One of the needs of the growing child that is much emphasized in
modern ideas of child culture is an opportunity for wholesome play.
The foreign-born mother, from a rural district in Europe, where
children were put to work helping the parents as soon as they could be
in any way useful, frequently does not recognize this need, and hence
does not even do those things within her power to secure it. From some
opportunities which she and the children might enjoy together, she is
cut off by lack of knowledge of English. A Bohemian woman, for
example, said that she did not go with her husband and the children to
the moving pictures, as she could not read the English explanations
and often did not understand the pictures.
Even when the need is recognized it is still a very difficult problem.
In the old country, when the child was too little to work, he could
play in the fields quite safe, in sight of his mother at her work. In
the city, however, especially in the congested districts, which are
the only ones known to immigrants when they first come, the child
cannot play in his own yard, for there is nothing that can be called
a yard. The alternatives are the city streets with their manifold
dangers, or the public playground. From the point of view of physical
safety as well as in giving a place for more wholesome play, the
public playground is obviously the more desirable.
The provision of playgrounds, however, is everywhere inadequate, in
some places much more so than in others. In Chicago, which is probably
better equipped in this respect than most cities, there are large
districts that have no easy access to a playground. Many of the women
that were asked where their children played said that they played on
the streets, not because the parents thought it safe, but because they
could not go to a playground alone and the mother had not time to take
them. It was interesting, too, to learn that some of the parents who
preferred the playground, and whose children played there, did not
think the children should be left there alone. In one Bohemian family
the grandmother took the two little boys to the playground and stayed
with them as long as they stayed.
In part, then, the problem of play space is a problem in housing
reform. All the newer housing projects make provision for a space for
this purpose, either by the individual yard or where the multiple
house is used, by one playground for every three or four families.
Housing reform, however, comes slowly and immediate relief could be
given by the provision of many more public playgrounds. It is obvious
that these must be so directed and supervised that children can be
left with perfect safety.
It would also be necessary to see that the foreign-speaking mothers
were informed of the advantages of the playground and convinced of its
safety for their children. The supervision of children's play in
streets and vacant lots could be greatly extended. The establishing
during certain hours of "play zones," from which traffic is excluded
and in which the younger children and their mothers could be taught
simple games and dances, has been found successful.