In this week's LA Weekly, comedienne Paula Poundstone writes:

Every year well-meaning parents and summer camps tragically waste millions
of dollars taking kids to museums. Kids hate museums. No matter how
high-tech or how interactive the museum, kids hate them. We're busy showing
them spectacular things - "Look! Over here you can actually see a real baby
dinosaur come out of its egg!" "Look! Here's an actual surgery, and you can
help stitch up the aorta!" "Come here, honey. If you're above this line you
can fly to the moon for an hour!" - and still kids couldn't care less about
anything in any museum except five things:

1.      They want to hang on the velvet ropes until they fall and get hurt,
no matter how long it takes.

2.      They want to hold the map. Not one of my kids can read a map, but
they each have to have a map to hold in any kind of museum so they can leave
it on the floor of my car, hence establishing some weird psychological
advantage over me.

3.      They want something from the vending machine that will melt and/or
stain.

4.      They want to use the public restroom and open the door to the stall
that you are in.

5.      They want to each get something from the gift shop that they cannot
share. My kids would each get their own tug-of-war ropes. There may be
nothing among the exhibits in the most brilliantly designed museum that
catches the eye of any of my kids, but there's nothing in the gift shop that
doesn't. We could go to the National Museum of Manure and my kids would want
to stop by the gift shop and beg me to buy something for each of them.


Eugene W. Dillenburg
Lead Exhibit Developer
Philippine Coral Reef Exhibit Project
John G. Shedd Aquarium
1200 S. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Ill.  60605

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