Big Weekend

I am a product of my environment.

by Duane Swierczynski

I am a product of my environment.

Which is why — since I was born and raised in the Great Northeast — I find myself inexorably drawn, like a hair-sprayed lemming in Z. Cavariccis, to the shores of Wildwood.

Only now I drag my wife and kids with me.

Part of it is childhood nostalgia; there are potent memories at work here, like watching Back to the Future at The Strand on the boardwalk with my buddy Danny Filipone, and riding the Morey Piers' double log flume many more times than is recommended by the Surgeon General.

Part of it is young adulthood nostalgia, too — playing keyboards in various North Wildwood clubs in my dad's bar band, and beating back the hangover enough to be able to stomach a slice of Mack's before resuming the stage and drinking myself into catatonia all over again.

And part of it is: My kids dig it.

The rides, especially. Never the same rides at the same time, mind you. My daughter loves the bumper cars; they frighten my son. But then, he'll turn around and beg to ride the double log flume, which is a whole lot more frightening than a tiny car ringed in rubber that runs from an electric charge from live wire-mesh ceiling.

Things that go around? They agree on.

Such as the dune buggy ride. You sit in the dune buggy, it spins around and bounces you up and down, as if you're slamming over sand dunes in Baja California (or, certain stretches of Delaware Avenue). Kids love being spun around and slammed.

But as I watched the unmitigated joy spread across the faces of my children, I caught a glance of another kid. She wasn't enjoying her bouncing dune buggy nearly as much.

Maybe that's because she could barely fit inside.

She was — oh, maybe 6.

She weighed as much as a junior high linebacker.

And I swear, the arms of the dune buggy ride struggled mightily to lift that child up to give her a proper jolt, but couldn't quite do it. I could see the heads of the other kids bounce up to the same point in the air.

Not hers.

She wasn't the only one. Hanging out by the hotel pool this past weekend, you could divide the under-13 set into two distinct categories: normal, athletic-looking kids with deep tans, and pale, fleshy kids who bulged out of their bathing suits like one of those squeezable rubber stress toys.

There were as many morbidly overweight kids as there were skinny kids.

I counted.

And it looked like the only exercise their overburdened bodies have seen in the past 12 months were right here, in this pool, in the last 15 minutes, as they slowly moved around the chemically treated waters until they decided it was time for a snack or a DVD.

Let me say this upfront: If you've ever met me, you know I'm not exactly svelte. I'm a big guy. In fact, when total strangers, searching for an accurate handle with which to address me, invariably opt for "big guy."

But you know, I was actually short and skinny until late in high school, when hormones took over. And from there, I take full responsibility: too much beer and fried dough made me the adult (and a half) I am.

Children, though, should have no such excuses.

And the root of it all, of course, is laziness.

Not the kids. Their parents.

Did I miss the tip in Child magazine: When in doubt, raise your kids like you're raising ducks for foie gras?

This is my generation doing this, and I really can't figure it out. When we were growing up in the late '70s and early '80s, all we did was run around and be stupid and ride log flumes until we puked. Did we forget all of that?

I guess it's just easier to give your kid a bag of chips and sit him down in front of the TV instead of talking to him. It's easier to pull in to the fast-food joint when they whine. It's easier to skip cooking dinner and order out. It's easier to let them eat over at their friend's house, where it's also easier to order out. It's easier to let them sit inside all weekend, plugged in to any number of electronic diversions.

But when we start seeing 20-year-olds having coronaries, it's not enough to say, hey, they're just products of their environment.

Parents create the environment for their kids.

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