It seemed a reasonable question coming from an eight-year-old. He and his six-year-old brother had recently lugged home the leftover crayons, pencils, Elmer’s glue, tablets of lined paper and other detritus of the past school year. Father’s Day was the next big event on the horizon, and having not long ago celebrated Mother’s Day, it seemed reasonable to him that the children of the family should have a special day, too.
There had been, since the mid-1800’s, a Children’s Day in the church, established in an effort to baptize the many children in a congregation all on the same day, making it a community event. The World Health Organization had declared a Day of the Children, but that was rather somberly celebrated and aimed at increasing awareness of the needs of children throughout the world – not the happy celebration my eight-year-old had in mind. It did seem to me that something was a bit off, that there should be a party of some sort to celebrate the joy that parents derive from their children, in much the same way that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day celebrate appreciation for one’s parents. A logical time seemed to be shortly after the ending of the school year, when I got my children back full time for the all-too-short summer.
The first Kids’ Day, as I named it for our family, was celebrated on the first Monday after the end of the school year. It featured a special breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon and hot chocolate with marshmallows, followed by three small, gaily wrapped gifts each, something to challenge creativity, something to stimulate curiosity, and something simply for play. The afternoon of that first Kids Day developed into an impromptu party with cookies and grape juice for several of the neighborhood children who probably wondered why their own parents hadn’t done anything special to celebrate the occasion. On subsequent Kids Days we went on picnics, to movie matinees or trips to visit grandparents. Always there were special meals (not necessarily breakfasts) little gifts and some special activity that usually included their friends. Some years there was a decorated cake or a trip to the Dairy Queen, the activity often dictated by my children’s requests or the weather.
As the only stay-at-home mother in the neighborhood (at least the only one apparently willing to embrace the opportunity) I seemed to have the Kool-Aid concession and to provide rainy-day activities, bathroom privileges and endless patience for otherwise bored or unsupervised children from ages five to twelve years or so. At times, I felt somewhat put-upon, but for the most part I found a great deal of satisfaction and downright pleasure in having all those youngsters around. It gave me a chance to teach (following my natural instincts,) an excuse to play and ignore boring housework, and a fairly wide variety of children to learn about, come to understand and to love. Rainy days often resulted in an attic full of kids doing who-knows-what with lots of laughter, running about and a bit of occasional minor vandalism. Sunny days sometimes found the apple tree in our back yard festooned with climbing children playing Tarzan or a game known as Monkey Family. Hot afternoons sometimes featured wild swinging in the hammock and battles with water pistols, while chilly afternoons might involve jumping on beds amid piles of stuffed animals and all the pillows and sofa cushions in the house.
One summer when the city finally paved the last few blocks of north Lucas Street, our fenced-in back yard provided a reasonably safe grandstand for curious boys and girls to watch the big paving machine and cement trucks – and depleted my supply of popping corn and fruit-flavored drink mix.
There are days designated for just about everybody; mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, sons and daughters, but they don’t quite cover the specific purpose of my Kids Day – to celebrate the joy of having children to appreciate simply because they are kids, and that we adults can, for those few fleeting years, treasure the opportunity to enjoy their childhood.