Oh Hell Yes, DINOVEMBER!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/refe-tuma/dinovember_b_4270164.html

Hopefully you've clicked on the link above and experienced a brief glimpse into "Dinovember" - an awesomely creative experience crafted by parents who don't want their children's imaginations and sense of wonder to die with all the technology "at their fingertips"... ah, a parenting style that's right up my alley, should I ever actually get to have kids (but that's another post, maybe).  I so want to be these parents when I grow up!

It is true that "kids today" (oh lord I'm old) have advantages that I did not when I was "their age" ... most of it dealing with the current state of technology, everything is quite literally at their fingertips ... but they are also deprived of so much, chiefly it seems, in the realms of imagination/creativity and socialization.

Video games existed when I was a kid (I'm not THAT old) but - and here it is folks - my parents didn't buy them for us, and you know what?  I'm really glad they didn't.  You want to know why?  Because I PLAYED OUTSIDE, ALL THE TIME, WITH REAL LIVE PEOPLE, UNTIL I WAS FILTHY AND IT WAS DARK (and then, sometimes I was allowed to stay outside to play monsters in the dark - with adults) AND THEN I WOULD PLOP INTO BED, EXHAUSTED AND TOTALLY HAPPY!!!  

I won't lie and say that I never played video games, occasionally at a cousins or friends house, and actually, we wound up with a hand-me-down Atari System that I would play from time to time, typically on rainy or super cold winter days (playing Frogger, Burger Time and Pitfall) ... but that was like a back up, most of the time I played with toys and people. 

I'm not here to dis technology full stop, I am thrilled with much of it's advancements - if it weren't for Skype and Facetime (and the ability to send small videos very easily) I wouldn't have 'seen' much of my nieces first year of life.  And I love my cars Sat Nav.  And yes I own multiple Iproducts, and clearly I blog...and I know people who have benefited greatly from the fact that video games / computers etc. exist - and I'm not talking monetary benefits here.

But I digress, this little verbal (ha, typed) burp of mine is really to commend parents like these Dinovember Folks, who appreciate and cultivate wonder and imagination in their children!  Good on ya!