The dulling of American playgrounds (no more monkey bars or see saws)

MSNBC / AP ^ | 7.5.03

[mhking]

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 5 — The playgrounds, like so much in Gigi McGaughey’s 4-year-old world, are not the way her parents remember. No 12-foot-tall metal slides shimmer and bake in the summer sun. The hulking jungle gyms where girls would hang by their knees, ponytails dangling over hard asphalt below, have been dismantled. It is hard to find those kid-powered merry-go-rounds that used to give giddy gut-level lessons in centrifugal force.

GONE, TOO, are the seesaws where earlier generations learned the art of cooperation and felt the betrayal of a sudden, bruising letdown.

Schoolyards and neighborhood parks have been transformed over the past two decades in the name of safety and in fear of lawsuits. The old standbys have given way to shorter, guardrail-lined plastic-and-steel play structures, leaving childhood experts complaining about cookie-cutter sameness and sterile designs that do not challenge today’s youngsters.

Many parents express a mixture of nostalgia and relief.

[Aquinasfan]

When I was my kids age I was out the door when I woke up and came home for lunch and dinner. I was outside till bedtime even when it was 110 degrees out.

Them were the good old days. We try to let our kids play outside 'til it's dark. Trouble is, in a neighborhood of 50 kids, there's hardly anyone to play with. Everyone's inside.

[Aquinasfan]

My little brother stuck his hand in front of my mouth and pronounced "you can too!"

LOL! And what about the classic, "get off!" as in, "I'm on the bottom of a pig-pile with a football in my stomach and I can't breathe!"

[Aquinasfan]

yeah and a cast on your arm was a badge of honor...

Absolutely. I remember breaking a kid's arm playing soccer. He was proud because he had a cast, and I was proud because I kicked the ball hard enough to break his arm. A win-win scenario.

[Bad Dog2]

Growin' up in Virgina was:
Daytime - Dirt Clod Fights, Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers, Army (us against the "Japs", I was always "Sgt. Joe", Knights (broom handle swords and trash can lid shields), bicycle races, building tree houses or forts and palisades in the woods (everyone could get a hatchet or machete). Almost all of our fathers were in WWII vets and we all had remnants of their web gear, ammo belts, packs, leggings, and helmet liners. I even had a 7.7 Arisaka that would work empty 30-06 casings through the action. We had Matell burp guns that would burn a whole role of caps in 10 seconds, the Matell Thompons that cocked on top and could fire a burst of submachine gun sound. Stallion .38's and .45's, when playing cowboys - we were self-restricted to Stallion revolvers with no more than six shots before reloading (most of us had two pistols and extra cartridges in plastic belts loops). Later, BB-gun fights while wearing surplus aviator helmets and goggles ($1.50 at the surplus store).
Night-time - kick the can, hiding-go-seek, sling the statue, British bulldog, red rover, etc.
Also building sampans, as we called them, out of hijacked builders' plywood and tar, used those to get way back in the swamps. Hunting cottonmouths with our first single shot .22s. Age twelve I filed down the sear on a Browning .22 auto and could get 3 or 4 rounds fully auto before it jammed. Hand cannon made of threaded plumbers' pipe with a hole drilled in the cap to take a cherry bomb or M-80 as propellant and firing what ever we could out of the barrel.
Hopping local freight locos to the next town. Skinny dipping in the creek, especially after we had dammed it to make it deeper.
On Sunday I hid my pearl-handled Hubley copy of a Beretta Brigadier in my Sunday school sport coat and was undercover.
We roamed the woods and hills for miles. Left at 8am in the summer and very seldom ever got home before supper. No lunch. We would dine on candy, ice cream, moonpies and soda we got by salvaging soda bottles found on the side of the road. (Cokes $.05, and $.02 bottle refund)
It's a wonder we made it through alive. Kids today have no idea, their fantasy world exists on PC screen. At least our fantasy was in the world.

[Charles Martel]

I'm guessing tetherball and dodgeball are absolutely verbotten.

I'm guessing you're right about that. I'm also guessing that "Battleball" is history, too. Too primitively violent, y'know. (rolls eyes)

[winodog]

Yes and in my neighborhood no kids come out till almost dark then they yell and scream and have fun in the street till 10 or eleven.
My 10 year old gets a little ticked because I want him in at dark or soon after and thats when all the kids are just starting to play.
I guess they finally get bored after sitting on their butts all day watching TV, playing play station and puter games.
Heck half the kids my son knows dont even get out of bed till 10 or 11 because their parents let them chat on the puter na dwatch TV till midnight or later.

[Aquinasfan]

Heck half the kids my son knows dont even get out of bed till 10 or 11 because their parents let them chat on the puter na dwatch TV till midnight or later.

Gross. When we visit my sister-in-law's on a holiday we sometimes don't see some of her teenage kids until we leave, six or eight hours later. They spend the day surfing the web unsupervised. And she wonders why her kids are such losers. They have living-in-the-basement-til-they're-35 written all over them.

[Aquinasfan]

Now that's a childhood.

[Gabz]

My 10 year old gets a little ticked because I want him in at dark or soon after and thats when all the kids are just starting to play.

I remember when my mother did that to me - I hated it.

We just moved out of the city, where we had the same type problems with kids not playing until night, and now live in the country, so there are no kids around on weekends for my daughter to play with - but it doesn't bother her.

We've got 2 acreas and there is a creek running alone one side - she loves finding toads and stuff!!!

We took her to the playground on Friday and while it does have that newfangled plastic molded stuff - it also has all the old fashioned stuff I remember as a kid.

Wooden see-saws; metal slides; merry go round; monkey bars. All of it!!! and of course mud puddles!!!!!!!!

[oyez]

Kids can't have any fun today.

False! THey can always go by the drug store or hardware and get any number of solvents and areosols to snort out of a paper bag.

[jimbo123]

From an email I received...


People over 40 should be dead.

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's probably shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.

We had friends! We went outside and found them.

We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you're one of them!

Congratulations.

Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good...

[oyez]

I can remember taking turns with an old truck tire and rolling one another other inside. Temptation and dares got the best of us on a hillside street. Concerned neighbors quickly held court on us. One of the best lessons on safety and personal responsibility I ever got.

[Blood of Tyrants]

If you are small enough and the tire big enough, two kids inside the tire will balance it out and make it roll faster. DAHIK.

[Liberal Classic]

When I was a kid, I broke my nose playing on a slide. I didn't fall off it, but I was running around fast to get up the ladder. I was running so fast when I grabbed the rail I whipped around and my nose smacked the other handrail, and both nostrils opened like faucets. Ow. That wasn't the last time I broke my nose, either.

How did we ever survive riding bicycles without syrofoam helmets and playing on jungle gyms that could easily break an arm? We've lost something essential. Risk and opportunity.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

When I were kid i fall off monky bars to asfalt on my head but I ok now.

[AngryJawa]

"If you are small enough and the tire big enough, two kids inside the tire will balance it out and make it roll faster."

When you're tired of that, you can take roll it (empty) down a steep hill and dare your little brother to stand in front of it catch it.

He took it like a man though.

[HarryDunne]

I bet the long term problems caused by childhood obesity will be much greater than injuries from playgrounds.

PC: good point

DM: ping