When schools closed last week due to the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome, the kindergarten and day care that my two girls go to followed suit.
They went on a three-day shutdown from Wednesday through Friday as a precaution. 
I managed to take some time off and stayed home with the kids for the last two of the three days, which led into the weekend.
A potentially deadly virus was raging outside and I saw no reason to take my kids out unless it was necessary. So my girls never left the house for four straight days until Sunday, when they finally got out to go to church.
I know that keeping children at home is a common punishment for children in the West, but my daughters seemed quite all right with deprivation of outdoor activities. On the contrary, they seemed to enjoy their time with mom, who often isn’t home when they wake up in the mornings.
Staying home had its merits for me, too.
Home is the safest place I can think of. All the risk factors, including the MERS virus, are under my control. To be honest, I am not very keen on outings when I am the only supervisor of my two energetic, fun-loving and sometimes mischievous girls.
In addition, my home is fully equipped to entertain kids. There are enough children’s books to fill a small library and toys of various kinds and purposes — for cognitive development, language or social skills or just for burning energy.
But above all, there is the ultimate babysitter — TV. When kids start whining out of boredom or I feel the desperate need for a break, I turn on TV and the kids are good for at least an hour.
On Day 2 or 3 of our self-confinement, I started to feel a sense of unease about my children’s indoor lifestyle, or their lack of desire for outdoor activities. On a usual day, they would play for about an hour in a playground after kindergarten and day care before returning home.
This led me to think about the disturbing difference between my own childhood and that of my children.
When I was around the age of my first daughter, I spent most of my waking hours playing outside, mostly unsupervised. I woke up, ate breakfast and got out to hang out with the local kids, only to return at the next meal time.
I remember our little adventures around my hometown, which was a tiny rural village just south of Seoul. I remember after the rain we sometimes rushed to the anti-flood channels of a nearby pond in the hope of catching fish that might have gotten carried off in the overspill. Summer was the most exciting time of the year for us, as days were longer and the scorching sun lent us an entitlement to play with water.
In the hindsight, I can see the danger of unsupervised outdoor play, but somehow we all survived.
The MERS virus, yellow dust, the killer bush ticks, the lack of green spaces or whatever the reason is, it is an undeniable fact that our children are deprived of chances to freely explore their world.
But should parents be less protective and give them more time for unstructured outdoor play in today’s urban environment? That I honestly don’t know. I may be one of those over-anxious moms, but living in a large apartment complex together with thousands of stranger-neighbors and hundreds of cars, I see potential danger lurking around at every corner.
All I hope for now is that this MERS outbreak will die down soon, so that my kids’ memories of the summer of 2015 are not all indoor ones.
By Lee Sun-young
Lee Sun-young is the culture desk editor of The Korea Herald. She can be reached at milaya@heraldcorp.com. ― Ed.
