I wrote this text during my August hiatus, so it has some parts that do not make a lot of sense on the date of publication. Sorry for any inconvenience that it may cause.
Summer, the one I have been longing for months, was apparently very, very late. The days of August have been much hotter, and fresher, those days when the weather is a perfect excuse to drink a good beer. Hey, in the absence of a beach at least one chair on the balcony is a great idea. But what they call summer, let's say, politically, defined by the calendar, is already gone. We are almost in September, for us, the month of the Mexican Independence, for them a month of returning to work and school. Actually all the hassle and fuss starts in August, but settles more in September.
But now that the youth has returned to school, the streets are again desolated in the mornings. I have to say, children make me laugh, you learn a lot from them. But, not everything is black and white, and in the very black ones, there are children who, absorbed in their childish worlds, walk without noticing, cross the streets like sheeps, run in the shopping centers and end up smacking themselves with your delicate bags where you keep your recently bought glass items. Rudely, they don't flinch and keep on running. It would seem that you are the one who should step aside. Those noisy and tantrum-throwing children, who insist on their visibly tired parents, who want something from the store and with their tyrannic ego, cry inconsolably, while the poor parents have nothing left to do but give in to the incredulous gaze of those who we stare at them as a reminder to use a condom.
On the other hand, there are the older but still underage, the abominable adolescents. You may not know, dear readers, but in Iceland from the age of 16 you can start working. There are those on the internet who ask, what happens in Iceland, why are there so many teenagers working, which is funny, because at first glance it seems like a social rehabilitation program. Most, I suppose, don’t do it to support their family, but in order to pay for the costs of modern life, or to pay for their university studies in the future. Icelandic teenagers aspire for jobs in shops, gardening or any job that does not require high skills or any academic preparation. You would think that from an early age they are already developing professional ethics and a great attitude of service, but you only need to go to Byko (a store similar to The Home Depot) and see the desperate boomers about to explode due to the indifference and inefficiency of the small wage earners. But what can you expect? If right now, when the hormones explode, and their mind is on dating, acne remedies or the next Tik Tok video that will make them famous. That is my assumption at least, or how else do you explain the frowning faces they make to the man who`s asking them to change a product, surely something is on their mind, but the quality of service.
In his proposal for The city of children (La cittá dei bambini), he points out the importance of spaces being designed taking into account the development of the infant, ensuring that “a city suitable for children is a city suitable for all ”
In spite of everything, I am glad, because I see them shaping their own identity in front of the world, while they get to know it and inhabit it. And that has made me think about public space and childhood. Hello Habermas. For the Greeks, public space (agora) was conferred only for the free men (citizens), little by little, things changed, after hundreds of years, wars, a universal declaration of human rights, the abolition of slavery and the feminist movements, which gave us an iota of belonging to what was previously the exclusive use of the Privileged White Man™. But like every crying neighbor would say, what about the children? Who thinks of the creatures?
During this reflection I came across a beautiful proposal by Francesco Tonucci, who indicated the problems in the configuration of cities without the presence of those who are not workers (therefore, not productive). In his proposal for The city of children (La cittá dei bambini), he points out the importance of spaces being designed taking into account the development of the infant, ensuring that “a city suitable for children is a city suitable for all ”. And of course, I am not going to delve into the whole concept he proposed, but it gave me the idea to start thinking about the configuration of spaces here in Iceland. Especially given that the courtyards of the colleges and schools do not have fences, and the children usually gather there, in the afternoons. The public space is also theirs, in this implicit agreement that we take care of each other, in which the education and development of children is the responsibility of the community, not only the family nucleus, and that they have the right to appropriate it, as well as all adults, whether they are workers or not.
Of course I remembered my own childhood. In which I was bound by the limits set by my home and school. Not even its surroundings, because beyond the walls, it was hostile land. My street was my kindergarten that doubled as an after school daycare, helping mothers and fathers who worked after two thirty in the noon, as was the case with my parents. And one of those utopias in which I could get to know the world like that, without a leash, was that amusement park called Kidzania. Today the after school daycare, the one that shaped me and gave me the placebo of street entertainment, has closed its doors. Nostalgia is inevitable, despite how much I hated the place. And now in the confinement, in which I know of the children who still cannot return, at least, to the spaces in which they can spread their wings, it fills me with sadness.
Hopefully we can rethink, in the so-called new normal, a return that includes the next generations and their capability to be by themselves on the streets. I wish I could see the freedom with which children move around freely in here without getting surprised by it. I wish the schoolyards were not limited to their class hours, and that, in the afternoons, they would be crowded with children playing, without walls, without limits.
