Who’ll push the swing?
-
While working on a special section for parents for a client newspaper, I was plowing through the boatload of press releases aimed at that desirable market when I came across this one(*):Mutual of Omaha Foundation Announces Partnership with Non-Profit KaBOOM! to Build Playgrounds in Six Cities in 2009
(CSRwire) WASHINGTON D.C. – January 29, 2009 – Thousands of children across the country will receive great new places to play thanks to a partnership announced today between Mutual of Omaha Foundation and KaBOOM!, a national non-profit organization dedicated to bringing play back into the lives of children. …
Now, that’s a really nice-sounding thing to do. But it actually just made me sad to sit there and look at this bouncy little PR.
“More playgrounds?” I thought. “No one’s playing in the ones we have now.”
That’s just how it seems to me. No doubt there are playgrounds that are getting used. But I’m more familiar with the sight of playgrounds utterly desolate — whether in the snooty planned communities or the rural small towns or the middle-class suburbs.
When I was growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, playgrounds weren’t fantastic or expensive-looking. But they were a nexus of kid activity, the happy place for moms to bring the tots to let them blow off some steam without ruining any furniture. The playgrounds just consisted of monkey bars, horizontal bars, a swing set and possibly see-saws or a merry-go-round — all in tasteful, WWII gun-metal gray. But everything there was used and over-used, to the point that even the titanium bolts and solid steel parts started to give out, pushed beyond their limits by unending amounts of kinetic kid energy. The playgrounds I see now are shiny and immaculate — and utterly devoid of human life. Kids aren’t playing, moms aren’t gossiping, and the brightly colored equipment is as sterile as an operating room.
So what has changed since the ’70s?I’m not sure. Have kids changed? Probably not. But the whole culture at home has changed. Suddenly there was a need for two incomes — and there went the mom who had the time and energy to go sit at the park while the kids went tumbling about.
There are stay-at-home moms now, but they’re a lot fewer and farther between. And from what I’ve seen, they’re usually home-schooling, chauffeuring and trying to bring in a little extra money. And, for better or worse, that just doesn’t leave big windows of time for kicking around at the playground.
That may not be a bad thing if the camaraderie and physicality of the playground is being exchanged for fun that happens inside the home. But is it? Kids unwind now in ways that have more to do with networking, texting, surfing (online, that is) and doing stupendous imaginary things in a virtual world where your avatar lives or dies by the quickness of your button-pushing ability.
It’s just the way it is. If I were a mom, I wouldn’t have any more idea how to pry my kid away from his gizmos than my mom knew how to get me away from the TV set. I’m not saying it means the world’s going to heck in a handbasket.
But I am saying that before anyone with good intentions starts building sparkling new playgrounds to benefit our next generation, I’d want them to figure out who’s going to be pushing the swings.
Related posts:
Leave a Reply
4 Responses and Counting...
Back when I was young (commonly called “the Dark Ages” — 1950’s-60’s) we would be outside for hours! And our parents didn’t know EXACTLY where we were, but they could guess within, oh, a square 1/2 mile or so. I grew up in the country, so didn’t have neighboring children. I entertained myself in the forest, at a creek, etc. alone. My husband grew up in a suburb, but it still had some “farms” with horses — fairly undeveloped. Again, he’d eat breakfast and disappear with his bike until lunchtime, then be gone again until dinner or dark, which ever came first. (And this is in Northern Virginia!!!! McLean for those who understand these things) Moms didn’t push swings. Friends did! Moms were home doing laundry, cleaning house, cooking dinner!
Living on military installations around the world, in the 80’s and 90’s our children had that freedom that we had as children. We knew they were safe! (Of course, in Panama, they were warned about the Boa who lived on the street — and that coatimundi’s carry rabies, so don’t pet, and watch out for the black palm! But they were free to roam — got ot he playground, the pool over a mile away, the PX, the bookstore, the food court, etc.)
Living in the United States in a community, not a military post, they were not so free. And we had years of doing that, too.
Now we live less than 20 miles from where my husband grew up. We have neighbors all around. We also live in an area where people are concerned about children being abducted (it has happened here — I won’t go into some of the stories, but if your hair isn’t gray now, it would be thinking that could be YOUR child.) There is NO WAY I would allow a child to go to the playground less than 1/3 mile from the house unattended. Odds are they would be okay — but what if something happened? Could I live with myself knowing I’d put them in that danger? When we lived here in the mid 90’s for a year, I would watch from my front yard as our daughter would walk down the street to a friend’s house. Her mother would do the same, making certain the girls made it safely.
One has to schedule time to go to the playground children. It is no longer something they can do alone. Pretty sad state of affairs, I admit. But that is the reason kids unwind in different ways now. No one lets them outside without being able to keep an eye on them!
That is why I loved living on post whenever we could. Life for the kids there was like life in the 50’s for Beaver and his friends. Nowhere else did I see that in the 90’s except living on a military installation.
So sad. My grandchildren will never have the freedom their parents and grandparents experienced!
Interesting to know how it was for you. I was born in 1960 and we were also a military family (but most of the time when I was growing up, we weren’t on military bases). And we certainly had some of the same freedom — I remember walking the couple miles to the swimming pool by myself all summer for swim team practice — but there was already more adult oversight than you’re talking about. Not sure what my mom would’ve done if I stayed out all day without her knowing where I was, but I don’t think it would’ve been good.
So yeah, I don’t see any way that the world could get all the way back to having kids go unaccompanied to the playgrounds these days. And, just to be clear, I’m not saying that it’s up to moms who ALREADY don’t have a minute to call their own to schedule in blissful hours to hang out down by the merry-go-round.
But I’m saying that the idea that just *building* big new playgrounds as if that will change everything is just dumb.
agreed
The conventional wisdom these days is all about stranger danger and how it’s not safe to have kids play alone. The numbers tell a different story.
Some stats that are not recent, but are reflective of current trends:
* Between 1992 and 2000, the number of sexual abuse cases substantiated
by child protective service (CPS) agencies dropped 40 percent. Add in population growth during that time, and the incidents-per-thousand-citizens metric reflects an even greater decline.
* Stranger kidnappings (as opposed to family-member or acquaintance kidnappings) are the most common kind of kidnapping likely in a large, public space like a playground — they accounted for only approximately one-quarter of all kidnappings in recent stats. So in addition to declining rates of child crimes overall, the big kahuna — having your kid snatched — is far more likely to happen with a family member or friend.
There are other stats, but I don’t want to make this a long, boring comment. The point is: Our kids are not in significantly greater danger than when we were kids ourselves. What has changed isn’t the danger, but rather *society’s willingness to accept risk* when it comes to children. And it’s not a healthy thing.