Playgrounds now vs. Playgrounds then

They don't make 'em like they used to 🛝

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[ColtenSoto-tjdq]

I remember sliding on those baking sheets when it was 100 degrees.

[pi-sxmb]

The merry-go-round was a Cuisinart kid processor and boy was it fun!
The see-saw taught you valuable lessons about who could or could not be trusted.

[typerexc]

Playgrounds then were a metaphor for life. It was the way to learn the world is not a safe place, in a fun way.

[sixtycuda]

As a kid, we played a game with the swings that we called road kill. Essentially you get four people swinging, and then you have to run across the middle of the swing set without getting hit by anyone going back and forth.

[cocktailslipper]

I loved to launch myself off the swings into the sawdust or if I had a lot of energy behind it, land in the grass. A grass landing meant you had skills.

[Kebnekaise.]

i love how there’s an actual study about how more risky playgrounds make children more cautious and safety aware, as well as helping them learn

[beckysimeone]

I remember in Kindergarden a boy falling off the Monkey Bars and severly breaking his arm. Didn't stop anyone from playing on them and he was a celebrity in his cast, which we all signed.

[Chanzard]

I remember being a kid and we'd see who could jump off of stuff at the playground. We would launch ourselves off of the swing set. I'm not saying safety isn't important, but we survived.

[justabirdwithaword]

in the 80s our playground had an airforce jet with the insides torn out, sharp metal everywhere. people still talk about it with fondness decades after they removed it.

[j.robertsergertson]

Thanks for the fond childhood memories, Blistering hot slides, flying off the swings landing in gravel, just add cheese grater bicycle pedals and it's perfect

[DanteYewToob]

No joke, I took my niece to a park the other week and there were actual seatbelts on the swings… lol she’s like 9 and goes “What the actual heck?! That seems so much more dangerous?! If you fall off, you’re just hanging there getting your face dragged across this rubber sandpaper!” and she was scraping her shoe across it like a grumpy old man.. lmao
I realized then that I’m proud of those kids and she spends way too much time with me.

[MurasakiTsukimaru]

Don't forget the old tractor tires. Either stacked as cubes to climb around in or upright and decreasingly buried in the ground like the most burning hot steps in the world.

[DriaDerg]

As someone who lived in the awkward middle ground between the ultra safe playgrounds and the actually good ones. It’s crazy how many life skills you learn from unsafe playgrounds. Such as “how far can you fall without any consequences.”, “How to calculate velocity on the fly just from the vibes.” And most importantly: “don’t be a dumbass”

[SamCreedT]

In the 70s they set up an obstacle course with tires and a rope climb. One kid was setting off bottle rockets another was shooting tennis balls out of a pop can cannon with lighter fluid. The park would flood after a hard rain a dozen of us would go swimming on the baseball field. It was a relatively quiet summer I only went to the ER twice. 😅

[tweetscotchy]

“…ya gotta small fry over here hanging on and ya gotta a Big Mac over here giving it a go it is game over..” Lol

[sea-bassisabottlecapco]

I remember the scars… the beautiful pain of those slides, of those swings. There is no replacing that

[benningbass]

The sheer number of injuries on those playgrounds was legendary

[mozie]

Weirdest experience for me as an adult working at a school is that the playground had a merry go round, not even an old rusted one, it was relatively new, but they weren't allowed to play on it because it was "unsafe". Back in MY day we had two merry go rounds at our playground, one big normal beat up rusty one that went at normal speeds, and one highly coveted tiny one that went to mach 5 with one spin. And I don't remember anyone getting any severe injuries from either of them.

[Dicyroller]

The memories, the scars, the memorie loss.

[armymuttA]

Took my kids to a playground I used to play on 40 years ago. They loved the 45 degree slide. My son hit the ground and had to run a couple feet to burn out some of that kinetic energy.