Lenore Skenazy has a great article in Salon today that, if you're a parent (or planning on becoming one), I urge you to read. Because for me, it puts in words something that I've been thinking about playgrounds ever since my kids arrived. And that is, how far has the pendulum swung away from "let them hurt themselves" on playgrounds to "never let them hurt themselves"? A bit too far, in my opinion. To the detriment of playgrounds everywhere, not to mention uniqueness.
When my daughter--now 15--was a toddler, I took her to our local park. It has a bunch of older playground equipment--a very tall slide (easily 12 feet or more) made out of metal, attached to a large, tall climbing structure; another climbing structure made out of wood; a separate "quite area" for the gentler toddlers; and so on. The kids loved it. But then they started replacing components with those plastic blobby things and . . . well, let's just say it wasn't nearly as much fun for the kids after that.
Near De Anza College in the place in the San Francisco Bay Area where Cupertino, Los Altos, and Mt. View kind of munge together--not too far from Apple, in point of fact--is a wonderful and large urban park. And for a long time the park had two very unique playstructure--one that looked like a giant wooden Tepee (or some damn thing) with bundles of logs running through it--lots of wonderful places to hide and run around and climb. The other looked like some kind of Hollywood version of an old-West street, with separate "stores", a roof (with a safety rail) that you could climb on, doors and windows to go in and out of, and enjoyment for all. And a swing set, naturally. There's also a nice duck pond, with a fakey gazebo out in the middle. It was charming. I used to drive my kids there from south San Jose because it was cool.
Then they removed everything and replaced it with those plastic, pre-fab blog playground, static-electricity generators. Yuck.
Somehow, whole generations managed to obtain adulthood without dying en masse due to defective playground equipment. No, of course I don't want my kids to hurt themselves by falling from cast-iron monkey bars sunk into concrete with no padding, but at some point you move from safety to wrapping your kids in cotton batting. Surely there has to be a middle ground somewhere, right?
I've been watching this evolution for a while now, and I'm thinking that it's killing playground diversity. Where once there was chaos, concrete, and wood, now there is conformity, wood chips, and plastic. I think we've gone too far.
Here's at least one vote for playground diversity.
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My kids slide is 5-6', plastic with speed bumps to slown them down. they only use it b/c it's fun to climb up it. It's sad really.
For 6 years, the only childhood friend that hurt himself fell off his skateboard.
Although my wife cringes, I allow my son to cross along the top of the monkey bars in our neighborhood park. In fact, I encourage him to do so. It is a real challenge for a 10 year old, but loads of fun, and it fosters courage and a sense of balance.
The kids were horrified, and I can't tell you how many of them tripped over that gaping hole. Stupid bureaucracy.
If a kid doesn't do a header at the playground and come home with scrapes filled with sand, then the kid's not playing hard enough!
It was a VERY VERY steep spiral about 40 feet tall and made out of bolted together sheets of metal that snagged many a pair of pants and cut open the backs of many thighs till you learned where the bad parts were. It was completely enclosed and pitch black on the inside. It spit you out at the bottom onto this fiberglass extension thingie that wasn't near long enough so if you didn't hit the ground running you were likely to go sliding into the dirt and get skinned up.
The parks dept. had built stairs only leading to the second-story landing, but you, if you were agile enough, could climb the thing on the inside all the way to the top and slide down for the ride of your life (occasionally knocking into kids who were trying to get on the slide at the second-story "approved" entrance).
Oh, and there was a hornet's nest in the boarded-up third-story "entrance" to the slide you had to avoid every year until they sent an exterminator to get it.
God, that thing was fucking awesome.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/11/22/hospital-boasts-safety-chute/
Did I mention how fucking awesome that slide was?
Oryoki: In Texas, the plastic ones get too hot, too, if they're in direct sun. What most parks around here do is have a lot of trees. (One of Zilker's other charms.)
The see saw is always gonna end up with a kid crying. I have both done it and watched it.
It starts out as cooperation. Then another kid wants to get into the act. So they start improvising. And/or, after a few minutes, someone wants to see what happens to their buddy if they suddenly jump off. The other kid falls to the ground, setting up the next stage of events.
Then some 3 year old wanders over and wants to get in the act and walks under one of the ends as it is extended.
Mostly they don't get massive head injuries, but it is too much to watch this sort of thing.
This is the kind of thing that can turn an unrepentant old Progressive like me into someone who decries "the Nanny state." I am aware that there are federal regulations. And those regulations often come because someone filed a lawsuit. And that lawsuit was because someone's kid got hurt. I dig it.
The problem is, at what point do you stop saying "this is dangerous for kids"? And just speaking personally, I think we went way beyond that point some time ago. Somewhere between the Norman Rockwell painting with a kid on a scooter that he made out of a few boards, a junked bike handlebar and some roller skate wheels, and the modern equivalent with a Razor ridden by a kid in a helmet, elbow, wrist, and knee pads followed closely by a hyper-vigilant parent is where the line needs to be. But right now, the pendulum is all the way over on the "wrap 'em in cotton batting!" side of the equation.
http://www.archiexpo.com/prod/miracle/climber-for-playground-56099-124354.html
I can only imagine how much one of these would cost a park district now :/
While I like the idea of playground diversity--then there's a place for all kinds of fun--sometimes these nostalgic posts bug me. The whole "When I was a kid, we used to..." just feels kind of cliche and old farty. I mean, you get that this is what people whose grandfathers smoked a pack a day say about the "supposed dangers of smoking," don't you? Or the ones who say, "I haven't worn a seat belt for 70 years and I'm doing fine!" I guess I just mean to say that if the people who work in ERs and pediatrics say there are too many life-threatening injuries due to poor playground equipment, well, then perhaps we should listen.
But it's possible that they aren't really saying that. I guess it's possible that there are only a statistical few problems but that schools and municipalities are worried about the cost of lawsuits so they're overreacting. In which case I'd be with you on this. I don't know which it is. Sorry to be so oppositional--I'm in a weird mood!