Children grow up so quickly these days.
One minute they're out on the front lawn, selling lemonade to neighbors. The next, they're off at San Diego State, selling drugs to undercover agents.
Where does the time go?
I've been pondering this question lately, in light of two events.
First, the New Children's Museum opened last weekend, six long years after its predecessor was consigned to the wrecking ball.
I recall vividly the Sunday in 2002 when my son and I drove to the old Children's Museum, only to find it wrapped in cyclone fencing, closed until further notice. It had been a favorite hangout.
Now that it is finally reopened, my son is 12 and has outgrown its magical world of bubble machines and pillow fights, even if his father has not.
Then there was the recent evening when my daughter, a high school swimmer, announced that she wanted to attend a City Council budget hearing so she and her teammates could protest Mayor Jerry Sanders' plan to slash funding for the city's aquatics programs.
Knowing my way around City Hall a bit, I offered to drive her and her friends to the meeting. This is an unheralded benefit of the city budget meltdown: bringing families closer together.
Council hearings are not for the faint of heart, though, and my fatherly pride was tempered by a vague dread. What if she was gaveled down? Or forced to witness a Jim Madaffer-Mike Aguirre donnybrook?
But my true misgivings lay in the realization that my daughter, now almost 15, has reached an age where a measure of her happiness is in the hands of that most unpredictable of institutions, the city of San Diego.
Life was easier when the kids were small and could live in the sheltered world of Kiddie Country Clubs.
That's my term for the attractions where we once had annual passes – SeaWorld, the zoo, Legoland, the Children's Museum. For a reasonable fee, they provide year-round access to activities that are entertaining, educational and safe. The playgrounds are clean; the drinking fountains always work.
The New Children's Museum, which I visited last week, continues this tradition. As I watched the youngsters there paint and climb and create, I wondered what opportunities they'd have once they outgrew that world, and followed the natural progression to youth sports and rec leagues.
Which brings us to the hearing on the parks and recreation budget.
It fell the same night as a swim meet, so my daughter and her teammates arrived late, hair still wet. They joined an overflow crowd with a large number of families and the festive air of common cause.
The piñata that night was Sanders' proposal to cut park and recreation spending by $6.4 million while he pumps millions of dollars into the city's underfunded pension system. Pool operations account for $1.4 million of the proposed savings.
Swimming is a year-round activity here, yet our pools close for 3½ months a year to save money. During those months, swim and water polo teams – usually the girls' teams, I hasten to add – are forced to seek alternate sites and compete for diminishing pool time. Meanwhile, many recreational swim and fitness programs simply shut down.
And that's the good news, the status quo that folks want to preserve. The proposed cuts would hack away further, reducing weekly pool hours by about one-fourth during the 8½ months they are open.
Other recreation programs face similar reductions. During the budget hearing, I was surprised to hear that skate parks could be left unsupervised at times. Everyone agreed this was madness, and the city attorney circulated an opinion advising that it could create liability problems. Ya think?
But give the mayor his due.
He didn't invent this budget crisis. And in an age when childhood grows shorter, and retirements start sooner and last longer, his spending plan faithfully reflects our community's priorities.
By the time my daughter's swim team had its turn at the mike, a hundred speakers had taken a swing at the piñata.
But the girls were not to be denied. They huddled in their team parkas behind their coach, James Tiffany, who denounced “the slow strangulation of aquatics in San Diego,” a fitting description.
We left soon afterward, so the girls weren't around to hear the council members pledge to maintain pool hours and to fight for recreation programs.
Councilman Tony Young noted that city parks will be magnets for kids, even after the adult supervisors are sent packing. “Trust me,” he said, “gangs are going to take over these parks. They're just waiting for us not to be around.”
Our understanding of gangs has broadened lately beyond the street gangs Young alluded to. It now includes the frat boys who dealt cocaine at San Diego State, and the surfers who prosecutors say terrorized La Jolla as the Bird Rock Bandits and killed a young man.
There are a lot of temptations out there, a lot of ways to go wrong. A number of speakers cited studies showing that youth sports and city recreation programs are a cost-effective deterrent to crime and teen pregnancy. But that doesn't help balance the budget now.
Councilman Ben Hueso said the size of our parks and recreation budget, which he compared unfavorably to Coronado's, reflects “our values as a city.”
He's right, and that's a scary thing to think about.
Gerry Braun: (619) 542-4563; gerry.braun@uniontrib.com
