We Went Out to Play Before Dinner

In August 1985, two children from Darndale, a neighbourhood in Dublin, left home and ended up on the other side of the Atlantic.

Keith Byrne was ten years old. Noel Murray was thirteen.

They had no passports, tickets or genuine plan. They carried a few coins, enormous confidence that they would somehow keep moving and one very specific dream: Keith wanted to travel to the United States to meet B. A. Baracus, the character from The A-Team played by Mr. T.

They avoided fares on several forms of transport, crossed Ireland and Britain and managed to stow away on an Air India flight from London to New York. They were only discovered after landing, when they asked a police officer how to reach Manhattan.

Their story travelled around the world, exposed serious failures in airport security and was revisited decades later in the documentary Nothing to Declare.

It was an extraordinary adventure, although obviously not one we should encourage any child to repeat.

But this story is not merely about ferries, trains, aeroplanes or security checks successfully evaded.

It is about childhood.

The World Before It Becomes a Map

For an adult, Dublin, London and New York are places connected by distances, borders, schedules, documents and costs.

For those two boys, they were primarily points along a possible adventure.

Childhood looks at the world before it has been completely organised by adult caution. Children are not unaware of every limit, but they can still imagine that limits might be crossed.

There is something powerful — and potentially dangerous — within that gaze. A sense that the world is unfinished, that it still contains doors which might open, routes nobody has anticipated and places where something important may be waiting for us.

Keith and Noel carried this impulse to an exceptional extreme. Yet the desire that set them in motion is not unfamiliar.

It is the desire for freedom.

To be seen.

To move beyond known boundaries.

To discover that the world is larger than our neighbourhood and that it may also contain a place for us.

Children Have Not Stopped Exploring

It is tempting to look at this story nostalgically and conclude that children in the past were adventurers, while children today remain indoors staring at screens.

But that reading would be far too simple.

Children have not stopped exploring.

Some of the territory has changed.

Today they build worlds in Minecraft, design experiences in Roblox, learn to code, make videos, invent characters and participate in communities where they find people who share their interests.

They imagine journeys to Mars, know about events occurring thousands of miles away and live alongside technologies that would have appeared to earlier generations as science fiction.

Many of these activities involve genuine play, curiosity, experimentation, connection and creation.

The tools change.

Imagination does not.

Nor does the desire to discover, create, share and belong to something larger.

Digital Spaces Cannot Provide the Entire Adventure

Recognising the creative value of digital environments does not mean believing they can provide everything.

Childhood also needs matter.

Children need to walk, touch, build, get dirty, negotiate rules, notice details, make mistakes without a restart button and discover how time feels when nobody has programmed every part of it.

They need conversations that pursue no particular outcome, games that nobody designed in advance, walks without an obvious purpose and small events that become important because they were experienced together.

Screens can expand the world.

But they should not become the only place where the world happens.

Holidays as Available Territory

Perhaps this is why holidays hold such value for a Creative Family.

Not because every day must become a spectacular adventure. Nor because families need to travel far away or fill the calendar with activities.

Their true value can be much simpler: they offer available time.

Time to talk without too much hurry.

To play together.

To change the plan.

To become bored long enough to start inventing.

To discover a street, prepare a meal, build something from imperfect materials, watch the stars or transform a short journey into a family expedition.

Creativity is not nourished only by extraordinary stimulation. It also grows through ordinary experiences to which we were able to give real attention.

Let Us Not Fill Every Minute

Adults sometimes try to create a memorable childhood by organising everything.

Camps, excursions, visits, workshops and plans.

We do it with love, but we risk transforming rest into another schedule that must be completed.

Time that is entirely occupied leaves little room for children’s initiative.

For someone to suggest something.

For a conversation to change the direction of the afternoon.

For a game without instructions to appear.

For a small adventure to find somewhere to begin.

Childhood freedom does not require an absence of care or the disappearance of boundaries. It needs a safe framework within which there is room to choose, explore and participate in shaping the experience.

It is not about allowing children to stow away on an aeroplane.

It is about not designing every centimetre of their world.

What They Will Remember

Years from now, our children will probably not remember how many hours they spent in front of a screen or how many activities they completed during one summer.

But they may remember that conversation during a walk.

The improvised game that occupied the entire afternoon.

The excursion that went wrong and became funny.

A night spent looking at the stars.

The time they helped decide where everyone would go.

Or a holiday during which, for a moment, they felt that time also belonged to them.

Memories are among creativity’s favourite materials.

Later, they can be transformed into stories, ideas, associations, desires, projects and personal ways of seeing the world.

So this summer, let us not merely try to keep children occupied.

Let us give them some freedom to explore.

Time to play.

And shared experiences capable of enlarging their world without requiring anyone to cross an ocean as a stowaway.

May you enjoy the rest, the adventure and, above all, your family.

A playful hug,

Clody, Lady Play at ByBa