No, not the swings! Anything but the swings! Don’t take the swings away. I remember a set of swings in the back corner of the old elementary school I attended in Alaska.
Dear Free-Range Kids: The risk adversity in the U.S. is out of control. I just read about the CPSC recalling 7 million candle holders because there was a single incident of one (one!!) melting.
This comes on the heels of a discussion we had at our Parks Board last week where the playground designer came in to talk about the safety of playground equipment. The gist of it was: there is such a permeating fear of lawsuits and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) that playgrounds are required to be as generic as possible, lest a lawsuit occur. There was great discussion about the $600 test each playground inspector must take every three years to be certified to be able to even inspect a playground, and the number of people we have employed just to complete inspections on the equipment in our city alone. Each playground is inspected every 3-6 months: every screw and nut is examined, along with the width of all the poles, and evidence of settling, protrusions, wear, etc. It takes several hours to inspect one playground thoroughly and completely.
Swings are still allowed, but the CPSC rules –”which are treated as law” — are so stringent on how and where they’re installed, it’s almost not worth putting them in. It was so sad to listen to how the paranoia that has determined how playgrounds will be built, resulting in homogeneous, boring play zones for kids.
I was in the fourth grade. The elementary school I went was so old that it was closed a year or two after. There were a set of swings in the very back corner of the playground that my friends and I loved. The chains on these swings were longer than on others. We would lean into the seats of the swings with our stomach/ or chest, go to opposite corners of the swing set, and then we run in a circle causing the chains to twist. The result would send one or both of us flying against our seat and in some cases nearly hitting our back on the horizontal bar from which the swings hung. MYGOD what fun!
One afternoon, my wife and I took a drive around town to tour the various preschools. It was Sunday, so they were all closed. All we could do was check out the playgrounds. And that’s when we noticed something unusual.
“These playgrounds all suck,” my wife said.
She was right. Compared to the glorious expanse of fun our daughter had grown accustomed to at her preschool in upstate New York, these Jersey playgrounds were downright pathetic: small, cramped, and devoid of any remotely interesting equipment. They looked more like pens for dogs than playgrounds for kids.
And then we realized, simultaneously, what was missing: “No swings!”
I don’t think there are any swings in the play area for the preschoolers where Sophia goes either. Luckily I take her to other playgrounds on a regular basis and she knows the joys of swinging. I have yet to find a set of swings like the ones in that old playground in Alaska. They probably don’t exist anymore, but if I find any I’ll surly teach Sophia and Lukas how to fly on the swings!
Picture taken 9/20/2011. Kurt and Sophia on the swings at the Puyallup Fair.
