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Uploaded: Friday, February 22, 2013, 6:11 PM
Updated: Sunday, February 24, 2013, 4:45 PM
Menlo Park father takes child's play seriously
Bucking the norm, Mike Lanza seeks to foster neighborhoods where children play outside
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by Chris Kenrick
Palo Alto Weekly Staff
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 | With resources to buy a nice house in Palo Alto or Menlo Park and expecting their first child, Mike Lanza and Perla Ni beat the bushes for a single feature that was critical to them -- a home on a street where kids play outside.
They spent weekend afternoons driving around neighborhoods scouting for "kid debris" and knocking on doors to ask residents whether children played outside.
"It's almost impossible to find," said Lanza, a tech entrepreneur who, since that experience more than eight years ago, has made it his life's work to promote unstructured neighborhood play for kids -- his own and others.
"And the real-estate industry was no help at all."
Lanza, author of "Playborhood: Turn Your Neighborhood Into a Place for Play," will speak Monday, Feb. 25, in an evening event at Cubberley Theatre sponsored by Friends of Preschool Family. He will discuss ways parents can promote neighborhood play and help kids develop into "active, meaningful adulthood" through playful childhoods.
"One way to characterize my life is that I'm applying entrepreneurship skills to my kids' childhood," said Lanza, who launched a series of tech startups before turning his professional attention to child's play.
Lanza grasped early in his quest for a neighborhood with street life that he was bucking the cultural norm, a norm he believes has been turned upside down since his own fondly remembered youth in Pittsburgh, Penn.
"Now, there are a lot of neighborhoods with a lot of kids, and you don't see a single kid outside," he said.
"People are doing everything they can to optimize kids' future potential: We schedule them to the max and we're happy if they do homework."
"But I don't adapt, and I said, 'I'm not going to raise my kids this way.'"
After testing different Palo Alto and Menlo Park neighborhoods through rentals from Midtown to Guinda Street to Creek Drive, Lanza and Ni purchased a house in Menlo Park -- not their favorite, but one they felt had "neighborhood potential."
They've tried to foster street play by constructing an "outdoor family room" in their front yard.
"We're doing some pretty wild things with our kids, but I'm pretty sure their lives are better," he said.
The family doesn't entirely shun typical routines for their three boys, who are now 8, 5 and 3.
The oldest takes tennis after school and participates in the Young Builders workshop at Midtown.
But, Lanza said, "We're not big on organized sports, and we try to leave two or three days open for him."
Their efforts have won what they hope is the gradual acceptance of neighbors.
"There's lots of excitement from certain people -- Ohlone (Elementary School) types -- but for most people it's, 'We like it, but we're not going to start canceling our kids' activities so they can hang out in your yard more,'" he said.
"Others are 'living the life,' scheduling their kids like crazy. But interestingly, two of our neighbors have independently come to us and said, 'We used to not really want our kids to come to your place, but now we realize it's just a lot of fun.'"
Lanza's research has led him to a few urban and suburban pockets around the country where outdoor street play is supported and thrives. In a low-income neighborhood of the Bronx a dedicated resident for the past 37 years has created a sanctuary for play on Lyman Place, a small street, where she gets through traffic banned for the summer and kids populate the space.
He's been invited to speak next month with the mayor and department heads of Somerville, Mass., who are interested in promoting the idea.
His research on play has led Lanza to the belief that it doubles as the best path for nurturing curious and engaged adults.
He's been interviewing parents of entrepreneurs and social activists, including winners of the Thiel Fellowship, which pays selected students under 20 $100,000 over two years to drop out of college and pursue entrepreneurial, social or scientific work.
He theorizes that pressured, overscheduled childhoods create unprepared adults.
"We have an epidemic of 20-somethings who are listless, don't have direction in life and living with their parents -- and a lot of them are very well-educated," he said.
"To some extent it's because of the economy, but the key statistic is that the labor-participation rate of 20-somethings is at an historic low, so they're not even trying. The statistics say there's not as much trying going on."
In his next book, tentatively titled "Raising Doers," Lanza said he will connect the dots between playful childhoods and adults who are "active, caring, solutions-oriented participants in the world."
His Feb. 25 talk, "From Players to Doers," is free and open to the community. Part of Preschool Family's "Parents Survive & Thrive" speaker series, it will be from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Cubberley Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto.Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.
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Posted by George, a resident of another community, on Feb 24, 2013 at 9:14 am So, lets recap... Lanza lives in Menlo Park (even though it's "not their favorite"), writes books (by collecting "his research on play" via neighborhood kids invited to his house), and gives talks (to Palo Alto parents @ Cubberley) about how our kids don't have enough unscheduled time. Call me cynical, but I think Lanza is poorly attempting to building his career and sell books by lecturing to over-stressed, nostalgic parents about the simply joys of playing outside. Really? Is nothing sacred?
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Posted by Irony, a resident of the Menlo Park: Central Menlo Park neighborhood, on Feb 24, 2013 at 10:06 am After investing so much energy in finding an acceptable house in an ok (though not their favorite) neighborhood, the family now finds their idyllic existence threatened by almighty Stanford, planning to erect a massive gridlock-inducing mega-officeplex just down the street. Perla Ni is leading the charge.
The takeaway, boys and girls, is that you can't just assume you've achieved nirvana when you get your square of paradise in our city. You must remain ever-vigilant lest our city staff and council ruin it for you and thousands of others.
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Posted by Menlo Voter, a resident of the Menlo Park: other neighborhood, on Feb 24, 2013 at 4:35 pm George:
parents today are so wrapped up in their children's "future opportunities" that those children don't get to have lives of children. They are scheduled to death. When's the last time you heard a parent tell their child to "go out and play?" Play, unstructured play, is an important part of childrens' development. Unfortunately, with the hyper driven, helicopter parent world we live in, children today don't get to just "go out and play." Ultimatley it's because those same parents are worried that their children won't do well and by reflection that means that they, as parents, haven't "done well." It's all so narcisistic.
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Posted by tamygee, a resident of the Menlo Park: Central Menlo Park neighborhood, on Feb 25, 2013 at 12:13 pm Sometimes it's as simple as not having other kids on the block. My kids are outside all the time (and they have organized sports as well) but it's kind of a bummer that there aren't kids their own age for them to play with.
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Posted by Willows parent, a resident of the Menlo Park: The Willows neighborhood, on Feb 25, 2013 at 12:16 pm My kids play outside or inside, with neighboring kids, all the time. My initial take was that Lanza was some kind of weirdo, but George might be closer to the mark. I wonder whether anyone who starts a post with "Parents today..." is actually currently a parent...
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Posted by AK, a resident of the Menlo Park: Central Menlo Park neighborhood, on Feb 25, 2013 at 12:32 pm I appreciate Mike's core message a lot--our kids *are* too overscheduled, and free play is a lost art for so many families. That said, after reading a number of his blog posts, I wish that he would acknowledge the many factors that go into selecting a place to live. Sometimes I get the sense from reading his posts that he thinks that parents who can't either a) create a magical children's paradise on their block or b) afford to move to a block where such a place exists are c) shorting their children critical life experiences. I'm not sure that's fair to the many families facing a tough economic climate, and it certainly fails to acknowledge the many complex factors going into a decision about housing. The ability to shop for a neighborhood as he and Perla did is rather luxurious.
Compared to many professionals with similar pedigrees (advanced degrees from prestigious universities in highly marketable subjects) we work less, making consequently less money, and we rent a small apartment in the heart of town. Values that this satisfies: more time with our kid. More time with our hobbies. Better cash flow, which enables us to pay for the experiences we cherish. A truly walkable/bikeable neighborhood, which means that we can get away with driving one car and averaging a tank of gas per month.
What we don't get: a playborhood. Our neighbors tend to be a rotating collection of grad students and young professionals with a handful of fixed income seniors thrown in. We get close to them, and then they move. Families with kids on our street tend to move away by the time the kids are preschool-aged, seeking bigger, more stable accommodations. I look longingly at the neighborhoods like Allied Arts, but am not willing to make the tough bargain (more work, less money, less time) to buy into such a place. Without a tremendous financial cushion, the math just doesn't add up.
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Posted by Menlo Voter, a resident of the Menlo Park: other neighborhood, on Feb 25, 2013 at 2:53 pm Willows:
do yo stop being a parent because your children are grown? Just saying....
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Posted by Willows Parent, a resident of the Menlo Park: The Willows neighborhood, on Feb 25, 2013 at 7:42 pm MV: Yes, when your kids grow up, you stop being a parent of kids. Tell us more about what it was like in your day, and how we should raise our kids, gramps!
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Posted by Menlo Voter, a resident of the Menlo Park: other neighborhood, on Feb 26, 2013 at 6:58 am Willows:
I can tell you this much, my son wasn't scheduled to death and was actually told to "go out and play." Didn't seem to harm him and he's doing fine. I am a grandfather so I do get a first hand view of parenting today. What I said previously stands.
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Posted by irony, a resident of the Menlo Park: Central Menlo Park neighborhood, on Feb 26, 2013 at 8:54 am MV, the Stanford project that you so earnestly support is going to turn Playborhood into Slayborhood, as cars go zipping through Allied Arts to get away from El Camino gridlock. So much for idyllic childhood -- it will be risky for everyone, from infants in strollers to great-great-grandparents in their walkers, to spend any time outdoors.
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Posted by Menlo Voter, a resident of the Menlo Park: other neighborhood, on Feb 26, 2013 at 12:22 pm irony:
who said the kids had to play in the street?
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Posted by presentation, a resident of the Atherton: other neighborhood, on Feb 27, 2013 at 10:30 pm i attended the presentation this past Monday night. Mr. Lanza was more interested in name-dropping that he employed the founder of Craigslist at one point and trying to get the audience to buy books from his 8 year old son (out on Monday night until 10 pm, mind you) than actually sharing anything worthwhile with the audience. It was not a great showing -- we were hoping for something more.
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