I wonder if today's parents of young children realise how lucky they are to have all the child orientated facilities that abound in our local areas? I would have given my right arm, when my daughter was a toddler, for a well-equipped, toddler-friendly playground, or a café where you could happily breastfeed or change a nappy, or a soft-play centre, or the choice of baby classes that nowadays exist - singing, dancing, art, baby signing, story telling and so on.
I had few friends with young children and when I once tried a local church playgroup it wasn't welcoming. (Even less welcoming to her father, on the days that he was caring for our daughter.) I used to take her to a local carpet shop that, for some reason, had a small ball pool where she would play happily for a while. I used to have to pretend that I was thinking of buying a carpet!
Eureka, the National Children's Museum, opened in Halifax in 1992 and is wonderful for children (though quite expensive) but by then my daughter was already ten and on the top side, age-wise, to find it interesting. We found things to do, of course, but I used to find the ingenuity required was quite exhausting. Even the museums and galleries we used to visit were not nearly as child-friendly as they seem these days. There were no playrooms or free packs of paper and crayons to play with, as seems standard these days.
Just locally in Saltaire, two new facilities have opened. The Baby Bean ('where little moments brew big smiles') is 'a calm and welcoming space designed for babies, toddlers and young children, combining imaginative play with a relaxed café environment for parents'. It's even screened from passers-by, to aid the calmness. It has a role-play village and a sensory room to engage the little ones. What bliss!
Further along the street, Art-K offers art classes and workshops for children (and a few for adults too) to explore their creativity and develop their artistic skills.
I so wish I'd had access to such things, as a young mum.
Both the "Baby Beans" and the "Art K" look and sound great. I wish them thriving business and many happy customers, big and small :-)
ReplyDeleteWhen we were little, we just went out to play. Being born in 1967 (my sister) and 68 (me) meant that there were many families around with children our age. It was normal for the fathers to be at work during the day and our mothers looking after us, sometimes supported by grandparents, if they did not live too far away. Nobody had two cars so everyday shopping was done on foot with us toddlers in tow. When one mother had an appointment or wasn't well, another one living in the same street took care of the little ones during the day. It was all rather pragmatic, and friendships developed that are still going strong today - when my Mum turned 80 two years ago, there were several couples she met when they were all young parents.