The Bubble Children... and the Cleveland Minus Crowd

It was one of those brilliant August mornings, when the sun is high and hot at 10:00AM and the most logical place to be is lying in a cool body of water. I had met a group of mom-friends at Hinckley Reservation, where Hinckley Lake’s bounty flows over a small dam into a swimming area and shallow watershed. Our preschool-aged children scampered about the watershed, catching crayfish in primary-colored buckets and rearranging rocks to alter the stream’s meandering flow.

Each of us kept one eye trained to our respective tots while conversation turned to what other outings we could schedule before the last precious days of summer slipped away. I listened as this group of mostly Medina-based moms ran through the usual list of close-to-home destinations ranking high with the pre-K set. A trip to bumper bowling to escape the August heat. Some playtime and a picnic lunch at a preferred neighborhood park. A playdate in one of our own backyards. And don’t forget the new McDonald’s that opened up just around the corner, with the cleanest, newest Playplace around!

No, I’m not lovin’ it.

“What about the Cleveland Botanical Garden?” I suggested, describing the treehouse, learning garden and koi-stocked pond of CBG’s Hershey Children’s Garden, as well as the acres of other trails through the lush vegetation ideal for little explorers. “I usually take my kids there at least once a summer, and we haven’t been there yet this year. Why don’t we take all the kids out there together next week?”

Reaction from the mommy gallery was less than enthusiastic.

“Oh, gawd … how far away is that?”

“Where is that place, exactly?”

“University Circle? How long will it take to get there?”

“I hate driving in that circle thing.”

“I don’t want to drive that far!”

Cleveland Plus? Let’s call this the Cleveland Minus crowd, the suburbanite family that has allowed their world to narrow and a bubble to grow around them, staying safe and content inside a 10-mile radius of their home. It’s a nasty little side effect of suburban parenting. One day you’re a hip, happening single or DINK, clued in on all the city’s hot spots and the next you’re knee deep in diapers and barely able to make it out of the house to get to the grocery store in any given week. Whether it’s the parental protective instinct or force of habit, the bubble starts growing around us before we even realize it. It has powers of its own, threatening to trap all of us in our local suburbs – eating at Olive Garden, playing at McDonald’s, shopping at Target.

For most of us, life inside the bubble is a safe one. It’s something we as parents want for our children, a protected and familiar haven. But no matter how fabulous our suburbs are – yes, I hear you, Solon boosters – they can never compare with the full magnitude of experiences available in Northeast Ohio for our kids. For those of us suburban dwellers, preventing that bubble from enclosing on our families requires active effort and a sharp eye to notice just when the bubble might inching a tad too close.

But the effort is worth it.

What backyard sandbox can compare with digging your bare toes into the sand at Mentor Headlands Beach? What words can adequately describe to our kids the view of the leaves changing at Brandywine Falls in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park or the feeling of being the only human left on earth in the middle of the Holden Arboretum? What four-year-old wouldn’t gasp at the sprawling Preston’s HOPE Playground at the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Beachwood? How could we possibly describe to our children the sensation of milking a cow at Lake Farmpark unless they tried it themselves?

No matter how clean and new it may be, can a McDonald’s Playplace even come close to comparing to the brilliance of nature on display at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, perhaps sparking the interest of a future botanist? Isn’t it worth investing in a map and driving an extra 20 minutes?

Perhaps it was the oppressive heat that August morning that had exhausted us by noon, or the power of consensus among the moms. But in my battle against the bubble, I lost that day in convincing the group to try a trip to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. Yes, to the McDonald’s Playplace we’ll go, they agreed, as we packed up our beach towels, sand toys and sacks of Goldfish crackers to head home from Hinckley Lake for naps.

But I will survive to fight the bubble another day, I swore, and hopefully to pop someone else’s.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Jennifer Keirn jenniferkATwowway.com
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