We don’t have much of a yard at all where I live. Which I’m honestly fine with. I get the appeal of a nice shady lawn — don’t get me wrong. Especially now that I don’t have one.
However, there are tradeoffs that come with big yards that I think we aren’t very conscientious about. Yards spread everything out. If you have a big yard, maybe you get deer, birds. But the tradeoff is you spend more time driving, are able to walk to less stuff, typically.
This is something at minimum I think people should be consciously weigh. I feel like most people don’t use their yards very much. There are exceptions of course. Still the dream of the backyard, the barbecue with all your friends is very emotionally appealing, I get it.
Anyway, if we’re gonna ask (certain) people to sacrifice big yards, you gotta have good parks. Where I live, we have this schoolyard like right next door that meets a lot of our needs. The park has advantages over a yard. A. I don’t have to mow it. B. We run into people there. It’s social. This is the kind of casual, incidental socializing that can deepen relationships and lead to new friends.
Even with the small yard we have, I try to do what I can to kind of make it stimulating for the kids, a little. It’s a little bit of a puzzle because we just have so little room. We managed to squeeze a basketball hoop in and that was one of the biggest wins as far as encouraging outdoor play. That’s become sort of an institution.
Just recently, I pulled these pieces of play equipment out of the basement and attached them to our one real tree in the front yard. This tree isn’t all that good for swings. Its branches go straight up. But I did it anyway. I just figured, what the hell? We have this stuff.
The swing, especially, is kind of dumb and useless. Still, I would really recommend this. Kids love climbing. It’s surprising how much the kids like to sit in those little spots that were created by the dumb little barely functional swing.
Kids need to climb. It’s instinctual. And the climbing thing doesn’t need to be all that perfect or elaborate. Almost anything will do. My kids are always climbing all over bike racks, for example.
Which brings me to the real point of this article, which is the front yard being underrated, especially for kids.
In my book, I talk about this guy named Mike Lanza. Lanza lived in this rich, suburban area of Silicon Valley. And he noticed kids were never playing outside even though they all had nice yards, it was a safe community etc. The kind of place that’s considered “ideal” for raising kids. Lanza was really bothered by this and decided to really try to make his neighborhood more playable.
When I was young my parents did this too. They were like, we don’t want these kids watching Jenny Jones all summer. (Which we still did a fair amount of.) And they bought us a trampoline for the back yard. That worked, mostly. Kids from around the neighborhood would come over to play, just because they liked using the trampoline.
Lanza though, one of his insights was you gotta activate the front yard. Kids need to see other kids playing and want to join in.
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