Why older people still need permission to play
Highlights societal perception that older adults are not expected to engage in playful activities, requiring external approval. Explores psychological and physical benefits of play for seniors, citing research on cognition and wellbeing. Features personal stories of older individuals who overcame barriers to participate in sports or recreational programs. Calls for policy changes and community initiatives to normalize play among older populations.
5 months ago
Older adults often suppress playful impulses because they feel they must act responsibly, yet granting them permission to be curious and joyful can enrich their lives and reflect core Christian values of child‑like openness and wonder1.
A daughter recounts a phone call with her 80‑year‑old mother, who hesitated to walk along a low seaside wall for fear of looking foolish. Encouraged by her daughter, the mother embraced the moment, recalling her own childhood daring. The family then built a garden swing for her, turning a simple wish into a tangible source of delight1.
While aging brings slower bodies and health concerns, overprotectiveness can unintentionally signal that spontaneity belongs only to the young. Families should assess risks but also affirm that delight and curiosity remain appropriate at any age1.
Supporting playful behavior in the elderly nurtures mental well‑being, reinforces intergenerational bonds, and aligns with a faith tradition that values child‑like openness throughout life. It also challenges cultural obsessions with anti‑aging by celebrating the wisdom and joy that come with age1.*
Older adults must seek permission to play: examine Catholic teachings on leisure
Catholic teaching treats leisure and play as genuinely human goods—part of God’s rhythm for life—not as something shameful or automatically sinful. For older adults especially, the Church emphasizes that leisure should restore the soul and body, support relationships, and remain ordered to God and the common good, rather than functioning as a guilty “reward” that someone only gets to enjoy by permission.
The Catechism links rest and leisure directly to God’s own pattern: just as God “rested” on the seventh day, human life has a “rhythm of work and rest,” and the Lord’s Day exists so that people can enjoy “adequate rest and leisure” to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives.
So leisure is not presented as an escape from responsibilities, but as something built into the structure of faithful human life—including for those who are older, who often have more discretionary time and therefore more need of a rightly ordered way to spend it.
The Church does not treat leisure as morally neutral. It must remain consistent with reasonable care for life and physical health and with the needs of others and the common good.
This means that even a good activity (recreation, sport, travel, social events) should be chosen with prudence:
Vatican II explicitly lists ways that leisure can be used “properly”: to relax, strengthen the health of soul and body, and support activities like spontaneous study, tourism that refines character and enriches understanding of others, and sports activity that helps preserve equilibrium and fosters fraternal relations.
The Pontifical Council for Culture adds that leisure and sport form a kind of culture and can become a “forum of evangelization,” but it also warns that sport can be distorted—taken over by commercial interests or used to express tribal rivalries and even violence, becoming “anti culture.”
In other words: play is good, but it must not be commandeered by forces that turn persons into objects (e.g., profit, rage, dehumanizing competition).
A recent papal letter draws on St. Thomas Aquinas to show that virtuous life includes time for games and rest—not because responsibility disappears, but because moderation governs the use of time. Aquinas cites Augustine’s idea that a wise person sometimes “relax[es] the high pressure of his attention to work,” describing this relaxation as involving “diversions, playful words or deeds.”
It also notes Aquinas’s point that actions done “for diversion” are not directed to some external end but are ordered to the good of the person insofar as they provide pleasure or relaxation—again, with the moral posture of moderation.
So the Catholic logic is neither “play is forbidden” nor “play is always harmless,” but play can be virtuous when rightly measured and rightly integrated into overall life before God.
Catholic teaching does not establish a universal rule that older adults must “seek permission” in order to recreate. What the Church emphasizes instead is moral order and responsibility:
If “permission” is meant in the sense of prudence and obedience to legitimate duties—for example, following medical guidance, keeping commitments, not abandoning family responsibilities, and respecting rightful authority—that is consonant with the Church’s stress on the common good and obligations.
But if “permission” is meant in the sense of dignity denied (“older adults aren’t allowed to enjoy life unless someone grants it”), Catholic sources point in a different direction: the Church presents old age as a time that can contain “new opportunities for prayer and union with God,” along with new spiritual forces to serve others.
Pope Francis similarly highlights that the elderly are not merely recipients of care: they have something to offer society, including teaching the “true rhythms of life” through the “harmonious relationship between the generations,” not the “stop-watch.”
Putting the sources together, a Catholic approach to leisure in older age can look like this:
Catholic teaching treats leisure as morally significant time: it is meant to restore the person, enrich relationships, and support a life ordered to God. The Church’s emphasis is not “permission to play,” but prudence, moderation, and charity—so that recreation remains consistent with health, obligations, and the common good.