Scott Black ran the New York City Marathon in 1979 as a 9-year-old. “I find that running has defined me as a person; a lot of my self-esteem has come from it. I don’t regret anything. That said, as a parent, I wouldn’t push my kid to that,” Mr. Black said.
via www.nytimes.com
via www.nytimes.com
The above article in the New York Times was interesting for a variety of reasons. At first I read it with a view of "Hey! Kids used to be able to run marathons, lets do THAT!"
Actually that view only lasted about 2 seconds. But then it got me thinking more deeply about fitness, kids, and endurance events.
What seemed to be a theme throughout the article, was that the kids who did do marathons then, were rare, had supportive parents who ran, weren't pushed and were self regulated. And by that I mean they chose to stop when it suited them.
Clearly, these kids were statistical outliers. Unlike the adults that run marathons, who come in all shapes and sizes.
I think that mocking the original article, and using it for an amusing twist, really doesn't do the topic justice. Even though it is amusing.
What the article highlighted for me was that, back in the good old days, there was some resistance to letting kids do these kind of events, just as there was for women a few years earlier, it did happen.
What happens to these outliers now? What happens to the kid who can't sit still and just wants to run? Perhaps they're being entered in 5 km runs. Perhaps they're put into some team sport to be just as averagely skilled as the rest of the kids. Perhaps their fidgety nature is medicated out of them.
I suspect that parents would be, until recently, vilified for letting their kids undertake something as difficult as a marathon. But, maybe the questions do need to be asked, with parents occasionally using their kids for personal recognition
But, there are more and more kids races out there. Maybe the pendulum will swing back and we'll start seeing more articles about kids winning their local race.
I do think that it'll be a long uphill battle to convince a large segment of the parenting population out there that their kids don't need to be protected from physical activity, and that being exhausted after running around playing isn't going to stunt their growth.
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