I had a wonderful childhood.  I grew up in Baltimore.  There were alleys there that were functional.  We would play hopscotch and dodge ball.  We learned fun songs like “Miss Mary Mack, Mack Mack, all Dressed in Black, Black Black”…..that song would really scare me!

There was also a Catholic school outside of my house so we would go into their fenced in yard when we really needed space to play.

Looking out of the windows of the houses, we could see everything that went on in the alleys.  Therefore, crime was rare.  The windows were like live cameras.  At all times, day or night, we knew that someone in one of those windows was peering out.  The alley was like a T shape, very long, clean and functional.

My memories of childhood are of happiness and jumping rope.  Learning to ride a bicycle and making new friends.  It was a happy childhood.

When Michael Jackson mentioned that as a child, he would peer out of the window and wonder what it felt like to go out and play, my heart just bled for him.  And sadly he did the same thing to his own “children”.  They were home schooled and wore masks.  They did not go out to play.  How horribly sad that he continued the cycle.

Oftentimes parents are selfish and even mean. They think about themselves before they consider their children.  They often use their children as “cash cows”.  Look at all the so-called “child preachers” out there.  Those children are being pimped out.  They are not allowed to have a life.  It’s horrible.

And then there are the parents who torment their children with education. The children are forced to have a booked up calendar with no free time to just play and be children.  They have their children in violin lessons, piano lessons, ballet lessons, swimming lessons, tutoring, choir and on and on and on.  It’s torment but the children often do not know it’s torment because they have grown up in it and that’s all they know.  It’s not until much later in life that they realize they have been deprived of the FUN that goes along with being a child.

There were many problems with Michael Jackson. But one of his problems was that he was a prodigy used to the fullest.  Instead of all that singing, dancing and rehearsing, there should have been more time for playing and forging relationships with other children, to just have old fashioned fun.

If you are a parent, stop and look at your own children. Are they allowed to go outside and PLAY?  Do you have them booked to the maximum?

If so, let go a little bit.  Don’t deprive them of the right to just have fun and to be themselves.

I will leave you with this video that I saw on Phil’s blog recently.  It’s the video of a child named Terry Durham.  His grandmother and father both have criminal records.  And both of them are putting this child up to “preach”.  His father boasted about hoping his son would profit by making $86,000,000.

The only thing this child needs to be doing is sitting under an adult preacher where he can grow in the Word—and he deserves the right to go outside to PLAY, as opposed to going from church to church with his preaching routine.

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