Play

Recently, I went to (basically) my niece’s first birthday party, which was hosted at an indoor playground. The sister of the birthday girl is two, and she showed me her favorite place at the playground- the ballpit. First of all, ball pits are so fun, just in general. We played a game in which she buried me, asked everyone around us where I went, and then I would burst out from where I was buried to “scare” her. This play engaged Jenkins’ “6 Ps.”

PERMISSION
Jenkins describes the “mental bracket” we put around activities of play to give ourselves permission. I saw this in both myself & my niece! For me, even just getting into the ballpit required giving myself permission. There were a lot of adults at the party who stayed in the “event room” area and did not even enter the playground, and I had to think very consciously about whether or not it was okay for me to do so. Playing with a two year old gives a different context. I definitely still would have wanted to play in a ballpit if I was not with a very young person, but I’m not sure that I would have. As for Lemon (who I was playing with), she wouldn’t like to be scared if it wasn’t in the bracket of play, but that was her favorite part of the game.

PROCESS
The point of the game was never to actually scare Lemon, which might be the product. Instead, it was to get to roll around in the ball pit and see how well we could bury me. The experience and being silly together the whole time made it fun, not the fact that I could startle a two year old (which would be pretty weird!).

PASSION
I’m not sure if this is engaged. I know Lemon loves the playground, and she & I love each other, so I guess the play accessed that love?

PRODUCTIVITY
At first, I thought this was not productive because it’s focused around “destroying” the work of burying me. However, based on Jenkin’s definition of productivity, which includes “performing new roles, trying out new structures, redefining old situations” (Jenkins) , I think that the productivity was in trying to find new ways to present the idea of me not being there, so we could trick everyone else.

PARTICIPATION
While we played, some family members watched and eventually joined in! A few times, we tried to bury other people who joined the game.

PLEASURE
Jenkins speaks to the competitive nature of games sometimes limiting some participants’ pleasure, which makes free play that much more important. The party did include some structured, competitive games for the young people who were there, but this game was spontaneous and had no winner.