The (Inner) Children of Playa del Carmen
The Riviera Maya is an area with enough wonders to keep our childish curiosity and playfulness alive in an era when children risk missing out on the full joys of childhood
In today’s technological world, everything happens faster. What was once thought difficult is now so easy. What was once thought impossible is now commonplace. The effort has been taken out of so many actions. A letter once had to be handwritten, sealed in a stamped envelope, and delivered to the postbox. Depending on the destination the whole process could take weeks, and imply the input of several people. Now, we just send an email, for free, and it arrives instantly.
While I am amazed at how far we’ve come in my short(-ish) lifetime, I often get nostalgic for things from my childhood in the 80s that will soon fade permanently into the past. I’m truly grateful that I was born in an era when everything wasn’t quite so easy, fast and impressive. I’m grateful I learned to read paper books and write letters by hand, before electronic readers and tablets arrived. I’m grateful I learned to wait patiently for my favorite songs to be played on the radio so I could record them onto a cassette, before they became instantly available on YouTube. I’m grateful I learned to entertain myself for hours creating imaginary scenarios to act out in Wendy houses and forts made with sticks and blankets, before Wii arrived.
The facilities, information and opportunities available to children of this generation are greater than ever before. Yet, I sometimes wonder about what, despite all this progress and fortune at their fingertips, they are missing out on. With instant results, you miss the process. With instant success, you miss the lesson. With instant gratification, you miss that greater buzz of achievement due to hard work and effort. With today’s youth it seems like that curious, playful, creative inner child that we adults strive so hard to keep alive in later years, may not even get a chance to go outside and skip a rope or bounce a ball.
In this edition, we celebrate Children’s Day on 30 April and we’ve featured activities and alternatives for children in Playa del Carmen that allow them to be children: art classes, child-friendly restaurants, time in nature, wellness activities.
We live in a natural wonderland with a climate, enough beautiful sights and simple experiences to keep us all young, curious and in my case, most definitely grateful.
Happy Children’s Day 2018 – I hope your inner child gets to celebrate too.
