[fmakunbound]

At primary school in Australia we had monkey bars like the ones in the photos. Made of 2” steel tubes, probably galvanized and polished over time by decades of kids greasy palms. You know what that feels like. I think they must behave been about 5 meters high total. When I was there it was just that and the dirt below it. You knew as a kid to be careful - that shit must be hard wired into us.

I had since moved to the US, but I visit every few years. Over time it’s been “made more safe”. The first thing they did was add finely desiccated rubber tube to the ground. I guess a kid who falls, eventually bounces.. must be a nice way to land after breaking all kinds of stuff on the way down. A few years later, they chopped the bars to half height. Whoever is making decisions is doing it reluctantly, I think. Years later the rubber shredding is there, but the bars are reduced again - it’s been modified to a simple set of three swings.

So boring. I think it’s the parents overthinking risk.

[lqet]

Steel tube monkey bars. We still had them at primary school when I was a kid in the 90ies in Germany. One day I slipped and fell to the ground on my back - I got up, checked for injures (none), and then I noticed that I couldn't breathe anymore. I know today that my breathing tube collapsed. Breathing felt like sucking on a blocked drinking straw. I still remember it extremely vividly - there was no panic, I just quietly walked around the playground and recalled that I once timed how long I could hold my breath. I set down on a trunk and calmly accepted that I was going to die in around a minute. There was a thought that my parents would be very sad. After maybe 30 seconds, airflow was suddenly possible again, and I continued playing.

That being said, they opened a new playground here a few months ago [0], and a 2 days later the daughter of my wife's colleague fell down from the fort on the picture and had a concussion, so I don't think playgrounds got much safer here in the last 50 years.

I think this is good. From my experience with children: if the playground is safe, and thus boring, they will just climb surrounding trees and fall down from them.

[0] https://www.freiburg.de/pb/site/Freiburg/get/params_E1747178...

[saiya-jin]

Holy crap, a mind of a child... glad you are around to tell the story!

As a kid, we climbed what we could and often jumped from it. Fire/maintenance ladders on school buildings that were 5+ meter tall. Once we were jumping from that roof, small idiots as we were, it was scary as hell. Or forming a long queue of kids who ran up to first story of a building, jumped from balcony on grass (solid 4 metres), got themselves together and ran up again. Group behavior certainly didn't help - if one mustered enough courage to do something, the temptation for the rest was massive.

My mind of adult doesn't comprehend how we survived all this without ending up on wheelchairs or dead. I was constantly bruised, my legs were khaki map of colors that would gain attention of social services today. I am not aware of any single serious injury to anybody I knew, although I had few broken bones over childhood, never from the most dangerous stuff. I recall few hard hits though, ie once falling from bike in frontal way that made me unconscious for few seconds. I just got up a bit dizzy, dusted myself, checked bleeding bruises and moved on.

When a kid died, it was always something else - ie being hit by a car for whatever reason for example.

As parent myself, I am not sure if we are more sensitive than our grandfathers were, their generation very visibly didn't communicate their emotions so openly (I discussed this with various europeans and americans and this experience seems universal), but I don't think they felt/cared less. Just whole mindset was different, where the threshold ok/wtf lies.

[bitwize]

Kids are resilient little creatures. They'll heal up from a bruise here and there or a broken bone, no problem. When you get older, you become much more massive so falls hurt you more and your ability to heal slows down.

This is why you as an adult are not allowed to enjoy a bouncy castle. The insurance companies won't cover adult use of one because the risk and severity of injury is so much greater.

[JustVisiting_]

> if the playground is safe, and thus boring, they will just climb surrounding trees and fall down from them

S'funny you say that. Years ago I went to a photography exhibition showing photos taken by a bunch of hippies.

One photograph showed kids playing on a climbing frame. The caption underneath read: "Children Playing on a Tree Made of Metal".

A rather fitting comment on industrialisation and urbanisation if ever there was one.

[fho]

> I was a kid in the 90ies in Germany

We also had those nice, red Asbestos playgrounds everywhere. I still remember one playground that was next to a path that was called "der rote Weg" ("the red way") until suddenly it was not red anymore. Young me was very upset about that.

[hansword]

> red asbestos playgrounds

Can you elaborate a little? The phrase raised some very old very vague memories, but I can't find anything, neither by probing my memory nor by a web search.

[fho]

I was obviously very young so I might have misunderstood my parents, but from what I remember, asbestos was mixed in with the gravel that was used to pave paths and/or playgrounds. I remember the "red way" and another playground that at some points switched from red gravel to gray gravel.

[hansword]

Thanks for answering!

I still can't find anything, but, well...

[fho]

No idea, asbestos was used a lot back then. I guess it is entirely possible that some random playgrounds in Bielefeld did not make big headlines. That was pre-internet also, no ideas if local newspapers from back then would be digitised and/or easily searchable.

[riffraff]

I grew up in a small town, we had crapy playgrounds and compensated by using everything else in the environment, climbing on fences, trees, monuments and such. We were also, as kids, left unsupervised most of the time.

Living now in a bit city, with beautiful playgrounds where parents hover and kids don't even get into fights, causes me a deep cognitive dissonance.

Everything I did was fun and I believe only mildly dangerous, and yet I would not be comfortable letting my kids alone to play in the sort of ways I did.

[whimsicalism]

Trust me, there are kids getting into fights in the big city.

Sounds like you not only changed from rural -> urban, you also might have moved class-wise as well.

[riffraff]

I meant only at the playground,where parents' presence prevent it.

I agree kids do get into fights when left alone :)

[whimsicalism]

I think I am just confused about the rural vs. big city divide you are trying to make.

[boffinAudio]

>in Australia we had monkey bars

I still recall the mass blistering that would occur after a few races across the bars we had in my school, mid-summer'ish. Seems to me the #1 danger for us Aussies was the roasting we'd get on the bars until a few kids had gotten across first, cooling things down with their sweat/blood.

Nevertheless, when the playgrounds went away, we still had the bloody beatings known as Aussie-rules-footie .. good times, good times.

[jpalomaki]

Not necessarily just parents. Sometimes is feels our society has become less tolerant for accidents. If something bad happens, somebody must be held responsible.

[astrobe_]

One has to find that somebody because some insurance will have to pay something. Our society is not less tolerant for accidents; it's less tolerant for their cost.