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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I’ve never drank coffee but I do enjoy a good hot chocolate and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share the lesson I learned while trying to get my kids outside.

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What I Learned Yesterday:
When I was a boy I didn’t watch much TV. It’s not that the opportunity wasn’t there. We had a TV room in our house and I could use it whenever I wanted but seldom did. There were times when my whole family would gather to watch something like the Disney Sunday night movie, but this was the late 70s and other than Saturday morning cartoons there really wasn’t much of interest for a young kid like me on the 12 or so channels we received. So to me the summer months between school’s end and the new year beginning was a time to spend outdoors. I’d get up early in the morning, shove whatever was available for breakfast down my throat and then I’d be out the door, rain or shine, meeting up with my friends for a fun filled day of whatever our imaginations could come up with. Lunch would usually consist of some quickly eaten snacks at whoever’s house I happened to be at during the noon hour. And I would continue until one by one our mothers would stick their heads out their front doors and call out our names at the top of their lungs indicating to me and my friends that it was time for supper. If I was lucky, and my parents didn’t have any plans, I could go back out after supper and keep playing until shortly after dark.

During those adventure filled days I’d play cops and robbers, cowboys or pirates and my favourite, space explorers. I can’t count how many cardboard boxes took my friends and me on far off adventures to distant lands that only we could see. The whole neighbourhood was our playground, sure there were a couple of houses with grumpy adults that would tell us to get out of their yard but for the most part we would run and play from house to house running through front yards, back yards or wherever our fancy took us.

As I got older our adventures got grander. The small crescent street I grew up on had a park a few houses down and behind the park was a small forest with a trail that ran through it to another neighbourhood. I spent a lot of time in that forest, blazing trails, finding hidden clearings and building more forts than I can count. The best times were when either my or one of my friends fathers had some scrap wood we could use. We would cart it into the forest find a suitable tree and build ourselves a tree fort. They were never anything more than a few pieces of wood placed between branches that gave us a place to sit and watch out over our domain. But to us they were castles, pirate ships and of course space ships. Inevitably, since we weren’t the only ones that played in that forest, our forts would be discovered and either be dismantled or commandeered by older kids and my friends and I would be forced to find somewhere else in the forest to stake a new claim. It was maddening but what could I do, it was all part of being a kid.

Fast forward to the early 2000s and I’m a father with two young kids of my own living in a nice house on semi busy street surrounded by families with children of similar age to mine. Being responsible parents my wife and I would encourage our kids to spend as much time outdoor as possible. They would play on the swing set, in the sandbox or run around our fenced back yard, huh, fenced back yard, that’s something I had never seen as a kid growing up. But in our new neighbourhood every house had a fenced yard. My kids would sometimes invite one or two friends to play in our yard or they would be invited to play in someone else’s. Eventually they would get board and want to go in and watch TV or something. Sadly, my wife and I would inevitably give in and let them. Now I know every parent thinks the same thing and wishes their children could have similar adventures to what we had when we were young but with all the TV channels to choose from and electronic devices to play on it’s much harder to convince our kids that being outdoor is a good idea.

In 2005 when we build our new home on the outskirts of town an idea struck me that would push my kids to want to spend more time outside. My son was 9 years old and my daughter was 6. With so many trees in our yard wouldn’t it be wonderful to build them a treehouse to play and have their own adventures in. Something much better than the simple tree forts I had build as a kid. I told them about my idea and both my kids were very excited. Now, since we moved into our new home in October I through it best to wait until spring to build the treehouse. But we picked out a tree together, cleared a bit of brush round the area as well as a created a nice path form our lawn to the designated spot. Now all we had to do was wait for spring. As a stroke of luck, that spring my employer was having a new air exchanger installed and this massive unit was delivered on a huge solid wooden pallet. My boss let me take it home and this 9 foot by 5 foot piece of plywood with reinforced base became the floor of the treehouse.

I decided instead of building fully around the tree I would use the tree as one of the legs. With the help of my son I cut out a circular shape the size of the tree on one end of the base and bought three four by four posts to act as the other three legs. Firmly planting them in the ground we managed to raise the platform into place 6 feet off the ground, ok, I managed, but he felt like he was helping. We positioned it perfectly around the tree so that the trunk passed through one corner of the treehouse. My son didn’t feel comfortable standing on the platform 6 feet off the ground so he helped me from below for a bit until he got bored and wondered off to play.

Continuing on my own, I cut a square out of the floor next to the tree and using a slightly larger piece of plywood and hinges I made a trap door to allow passage in and out. I then built a ladder using two 2 by 6 boards and inserting 2 inch round dowels for the rungs. Carefully sanding each rung so as not to cause splinters. Hey I was going for father of the year here and splinters would not help my case. I positioned the ladder rungs close together to make it easier for my 6 year old to climb and secured the ladder at roughly a 30-degree angle under the treehouse.

With the floor now securely in place I proceeded to build the walls. Now I wasn’t skimping here, nor was I building this with leftover scraps of wood like my childhood forts. After planning everything out carefully I made a trip to Home Depot and with supplies in hand I continued my masterpiece. I built the two main walls out of 2 by 3s with a large opening in the middle for windows, one on the front wall and another on the back. With the main walls in place I proceeded to frame the two ends and then started on the roof. I wanted as much room inside as possible so I decided on a piqued roof that would allow a 6 foot person to stand erect if they stood in the middle of the floor. I built the roof struts myself and used a 2 by 6 as the main beam at the point of the roof. I extended this beam pass one edge of the roof by a couple of feet and installed a pulley on the end with a rope. On this end of the treehouse I framed in an opening where my kids would be able to raise and lower a basket to bring supplies to their fort. How cool is that?

Now, using fresh plywood I finished the outer walls and the roof. I then laid down some tarpaper and installed shingles that I had picked up on sale. Applying the shingles around the tree that poked through the roof was a challenge but I found some old pool liner I had, don’t know why I had it since I never had a pool, but I used it to wrap around the tree and secured it to the roof before installing the shingles over it. It was the best I could do to keep any rain out. I then finished the soffits with more plywood to close off any openings.

Now for the windows I had found some plastic track at Home Depot that once installed allowed me to put two pieces of plexiglass on each side that could slide back and forth to open or close the windows. I then secured screen material on the outside of the windows in the hopes of keeping the nasty bugs out. On the side with the rope pulley, I put a solid door with hinges on the bottom that my kids could swing down out of the way to reach the rope and close again when not in use.

I found the treehouse swayed a bit on the three posts so I took some spare plywood and secured it to two of the leg posts creating a brace that stopped the sway. I planned to buy a chalkboard and attach it to this plywood, under the treehouse protected from the weather so that my kids could write notes or draw treasure maps on.

It had taken me all day Saturday and most of Sunday morning but the treehouse was pretty much done. I still wanted to add some siding to finish it off but I planned to wait until it came on sale. In the meantime the treehouse was ready for use. My wife and I put in an old carpet and furnished it with a couple of folding chairs and an old TV tray table.

My kids loved it. They spent rest of the day up there. Insisting we put their lunch and later their supper in the basket for them to hoist up and eat in their new treehouse. They even asked if the four of us could sleep in it that night. But since they had school the next day we told them we could try the next weekend.

I was the proudest father in the world. I had built my kids the treehouse I would have wanted as a child. Heck, if I had had this treehouse my parents would have had to drag me out of it. I couldn’t wait for all the adventures my kids would have in it.

Unfortunately the feeling didn’t last. The next day after school my kids came home and proceeded to play in their rooms like they always did. When I mentioned the treehouse my son said he might go in it later but he didn’t. My daughter didn’t want to go in it without her big brother. In fact they didn’t bring it up at all that week. When the weekend rolled around I asked if they still wanted to try sleeping in it and their eyes perked up. They spent some time in it that day but when it came time to pull out the sleeping bags they both said they would prefer sleep in their rooms. I wont deny it, I was disappointed but I wasn’t about to force them.

Over the next several weeks they would go in the treehouse from time to time but never for more than an hour. One day they discovered some dead bugs on the carpet and when I told them that it was normal and bound to happen they were taken aback. It was one thing to see bugs in the backyard but in their treehouse was unacceptable. They started asking me to check it for bugs each time they wanted to use it, and soon they just stopped asking me altogether. They had completely lost interest in it.

Over the next several years they would sometimes use it, but only when friends came over and asked to see it. They would spend some time in it, making all sorts of grand plans for what they were going to do with it like putting up posters, painting the walls but as soon as their friends were gone so were their plans.

All in all in the eight and a half years since I built it both my kids have probably been in the treehouse less than 25 times each. I never did install the chalkboard or put siding on it. With my kids lack of interest I had lost the desire to finish it.

My son is now away at University and my daughter just turned 15. This past weekend I took down the treehouse. It took me four hours to completely dismantle it. All those years of missed adventures reduced to a pile of lumber.

Here’s what I’ve learned.
No matter how many times someone says your child looks or acts like you, or how many times you see one of your behaviours in them, the truth is, they are not, and never will be just like you. Just as you’ve distanced yourself from your own parents, your children are doing the same to you. They don’t call it the generation gap for nothing.

I’m grateful for the small traits I’ve passed on to my children. My son has my sense of humour, he loves the same types of movies and TV shows that I do. Even the ones from my younger days, heck he’s probably seen Monty Python’s Quest For the Holy Grail more times than I have. But our music tastes couldn’t be more different. I was a head banger in my teen years and although I’ve tried to get him interested in AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and the likes, he prefers movie scores and classical music. We are both video gamers but when I excitedly show him any of the games from my youth he just chuckle at the graphics. Although I don’t know why he laughs at the graphics from my games, I’ve seen him playing Mindcraft.

My daughter is an athlete and has an ease and grace on the field in whatever sport she plays that I could only dream of at her age. But she does have my artistic and creative nature. She’s also has my outgoing personality. In social situations she not afraid to strike up a conversation with a total stranger just because the mood hits her.

In some ways my kids and I are very much alike but in many ways we are very different. We agree on some things and disagree on others just like everyone else. The treehouse was one we disagreed on.

It took me many years to realize that I had built that treehouse for me more than for my kids. I put into it everything I would have wanted at their age. If I would have looked closer, I might have noticed that they were excited not at the idea, but because of my excitement. My enthusiasm got them worked up for the notion of the treehouse but it wasn’t ever something they really wanted. I do think in a way they feel bad for not using it more because they know how much work I put into it and how much I had wanted them enjoy it. But in reality that’s my problem not theirs. They had other adventures that I’m sure one day they’ll tell to their kids all about and the cycle will repeat.

For those of you listening that have young children of your own, or those hoping to one day start a family, remember to share your favourite stories from your youth with your kids, teach them the lessons you learned, guide them through troubled times, but along the way, don’t forget to let them loose. The paths they are following, the adventures they are having and the memories they are forming, although different from your own, are just as precious to them as yours are to you. So make sure you get right in there and share some of the fun while making memories with them. But remember, this is not your childhood. You’ve already had your chance; it’s now their time to be kids and have adventures of their own.

I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.

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