Privileging Play

I've been thinking quite a bit about our class discussion two weeks ago, where we talked about how sometimes children's play is deemed inappropriate or cut off by adults who do not understand what the children are doing.

I've also been thinking about how we privilege certain types of play. I saw this in Sutton-Smith, where he quotes Neulinger, writing, "the primary dimension of leisure, then, is the freedom or, to be more specific, the perceived freedom. By this we simply mean a state in which the person feels that what he is doing, he is doing by choice and because he wants to". I can't say that I agree with this. In fact, I think this is an example of privileging certain forms of play. In the "west" we do tend to theorize about play as being a free experience in which you choose exactly what you want to do, when you want to do it. But, that's not the only way to play. Often, I am forced to do something, but that experience ends up being a playful experience. Take, for example, class activities. In many classes we are forced to do certain activities. I don't choose to do them, yet they can still be playful.

On that note, we babysat this past weekend for our dear friends who have three wonderful children. The daughter, Leah, wanted me to make bracelets with her. While I love Leah, making bracelets is not my favorite thing. I'm not one to make stuff. So, you could argue that I was forced to do this activity. However, because I love Leah and want to make her happy, I made bracelets with her, and in the end found it to be quite fun and would describe it as play.

I think we must always be careful about how we define and therefore privilege and oppress certain forms of play.