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As a person who grew up before everything got all woke, I can attest to playgrounds of yore being dangerous, and thus, exciting and interesting places. I have
by dusted 4y ago
As a person who grew up before everything got all woke, I can attest to playgrounds of yore being dangerous, and thus, exciting and interesting places.
I have no fear of heights, but a healthy respect has been instilled in me from various attempts by my younger self to reenact various action scenes from the glorious testosterone fueled action movies we had access to without parental supervision as small kids, it was absolutely wonderful.
Being a parent today and seeing the dull shit my own son will have access to, I don't feel the least safer.. Sure, he might not fall down and hurt himself THERE.. but he also won't learn it there.. where there at least is soft sand below, and where he could have learned many of the dangers of the physical world in a scaled-down and at least somewhat controlled manner.
Remember those spinning things, "roundabouts" or whatever they are called.. Every child who survived one of the more energetic bouts on those things, they know something about centrifugal force and how after a certain threshold, keeping yourself in the center is the only way to avoid bruises.. It gives some general ideas about the mechanics of the world and your body, and your strength.. It improves your ability to move about in the physical world in a safe way.
- cafard 4y agoOccasionally I see HN posts that look to me like announcements that pigeons are extinct, and that lead to elegiac stories of pigeons, and discussions of the trends in society that led to their extinction. Only I can walk to any park in town and see pigeons roosting on the statues. There are plenty of merry-go-rounds and monkey bars in the playgrounds of my region, plenty of tall swings and slides.
- bitexploder 4y agoMerry Go Round. As teenagers we would spin it until one of us gave up and flew off of it lol. Until someone was yeeted off. Loser had to buy everyone candy if they experienced no serious injuries (no injuries in years of doing it every week, somehow).
- zeckalpha 4y agoThey also still exist at many playgrounds in my neighborhood.
- bitexploder 4y agoI saw a video of some kids that put a small (probably 50-100cc kids motor bike) against one. The speed it developed was like some NASA testing machine. It was awesome and a bit scary. One kid passed out. They are still probably my favorite playground construct.
- GordonS 4y agoWhen I was a kid, I saw some older kids did this to an unwilling younger kid - little guy flew off and cracked his skull open.
- brational 4y agoMeh. How old are your kids? Mine climbs all over, on top, around, etc the playgrounds. The default parts are safe sure but he prefers to go on top of the whole thing then slide down the support arm. They’ll figure it out.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- idanman 4y agoSure. A lot of the playground are kinda dull today especially as the kids get older. My kids learned to climb trees in my yard and in the parks around. They also sometimes climb on top of the playground elements to get their thrills.