Behind some pine trees, in the corner of the park, stands a swing set. The old, heavy-duty kind. All galvanized pipes, chain, and hard rubber that will probably survive armageddon. This swing set happens to be for toddlers, the seats those horribly uncomfortable baskets designed by somebody who can’t recall the abrasions and pain these caused. Nobody uses this swing set any longer. Or any of the metal playground equipment. It has all been replaced by garish plastic single-unit contraptions that come in hideously bright colors and are, no doubt, thought to be safer. These new playground sets are placed prominently in the park, where the stand out like sore thumbs and are regularly surrounded by young parents tending to their children who are “playing” on them.
But how much has today’s “playing” changed from the days of see-saws and merry-go-rounds, tall slides, rings and bars, and swings? How much has safety from ever looming injury altered how and when kids “play”? Sure, we think today’s playground sets are less likely to scald your hands in the summer or freeze your skin off in the winter. Sure, we think today’s plastic slides might seem more forgiving than the metal ones of years ago. But at what cost? Today’s playground sets with all their built in “learning” activities don’t require the same creativity and resourcefulness, particularly when the parents are lurking about constantly telling their kids how to play. How much easier is it for kids to just conform to the parameters of “playing” the designers of playground sets and the parents lay out for them? And how will a kid ever learn that no, no matter how hard you try, you can’t swing all the way around the top bar in a circle?
But maybe we’ve consigned that form of play, a form founded in profound boredom and limited options, to the obscure corners of the park, behind some trees where few people will see it.