But somehow I felt shielded from the angst of “the prosperous 90s,” partly due to my parents’ quiet rebellion against the rigid education system—“Go play!” my mom would always tell me. Her constant affirmation of my right to play had set me free from the worldly worries that had infiltrated our world from the adult’s one. But on a deeper level, I wanted to believe that all children are secretly protected by fairies. Us back then, children today, and in the future. I wanted to believe that the little paradises of play children create for themselves could be so much more powerful than any agony, angst, Weltschmerz, or ideological crisis that happened to be prevailing at the time.