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.

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

Hmmm. I suppose they could just hire playground security and arrest any child that has the potential to harm himself/herself. They could also fine the parents and/or the chaperone.

Oh.....more dangerous????? Sure......Take down all the "no smoking" signs. That would make them the most deadly place on earth.

[cajun-jack]

yeah and a cast on your arm was a badge of honor...even girls that didn't really like you always wanted to sign it..

course i graduated hi8gh school in 1967, so i started in 55 or 56..can't remember which, but in very rural ne louisiana, we made our own entertainment, didn't have t.v. till i was in the 4th grade and then only 1 channel.

when i was about 10 or 11, 3 of my friends and i would camp out on the creek, and put out "set hooks" and run the lines all nite catching catfish. our folks didn't check on us and we cleaned and cooked what we caught or just ate the taters we brought.

also, at that age, i would hitchhike 25 miles to my uncle's house. we had no phone and neither did they and i might stay a coupla days or i might stay a week. My folks didn't worry about me. Then one day i would show back up at home. Like i said, different time, much different place and a so much different world.

[Scenic Sounds]

No more seesaws?

As a physics teacher, I find that appalling!

Best way in the world to explain first class levers!

Oh, I agree. Also, you can teach your playmates about gravity and acceleration if you suddenly jump off. It's no fair, though, unless you scream, "32 ft/sec/sec" as you jump!

And the longer the lever, the better it works. ;-)

[SAMWolf]

They don't make them like this anymore. :-(

Ok, I confess I used to ride my bike without a helmet. I had more bruises, gashes, bumps, cuts and scrapes from my bike than all the weed bomb, rock and mud clod wars put together. (That even counts the "Lets the 4 of us slide down the stairs in this cardboard box stunt we pulled in 2nd grade.)

[Scenic Sounds]

Oh.....more dangerous????? Sure......Take down all the "no smoking" signs. That would make them the most deadly place on earth.

Excellent!

And how are they gonna learn lessons about drug abuse if we don't let the addicts hang out?

[snippy_about_it]

Did they even have helmets for bikes back then?

[cajun-jack]

nope...didn't even have helmets for football back then. lol

[Ciexyz]

There's still a merry-go-round, seesaws and swings at a small boro park in this area, but I won't reveal the name. The NEA commissars might come after them!

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

And how are they gonna learn lessons about drug abuse if we don't let the addicts hang out?

Yep. Nothing like total immersion for a quick learning experience. ; *)

[fnord]

When my son Joshua was 5, he ran in front of a swing; paying no attention to the fact that someone was using that swing; he then required a trip to the emergency room where it took 6 staples to close the gaping wound in his head.

Not to "swing" this thread in another direction, but when we were kids, a trip to the emergency room for stitches probably cost my parents $20 or so out of pocket. Nowadays it would be a couple of hundred (thanks to medical 'insurance').

[andysandmikesmom]

I loved doing that...winding up the swings and letting them spin, until we were so very dizzy...we loved doing that...and swinging up as high as we could and then jumping off...

And we loved the monkeybars, and I was always the one on top, hanging upside down, with my ponytails swinging in the breeze...

And with my brother and my boy cousins who lived downstairs of us, we would play on the see saws, and laughed with delight when one or the other decided to play dirty and jump off, and you smacked your bottom so hard on the ground...

And when the slide was not too busy, instead of walking up the stairs to the top of the slide, we used to like to run up the slide itself, straight to the top, and then reverse and go down the slide...or doing a train down the slide, with as many kids as we could get together to make themselves into a little train, and speed down the slide...

And in the summer when our families went to the country for the dads to fish, ,and the moms to cook, we kids would take off for hours, climbing hills, climbing trees, playing ball, , exploring all of the great outdoors...

And just in our own backyard...making forts, seeing who could climb the highest in our favorite cherry tree, in the winter, making igloos...also in the winter, going to the park, and riding our sleds down the biggest hill, ending up on top of the frozen lagoon...and ice skating on the lagoon, ,and playing crack the whip...

And riding our bikes, playing 'Traffic Court'...no helmets, no training wheels, no parents trailing behind...just good old fun...

And then once in a while, the boys would decide to have target practice, and would use bamboo poles, to throw at the target...and I, being the only girl, was always the target...they would line me up against the basement door, and the goal was to throw your pole, and miss me...by and large, they usually did miss me, ,tho once in a while, a bamboo pole, would be coming straight at me...but I was quick, and usually able to get out of the way in time...

We were all of the Baby Boomer generation...I guess we should have all died as children, considering that all the things we did for amusement, would now be considered 'dangerous' and 'life threatening' by todays namby pamby generation...

[SAMWolf]

Nope! And we're better off for it. ;-)

[bootless]

Oh, gosh. We had woods behind our house in Conn - at the bottom of a great hill for rolling down. We learned what skunk cabbage was very quickly.

And the wandering through woods and streams and meadows in Vermont ... all unsupervised and returning with a bunch of wild berries. Ahhh...

[Scenic Sounds]

LOL. There must be a million ways to make playgrounds more dangerous. You know, like the good old days. ;-)

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

You know, like the good old days. ;-)

Yep...before kids had to be driven to school in an armored car.

[Scenic Sounds]

Yep...before kids had to be driven to school in an armored car.

Well, I'm sure that, like me, you told your kids about how we walked miles through the snow shoeless.

With nothing but bows and arrows for protection. ;-)

[fnord]

We used to ride our bikes 5 miles or so down narrow gravel roads to visit friends, run around the woods all day, climb trees, play in creeks, 'camp out' in someone's back field, etc.

I think what I am seeing is that we all grew up and learned about life without adult supervision or control.

Can't do that nowadays ...

[gwmoore]

Thanks, both of you for your excellent postings. Somehow (According to this article, I should be dead (I'm 56 ;-) ) I managed to survive growing up.

What I find even more amazing, thinking back on this after all these years, is that EVERYTHING we played or played with, as a child, served an extremely useful purpose in later adult life. There were lessons learned, and principles of science/physics, etc taught, that just sort of "osmotically infiltrated" into one's mind, only to be finally understood when one had formal training.

I guess the most important lesson, though, was the "360 degree spacial awareness", learned unconciously then, but at one point during the late 1960's was a very important priority for me indeed LOL......

It's too bad that today's children grow up in a nanny state, foam rubber, round, soft edge world, because some day, these selfsame children are going to have to leave what they have percieved all along as safe, and the results will be predictable. Darwin Award bets, anyone? ;-)

Keep the Faith for Freedom

Greg ( Turning electricity into RF energy for almost 40 years)

[Scenic Sounds]

I hear ya.

You know, my mom always used to tell me that when it came to toys for boys, no one ever improved on the simple ball.

I still think she's right.

[cajun-jack]

yep..back in my day if you got around the "grownups" they would find work for you to do...better to be at play than to be at work...cause there was more than enough work to go around that was required of you back then.......and a good "switchin" wasn't unheard of either!!!!!!!!!