First they came for the sugary soft drinks and sweet treats because we're all obese. Then certain holiday celebrations were disallowed because we have to be politically correct. And forget about playground equipment. Can't have slides, swings or merry-go-rounds. No, no, no. The delicate little hothouse flowers might injure themselves and their parents might sue. Well now, the nanny-staters in New York have taken what semblance of fun was left on the playground and declared such games as Tag, Capture the Flag, Dodgeball, Kickball and my personal favorite, Red Rover, to be "risky" activities requiring the organizers of any program that offers two or more organized recreational activities (with one or more being on the risky list) to register as a summer camp and provide medical staff. Huh? Really?
These people would have been aghast at the activities offered by the overnight summer camp that I went to as a kid. I swam. I sailed. I water skied. I shot archery. I played capture the flag. I jumped on trampolines. I shot (gasp) a .22 rifle. Oh, the horror!!!!
And that doesn't even include the playground games we played during recess. In the long winters of northern New Hampshire, the snow piles got pretty large. Nothing was more fun than scrambling to the top of one of those snow piles and declaring myself "King of the Mountain," pushing down those who would seek to "dethrone" me.
It seems to me that the nanny staters are at cross-purposes here. Children these days are all obese, or so we're told. We're admonished to get them outside and moving, yet the same people who are telling us this are then telling us that once outside, kids can't do anything that's actually fun--everything is either too dangerous or hurts children's self-esteem. We need to stop listening to the nanny staters and just let kids be kids so they, too, can have fond memories of life back in the day.
UPDATE: Thankfully, the wretched playground regulation has been withdrawn. Read more.
Posted on behalf of a reader:
ReplyDeleteLong ago, when I was 12, I skinned my knee pretty badly while playing tag on the school playground. The scrape got infected, and long story short, I came close to losing part of my leg.
My parents, poor innocents, gave no thought whatsoever to suing the school system, the teachers supervising recess, the school nurse, or anyone else over the incident.
Now, as an attorney, I can see how wrong they were. But I can also see how efforts to regulate child’s play could reduce the earned income of members of my profession.
If no one is allowed to take risks, there will be far fewer opportunities for lawsuits arising out of various injuries. Speaking of horror!