A Case for Climbing Trees

At some point in my life, I stopped climbing trees. It was likely later than when most people did—I climbed trees well into my 20’s. Well, I climbed them until I was 21, when I graduated from college and moved away from the stand of ash trees that stood between my dorm and the science building.

Recently, I’ve begun having the urge to climb again, however. We have a marvelous climbing tree in our front yard, an ornamental cherry of many years’ age that I have carefully pruned to make for good climbing by my own children and any others who want to join them. But a funny thing happens when the thought of climbing the tree pops into my head: A word pops into my head along with the thought, and that word is “No.”

No, you’re being ridiculous. No, you are too old. No, you’ll scratch your feet and knees. No, you’ll feel unbalanced. No, that’s pretending to be something you’re not. No, that’s undignified. No, that isn’t safe.

It’s an odd sort of imposter syndrome that pops into my mind, really, that tells me I that I am outside of the category of safety for doing such a thing. That I would be playacting if I did so, that I would not be living in cold reality. That this sort of play, for adults, is somehow dangerous.

Play psychologist Peter Gray tells us something very different, however: that play is what “makes us human.” Are adults any less human than children? Why shouldn't adults climb trees and play?

Perhaps adults do play. Or at least, we have ways of indulging ourselves. We eat and drink too much. We exercise to excess (or not at all). We watch Netflix to “chill;” not a show here or there for good fun, but long strings of shows, the well-hallowed streaming binge. In fact, when I watch shows or movies, I often find myself wanting to fast-forward through much of it. I don’t have patience for even this kind of play. 

Play is not just something we enjoy. It is something that refreshes our minds and bodies and alters our awareness for a while, allowing our brains to grow, reset, heal.

But is this really play, anyway? Gray defines play as much more than having fun or doing what we wish; it is an entire, particular state of mind and body and relationship with the self and the world. Play is not just something we enjoy (or, as in the case of food and drink and Netflix and scrolling, something that often makes us feel slightly sick afterward). It is something that refreshes our minds and bodies and alters our awareness for a while, allowing our brains to grow, reset, heal. Indeed, trauma researchers such as Gabor Maté tell us how powerful play is in healing deep emotional wounds—wounds which, if left uncared for, often lead to dysfunction in relationships and illness in the body. 

But instead of play, we turn to avoidance and distraction. We don’t want to feel our feelings and return to ourselves, and so we also do not want to play.

Play poses some danger to us, we think, and I wonder if this discomfort lies beneath our resistance to children’s play, as well. Too often we allow our anxieties to restrict children’s play to such a degree that it is hardly play at all. We privilege screens for our children just as we do for ourselves; but we also restrict their freedom of movement. When they climb a tree, mommies holler, “That’s not safe! Get down!” On playgrounds, daddies admonish kids not to climb up slides. Yet on screens, we too often tell them, have at it (no guidelines needed here). 

Yet it is not dangerous for children to climb up slides, at least in my experience. To the contrary, it is good for their agility and strength. Keeping them safe is simply a matter of telling them to make sure no one is coming down the slide first. A child who does not run or jump or climb or get messy risks becoming an adult who is frightened of everything but the couch and the screen.

A child who does not run or jump or climb or get messy risks becoming an adult who is frightened of everything but the couch and the screen.

So why treat our children as less than human, restricting their play to only that which feels safe to us? It is wrong for us to remake their play in the sickly image of our own, all the while knowing how bad our version of recreation makes us feel. Who would really wish a TikTok hangover on his child? And yet still we tell them this is the way to play, simply by showing them that this is the way that we play.

We adults need to consider climbing trees more often—or at least returning to dancing or playing bridge or whittling or something—anything that includes elements of true play. Perhaps it will remind us of what once has been.

Indeed, up in that cherry tree this afternoon, reclining only slightly uncomfortably on a branch, I thought, “Now here is myself again.” 

Did I leave myself at 12 years old, or perhaps at 21? Or have I simply been waiting for me all along, up in this tree?

Dixie Dillon Lane is an American historian and essayist living in Virginia. Her writing can be found at Hearth & Field, Current, and Front Porch Republic, among other publications, as well as at her newsletter, TheHollow.substack.com.