Less summer fun as injuries, fear of lawsuits forces changes
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.
from msnbc.com
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.
from msnbc.com
