Gone are the days when neighborhood kids ran through backyards or rode their bikes through neighborhoods without a parent hovering nearby. Or, so it seems.
Local moms want to change that.
The vision of loosening parental oversight so kids can play more freely was the brainchild of a couple of Oak Park moms who said they saw the need to empower children to give them more independence, and to alter a cultural norm that has become restrictive to parents.
Elli Purtell, Sarah Gripshover, and Carrie Schwarz held the first meeting of the “Let Them Play Coalition” in early May, which more than 20 people attended.
“It’s a scary idea to put out there,” Purtell said. “In the current culture, it is very much that you have to be by your kids all the time. The full responsibility falls fully on the parent as an individual problem.”
Gripshover said the way her children are growing up is very different from her childhood when she was able to play outside in her yard without the constant supervision of a parent.
“I feel that that has become really stigmatized,” Gripshover said. “The police can be called.”
And it has happened to a few local moms already, she said. There does not seem to be a culture of support for parents, Purtell said. Instead, it feels like high expectations are placed on parents about vigilantly watching their kids, a pressure parents internalize, Purtell said.
“I start to believe those things,” Purtell said. “I think ‘they aren’t safe, I need to be watching, I am a bad mom,’ so it’s self-pressure.”
It’s an unrealistic expectation because parents are simply busier now than in the past, she said.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2023 95.6% of fathers in the United States worked full-time. For mothers, it’s 80.1%. As parents’ schedules fill up with other responsibilities, they are not able to spend hours at a time with their children outside.
The alternative?
A screen, said Gripshover.
“I am so much more concerned about what happens on the internet than I am about what happens at the park,” Gripshover said.
Parents at the meeting shared that concern, Gripshover said, especially because the normalization of phones and tablets for younger children is growing. For example, a 2023 Pew Research Center study, for example, showed that most teens — 95% — have access to a smartphone and an overwhelming majority have access to a desktop computer, laptop or gaming console. About 65% have access to a tablet. A Common Sense report showed that teens spend about 8.5 hours a day looking at a screen, while for kids 8 to 12, it was about 5.5.
Also, Purtell said, kids and parents alike, are made to feel like the outside world is dangerous and the only place to be safe is inside with a screen.
But Oak Park is the perfect community to be able to support the creation of this type of movement, Purtell said.
“I am so happy to be living here,” Purtell said. “I choose this place. A lot of people said this at the meeting, that they chose to move to Oak Park because they thought this would be the environment they wanted to raise their kids.”
Purtell said the village has “all the ingredients” to be the type of community where children can walk down the street or hang out with their friends at a playground. Its crime rate, for example, is low, and most reported crimes are burglaries.
“The mindset is there, the willingness is there,” she said. “It is a very tight-knit community but we aren’t taking advantage of that for this cause.”
The moms are also seeking a sense of childhood community, which they believe has been lost throughout the years.
Purtell said she looks back on her childhood and values the community of neighborhood friends she had.
Building back up that sense of childhood community and also community between parents can help foster a sense of independence that would only benefit children as they grow up.
“Learning to manage risks when stakes are lower is actually a very important part of childhood,” Gripshover said, adding that you wouldn’t want your child’s first time of walking down the street alone to be when they are already away at college.
Keeping a “grassroot” mentality, and because they are in the early stages of planning, the moms are focusing their energy to three places for possible change in Oak Park: making roads safer, public education, and policy.
They said they hope to find community involvement and partnership with community stakeholders or other organizations that are already doing similar work.
Although the coalition is new, support seems to not be an issue. So far, more than 55 people joined the email list, Gripshover said.
“I would love to see kids outside, a lot,” Gripshover said. “Oak Park is a wonderful community; people do know their neighbors. People are looking out and I would love to see that concern channeled into helpful directions.”
The next meeting will be held on June 18. For more information, contact Elli Purtell at elli.purtell@gmail.com or Sarah Gripshover at sarah.grip@gmail.com.
