Learning to Play

by Chris Bullock

One of the great joys of parenting or grandparenting is playing with our children and enjoying the intimacy with them that play brings. But, like some men, I have had difficulties with play. Maybe I’ve always felt that play is something that happens on a computer or a sports field, but not at home. Why is this? Without play, everyone in the family misses out.

When my third granddaughter was born—the only one who lives close to me—I decided, This is it: I need to learn to play. But, sensing my play machinery was rusty, I felt I needed some help. For some reason, likely delusions of grandeur, I decided the fastest way to learn to play was to teach it. So off I went to train in the Parent-Child Mother Goose (P-CMG) program, which involves teaching songs and rhymes to infants and toddlers.

P-CMG is held in communities across Canada. One of the things that attracted me to the program is that it is co-taught, so I would have back-up. It’s also low-tech; parents don’t even get a song/rhyme booklet until the last class. And yes, I did learn to play, but I also got an extra piece of learning thrown in for free; I learned the origin of some of my inhibitions.

This learning about inhibitions occurred in two parts. The first part was when I walked into the two-day training workshop for beginning teachers. Everyone in the room was female: the teacher, the teacher’s assistant and the 25 or so students of all ages sitting in a circle of folding chairs. I had an instant and jolting flashback to my childhood in the English North Midlands, where strict gender role division prevailed. Girls had dolls and practiced caring for and playing with children. We boys had our soccer balls and our machinery: daring vehicles made from cardboard boxes and the wheels from old baby buggies. Entering the Mother Goose room, I felt my childhood conditioning surging back; playing with children obviously belongs to women.

The second part was more subtle and more gradual. As the first day progressed we practiced songs and rhymes for all kinds of functions. We sang songs for brain stimulation and learned rhymes for body coordination, learned “getting tasks done easily” rhymes and songs, circle songs to encourage cooperation and calm frenzied energy, and lap rhymes to provide experiences of safe adventure for infants. I liked the experience of rhyming and singing with gestures, and felt my awareness of overwhelming female presence melt a little around the edges.

Then, at the end of the day, two activities came up which gave me such a lump in my throat that I couldn’t perform them. First there was a rhyme:

Where are the stars? There, there! [Parent points to the sky, repeats twice]
Where are the stars? There, there! [Parent points to baby’s eyes]
Where is my star? Right here! [Parent hugs the baby]

Then we learned a peek-a-boo song, sung to the tune of Frere Jacques: “Where is baby? Where is baby? There you are! There you are! I’m so glad to see you! I’m so glad to see you! Peek a boo. Peek a boo.” I was overwhelmed by feelings watching this rhyme and song being demonstrated, feelings of tenderness, feelings of sadness, and some sense that these feelings came from my own childhood.

During the workshop session, I didn’t know exactly why I felt so moved and misty-eyed. Later that evening, though, I realized that these particular rhymes/songs have a function different from the functions we had talked about so far; they’re designed to encourage bonding between parent and child. This rhyme and this song evoked for me the tenderness involved in loving connection between parent and child. They also evoked my sadness at missing some of this connection in my own early days. What is true of me is, I believe, true of many men. In the men’s groups I have attended, I have frequently heard men speak of the emotional deprivation involved in their family upbringing, and how this deprivation has affected their ability to play with children and have true intimacy with their partners.

I’ve now taught five series of Parent-Child Mother Goose classes, and at the start of each series, I still have moments of panic in which I fear I won’t be able to let myself go into the playful silliness of pretending to peel an imaginary banana, put an imaginary cake in the oven, or wave my hands like a Halloween scarecrow. And then I enter into the play, and that, as well as my love of music and recitation, carries me forward.

What also carries me forward, besides the great joy I find in really enjoying play with my granddaughter, is knowing the origins of my inhibitions. This knowledge helps me feel more compassion for the times I still feel like a piece of rusty machinery. What I most wish for other fathers and grandfathers: knowledge and compassion as they open up to play.

Chris Bullock, recently moved to Victoria, has not yet found a venue for teaching Parent-Child Mother Goose, but he continues to play with his granddaughter and marvel at the miracle that is a growing child.