If you are or have been a parent of school-age children, you know well the last minute scramble to find the missing gloves moments before the bus arrives.

And, quite likely, this is an event that takes place not just once or twice a year….but once or twice a week, am I right?

No matter how well you try to prepare, no matter how many times you ask your kids to gather their stuff together the night before, this nerve-raking event resurrects itself over and over again. It’s inevitable. And infuriating.

But…inevitable.

Well, just the other morning, it was the scramble to find my daughter’s snow pants. I searched the closet, high and low, five times over. Behind the couch, under the couch, in the bedrooms. Nowhere to be found. I was certain she must have left them on the bus or at school. So I dug out her old pair (and by old, I mean the first pair of the year, with ratty holes in the knees that prompted the need for a new pair, given to me by my thrifty sister who is great at raiding the recylcing center shop). She frowned at them and I shrugged my shoulders.

“They will have to do for today. Surely there are other kids at school who have worn out the knees of their snow pants, right?”

I was not for a moment expecting the response I got.

“No.”

I looked at her brothers.

“There’s other kids in school who have snow pants that look like these. There has to be!”

My oldest shakes his head, “No, not really Mom.”

Cue the surge of motherly guilt. My middle child had gone through not one, not two, but three pairs of snow pants this year already, including a pair of Carhartt knockoffs. And each time, he probably wore them in their decrepit state for a good few weeks before I gave in and scrounged up a new pair (one being handed down to him, the next a begrudgingly made purchase online). I had sent him off to school with his knees puking out their white stuffing, assuming that it wouldn’t be a big deal to wait because SURELY he wasn’t the ONLY one on the playground looking like Oliver Twist in the wintertime.

Apparently, I was mistaken.

I further investigated this by talking to my brother’s family.

“Nope, kids just don’t wear out their snow pants anymore” was their conclusion.

When I was a kid in school, everyone had holes in their snow pants. And our parents absolutely did not get us a new pair. They were patched or duct taped. As were our already stylish moon boots. Wrapped in duct tape with our feet protected inside by plastic bags cinched tightly around our ankles.

We wore through our winter clothes.

We crawled and dug tunnels, built snow sculptures and skated down hills on our knees.

We earned the holes burned through our snow gear.

And we never thought once about the state of our apparel, because we all looked like rag dolls. We just loved having fun! We loved playing, using our imaginations, getting outside for the next adventure. The holes in our knees were the expected casualties of childhood.

Why would I assume anything less of my children’s generation?

So it was one of those moments of recognizing how my generation and the way we knew how to be kids is fading fast behind the curtain of a new generation.

A generation that does not blow out the knees of their snow pants.

And boy, if that doesn’t make me sad!

I know there are many, many kids out there who still love to play outside. And thank goodness for that. My kids are certainly not the only ones.

But today, many kids have a divide in their interests. Their time is no longer go-go-go-all-day-outside-sunup-to-sundown. Instead, it’s a micromanaged schedule of TV, electronic devices, and phones with physical activities sprinkled throughout. Parents use these devices as bribes, as rewards, for dutifully going out to play for the requested 30 minutes.

Play itself is no longer the reward.

I remember being told “Do your chores, then you can go out and play”. Yes, PLAY was the reward! That is what we looked forward to more than anything else.

And now, going outside is the chore while coming back inside is the reward.

When and where did this happen?

Am I the only one who is just completely dumbfounded? Or perhaps I’m just way late for the reality train.

Or am I simply hanging on to the past? Much like our parents and our grandparents before us? Is this what they were feeling too?

Is it crazy to want kids to be kids?

Is it ignorant to resist the flow?

Is it overly nostalgic of me to want for my own children a childhood that mirrored my own? One that involves such a love for playing outside that you didn’t even take the time to go inside to use the bathroom?

Yes, I peed my pants on our front steps when I too late took a break from making mud pies.

My sister did the same in her snow pants one fun winter’s day.

It was THAT hard to tear us away from our outdoor fun.

Not that I wish wet pants for your kids. Furreal. Because now being a parent, I’d yell at my kids to whip their pants down in the driveway before creating any unnecessary laundry.

And they do.

But I do wish for kids to have more time to just be kids.

I tell my kids they have their whole lives ahead of them to use the computer. The phones. The gadgets.

But they have only a few short years of childhood. SO few. And they go SO, so fast.

I won’t let a screen steal away their creativity.

Their imaginations.

Their grubby hands and dirty faces and torn up snow pants.

And, most importantly, their desire to get outside.

Outdoor playtime will always be the reward, never the chore.

And while I may not use duct tape patches and I will continue to replace the tattered winter gear out of straight-up mom pride, I will also try to not feel guilt over those days that my kids went to school looking like the poor kids.

Because I know those tattered clothes are not the result of neglect, but rather the expected casualty of my kids just being what they should be.

Kids.