Product Placement

The playground was full of children, mostly of preschool and kindergarten age. I found it pleasant to observe many children running, climbing, yelling and generally engaging in hearty physical activity (rather than watching television or playing video games).

RG explored various pieces of equipment at the park, but after a little while she noticed that one slide was taller and significantly faster than the other slides. RG is definitely a tall and fast young lady, so soon she was racing down this slide over and over with an intent look of bliss on her face. Nevertheless, from time to time, she explored other parts of the playground.

At one point she dashed up a mound of blacktop, slipped, and fell. It was not a serious fall, though obviously it stung her hands a bit as she broke her fall. It so happened that no adults in her family were close by, though both my daughter and I were watching RG, though not from a location where she could easily spot us watching.

My daughter and I came to the same interpretation of what we covertly observed. RG fell down, picked herself up, and looked around to see if anyone was watching, screwing her face up to start crying. Not observing any observers, she thought better of launching into tears, grimaced a little, and then pressed on to her destination. In other words, we both concluded, she decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble of bawling if no one was watching. She had discovered the age-old conundrum: if a child falls on some blacktop at the playground and no one is around to hear her cry, is there a sound?

Although silly, I can’t help speculating where RG’s talents and interests will take her when she makes career decisions as an adult. At the moment, driving a train or fire truck seems to be her main interests, but sometimes I sense other possibilities.

It may be that as an adult, she may turn out to be a marketing director or a drama queen. She already has some understanding of product placement.