Opinion Let the kids rot

Once upon a very real time not so long ago, Indian summers were about watching the clock slow down. As schools broke for the holidays, children shed their baggage of schedules and slipped into long lazy days filled with mangoes, mischief and that rare thing — unsupervised time. Days of chasing dragonflies and inventing games out of thin air, of lying on cool floors under creaky ceiling fans and watching the play of sunlight through the curtains, of turning cardboard boxes into doll’s houses, of fighting and making up with siblings and cousins all in the span of an afternoon. It was, as the nostalgics would say, the golden age of boredom, and it was beautiful.

The age of overachievement, however, transformed summer from a season of wonder into a gap to be filled with workshops, boot camps and other skill-building, prospect-enhancing activities, ranging from mindful movement to creative writing sessions. Screens crept in, too — glowing, addictive companions that turn idle time into something far more passive and far less magical. In chasing productivity, the poetry of those long days was slowly written over. Now, scarred by overpriced summer camps and stress-inducing hyper-structured productivity plans, the West has finally cottoned on to the joy of letting children do nothing for a few precious weeks. In the US, the phenomenon is being branded as “summer kid rotting”, a variant of “bed rotting”, that celebrates the unhurried and the purposeless while coaxing the modern parent, with her emphasis on over-optimisation, to step back and take a deep breath.

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The gentle rhythms of idle days, however, have always held a quiet wisdom. It allows friendships to steep into rich lifelong bonds, teaches children how to sit comfortably with themselves and makes room for curiosity and joy. Perhaps, the greatest gift adults can give children, then, is this freedom to waste a little time. After all, the best memories are often made not when everything adds up, but when nothing needs to.