PEDIATRICS Vol. 59 No. 2 February 1977, pp. 218
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PLAYING

Penelope Mortimer and Stanley A. Gering M.D.

Children are supposed to busy themselves with a curious occupation called "playing." "Go out and play," "Run along and play," "They're playing in the garden," or even, absurdly, "They're playing in the playroom." I never knew what "playing" was supposed to be and I don't know now. A child has the same pursuits as anybody else: planning, investigating, moving from place to place with or without purpose, manufacturing objects and concoctions, thinking, reading, singing, hopping; in relation to its size, it also spends a proportionate amount of time in boredom, misery, or transports of happiness. Why all this should be skittishness, I can't imagine. A child's life is hard work, for which, financially, it receives, if anything at all, a mere pittance.