner break that night and got hooked. I always feel a little weird reading it in public, but tell myself that there is no more rank amateur at manhood than me.
My favorite essay plays off the theme of lost childhood adventure mentioned above. It's called "The Wilderness of Childhood," and you can read it here. I'm generally not a huge fan of romanticizing the past, but damn, it really is depressing to think that kids today are facing the abandonment of "sandlots and creek beds, the alleys and woodlands... in favor of a system of reservations--Chuck E. Cheese, the Jungle, the Discovery Zone." I valued the opportunity to run around like a feral animal, with a gang of other wild childs, in the woods of my suburban neighborhood growing up. I want my children to have that same chance. I will have to battle my natural tendency towards anxiety and urge for control - and, apparently, culture at large - to do it. Not sure how, just yet, but reading things like Chabon's essays at least help me feel less alone in wanting to make sure the wardrobe door still stands slightly ajar and invitingly mysterious.
