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.

[mhking]

I guess when we stood up and jumped out of swings, we all ended up maimed...

[mhking]

"Hold muh beer 'n watch this!" PING....

If you want on or off this list, please let me know!

[Paleo Conservative]

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

[speedy]

Yeah, see-saws taught good lessons about not being a sucker. Seems kind of ridiculous in an age where kids fly through the air on skateboards that they're worried about jungle gyms.

[annyokie]

*sigh* I remember sliding down those metal slides on a sheet of waxed paper so you could go faster on your next run. Kids can't have any fun today.

[EggsAckley]

Near the bottom of the article, the 'fess up:

“The sad fact, though, is that the injuries really haven’t come down significantly. Whether that’s because there are many more playgrounds in use today and more children using them, I don’t know.”

[tet68]

Hmmmm, it doesn't say anything about winding up the swings
and letting them spin until you get so dizzy you throw up.

[annyokie]

What's next? Tetherball? My brother and I used to whack ours with the croquet mallets.

[Archangelsk]

Fred Reed (http://www.fredoneverything.net) usually rants about this every month or so. My take on this is that the baby boomers are jealous of everyone who is having more fun than them because then they would have to accept the fact that they are no longer the hip, with it generation.

[LiteKeeper]

INTSUM

[HairOfTheDog]

I realized how kids had changed when the trails in the woods behind our subdivision, trails made by some generation of kids before my own youth, where we ran and hid and explored and built forts, were all overgrown now.... Guess kids don't play in the woods now either.

[TomGuy]

Anyone over the age of 40 should never have survived childhood--according to these socialist liberal do-gooders who want to run every aspect of our lives and keep us so cocooned that we are safe from every known evil. [Of course, by being cocooned, we have no concept of the outer life--so the socialists will take care of that for us and be our great and good leaders. How generous of them.]

[ErnBatavia]

I miss those brisk dodgeball games...kept us on our toes.

[Dont Mention the War]

The dates mentioned in this article mesh perfectly with my memories. I know that in my school district, the merry-go-rounds and monkey bars were yanked out of every elementary school in the county only a year or so after I made the jump to junior high, so we're talking around 1982 or so.

And for what it's worth, I did see a LOT of kids get hurt on those things on a regular basis. But they were usually kids I didn't like, so I thought they deserved it. ;)

[Prodigal Son]

The one mother:

She would not allow her daughter on the giant slide she loved as a girl.

I can only shake my head at this. How's your kid going to learn to fend for itself if you won't even let it play in the same manner that you did when you were its age?

We were like little animals when we played as children. The monkey bar fights were probably the tamest thing we would ever do. Great fun- great for improving your grip. Everything else was invariably some form of war involving projectiles, escape and evasion etc. You can't learn to dodge a hurtling rock until you have a few "hurtled" at you.

Ach well, useless to complain.

[Gringo1]

My kids play in the woods. They have discovered hammers and nails too.....my son brings home wildlife(frogs,etc).....I want my kids to be normal like that.

LOL our parents would let us spend the night in the corn field(we would make forts by pushing the corn over to make trails to them)......bet nobody does that anymore!

I rarely ever see kids riding bikes anymore either other than mine and 1 or 2 others on our street.
Starnge days we live in for sure.

[Prodigal Son]

Guess kids don't play in the woods now either.

Now that is a shame. What do they do? If I couldn't go in the woods when I was a kid (for whatever reason) I would at least climb a tree and pretend I was Tarzan. Many many hours spent happily in the woods. I can't think of any more natural place for a kid to play.

[Gringo1]

Strange

[Dusty Rose]

I recall trying to slide down with my rubber-sole tennies. Of course, I couldn't slide with the rubber, I jerked to a stop near the top and fell over the side. I was hanging on with one hand and one leg. I managed to crawl back on and sit on my duff like I was supposed to and slowly slide the rest of the way down. I can't look at a slide today without the memory of a near tumble from the top to the pavement below. I don't know, we can think about the old days and how we survived and even thrived, but as a Mom, I want my kids on safe equipment...and helmets when they're skateboarding.

[TrebleRebel]

Yeah, those were the days...pulling down the tether ball poles, grabbing the top, and getting a friend to pop it to standing so you could go flying about 10 feet...cheap catapults...

While I'm indifferent to playgrounds today, I have to confess I've always wanted to jump into a ball-crawl.