A playpen is a piece of furniture in which one can put and infant or toddler when the adult is pre-occupied or away (courtesy: Wikipedia). In places like India this concept was unknown as it was said and believed that"bade parivaar mein bachche apne aap bade ho jaate hein". But when there are not too many elders around, this becomes a necessity. The baby should not crawl towards the kitchen when the mother is working, the toddler shouldn't pull the wires of a gadget when the parent is taking bath..or when the parent is too tired carrying the bundle of mischief around,, and so you need a playpen.... Well,,,the list is endless.
In this you could put the kid safely alongwith the few toys so that he is in his own world of creativity when he plays with his toys. What becomes a blessing initially starts becoming a habit. It is more like any human being craving for more rest. We develop a tendency to put him in crib even while watching tv (he may pull tv wires), reading paper(he will tear the paper), be on the net forgetting easily how our parents handle us.(come on, even when they were in nuclear families, they did not know the concept of playpen at least). Stuffed with toys in playpen for prolonged period is as good as watching TV in a store room locked from outside. The "lack of freedom " feeling creeps in.
We easily tend to forget that seeing our kids growing will happen only once in a lifetime. (they won't get any younger later) but present pre-occupation and extended craving for rest overtakes our time with the kid. The only rule is to use the gadgets and commodities wisely, sparingly and only when the necessity demands. That way we are no more dependent on them.
