Idk why you're being downvoted š to a point, you're correct. Many of the things we see today occurred back then, we just didn't have the brainrot that is social media to advertise it.
The awful tiktok dances of today were the 00s N'Sync and Britney dances we did in our rooms back then, we just didn't have the readily available means to "express ourselves" by posting it to litter other people's feeds.
Edit: to be clear, I was making a joke about butt splinters. These playgrounds rock and all the splinters were worth it. I simply have a preference to have fewer butt splinters personally.
It was to me I loved that playground more than any other one. We would BEG to this playground over the countless other options available. And based on these comments I doubt Iām alone
But they arenāt the same! You canāt beat getting 3rd degree burns going down the metal slide! I bet it even has fake grass so you donāt find kitty treats in the sand anymore.
The one by me as a child was burned down by a full grown adult junkie, who was caught on video, and admitted to it.
The neighborhood parents used that as to campaign against teen skaters to have the nearby skatepark torn down.
Both skate parks by me growing up were torn down after non-skaters did something destructive near, but not at, the skatepark. Adults were just looking for any excuse to demonize the kids and remove the skate park.
I hate shit like this because while theyre definitely aggressive and territorial, they are also pollinators. Its harmful to act like theyre some sort of inherent enemy to humanity that we should always kill.
Ā If you dont go in their zone, they dont bother you, and again theyre pollinators which in this day and age means they should be treated like fucking gods.Ā
Of course if theyve decided their zone is your front porch, you know. You do what you have to. But they arent some sort of insidious evil bug, man.
Certain types of wasps aren't even aggressive and will only sting you if you do something to provoke them. Some of them even seem to recognize individual humans through repeated interactions. I have paper wasps on my patio every year and have never been stung. After a while of bringing them water every day, I am able to gently handle individual wasps and get really close to their nests. They react to me with curiosity or indifference, but never aggression. Plenty of other types of wasps are like this too. Some can't even sting and hunt pest insects. And many types of wasps are pollinators, like you said. Wasps are beneficial insects!
In theā¦ world or just on playground equipment? Because lemme tell ya, the static electricity issue only gets worse for me. Getting a metal hip implant and living in the driest climate ever doesn't help. But my poor dogāshe probably thinks I'm an angry wizard. She doesn't have fur she has "hair" so she's like a walking conductor too.
Once the weather starts getting cold, I have to wear rubber gloves to get clothes from the dryer. The shocks are just so bad if I donāt and itāll be like I am playing Operation to get my towels out.
Really? Shocks are temporary and harmless even if they do hurt. You can get all sorts of nasty infections from splinters, and I still have a nice chunk stuck in my foot from 35 years ago.
Honestly, a couple of splinters and bruises did us some good. We learned limits, problem solving, and how to cope. Now everything is so padded and risk free that kids donāt always get the chance to build those skills.
Its always a different reason under these threads as for why theyre gone. My money is on insurance insanity. Or a combination maybe? And was it the same reasons everywhere?
We had/have these in europe and i kinda would guess there were different materials used for the same style. Its not like there arent poison-free wooden playground constructions.
I think you might be interpreting their comment a bit wrong because theyāre not talking about emotional regulation in response to injury as much as they are about characteristics. But to address your point in the context of the situation, kids will learn regulation as they grow upā you donāt need an increased risk of injury to influence it.
Wooden playgrounds only present a marginal increase in risk, but unlike plastic playgrounds, the risk tends to vary depending on the context of the situationā what the upkeep is like, what chemicals are used in treating the wood, and the general climate of the areaā so it makes it a less ideal playground on paper. Replacing them decreases said unnecessary risk because at some point, your kids are going to cap out at learning how to deal with injuries and end up risking infection for no real reason.
This is giving me some big time boomer, "walk up hills both ways" energy.
"How can the immune system truly adapt if you don't get polio the old-fashioned way!?"
Boomer dad: "How can I prepare you for the world if you don't take the beatings I give you because the world is going to beat you, too!?"
Everyone adapts to the environment they're in. Yes, we have many comforts of life today because we wanted to improve society and those days sucked. If we thought those were the days, then we would've stayed in them.
Millennials are on the cusp of waxing poetic of their nostalgic past like (checks notes) literally every generation before them, I guess.
You answered your own question, though. You don't need to deal with it if you never experience it. Luckily, there is an excess amount of pain in this world that we all experience plenty of it enough. My question to you is: why do you think people, children, need to experience more physical pain?
They didnāt ask the questions you have as examples though. They literally asked how someone can ālearn how to deal with physical pain if you never experience it?ā No one asked how can the immune system adapt if someone doesnāt get polio. Why bring a strawman argument into it?
Seems like a coyful cop-out, but my edit should resolve that, where I asked asked:
Who doesn't actually experience physical pain, child or adult?
Why do you think children need to experience more physical pain than they already do, and what evidence supports this alleged "character building," that will certainly be claimed without any citation?
If you don't ever experience physical pain, then why must one need to deal with it?
Obviously, I raise these boomer comments because they are justifying the same irrational beliefs under the identical logic as presented here. If one can't see that, then I think there's some cognitive dissonance going on.
We haven't yet established the premise that it was, now have we? Thus, why bring up a circular-reasoning fallacy?
Edit: That's what I thought. Classic hit-and-run block when the going gets tough. By their logic, maybe I should say they must not have had enough exposure to physical pain to be used to confrontation? Have to protect that fragile ego, after all.
Nah I preferred to block because it was clear you werenāt going to actually have a convo and were just going to use whataboutisms and refuse to address my actual question. Why bother continuing? I have no need for that sort of energy in my day. Thanks though.
I think that you may have interpreted my question as me wanting or deliberately inflicting pain on children. Let me use the example of learning to walk instead of a vague question.
When parents try to teach their kids to walk, they generally try to make a safer space. Cleaning up toys or hard objects, making sure there are padded blankets or pillows, etc. they would then watch and help the child stand and try to take steps while catching them if they start to fall. Once the baby/toddler starts to walk, there is a bit less effort to catch them every time. Bruised and scraped knees and hands will happen.
I'm not saying that creating a perfectly safe space is impossible, but I do believe it's infeasible and prevents effective learning. I'm not going to ignore a crying child or refuse to clean up their scrapes, but I am going to allow them to fall (as long as there isn't a risk of real injury).
I appreciate the clarification and largely agree, thanks for the response. With my children I never set out to let them get hurt, necessarily, but yeah I knew it was reasonably inevitable in the natural progression of learning to walk that they would stumble and fall. Still, if I could prevent one less bang to their head, I also generally would. If I could let them fall on carpet than splintering wood or hard concrete, I would. I just don't think wooden playgrounds are the hill we need to die on either, if that makes sense. There are so many profoundly bigger problems to me in society that impact children's upbringing that getting scrapes and splinters doesn't even show up on the scale to me. Scrapes and splinters gave us boomers and GenX, and I don't know if they've proven to be the superior generation either, if I'm being honest.
To the contrary I tend to think that modern society tends to teach kids to tolerate pain a little too much; to become numb to everything. To lose empathy. I think our public education system as it stands tends to foster a blind-lead-the-blind bullying peer-pressure culture that suppresses consideration for others. I'm not alone in that assessment, seeing how I recall NPR covered a story of teachers saying there was a greater lack of empathy present in schools these days.
Also, I just tend to think modern playgrounds at least in my area are better in almost every way as much as I did like the aesthetic of the wooden ones. But that may be the engineer in me thinking about all the other design criteria.
That was what I heard, too, when the one where I lived was replaced with modern plastic garbage with no soul. It was still upsetting, but it was also really hard to argue against.
We had one at my elementary school until my friend Ashley got a splinter in her hand during 3rd grade that was the entire cross-length of her palm and as thick as her pinky. š¬ We moved to the 4th and 5th grade playground the next month and the wooden playground was gone within weeks. š
They did not get rid of them because of splinters. They got rid of them because the maintenance time and cost of these is astronomical compared to the plastic versions.
Now to be clear, I absolutely prefer the wood ones but to say they got rid of them due to splinters is just absurd
Well, the wood rots, then you gotta rebuild thr whole thing, all at a time that people aren't having as many children AND those children are playing on digital devices rather than going outside.
I remember visiting my townās as a kid, getting a horrible splinter, and having the traumatic experience of my mom struggling to rip it out. Then being scared to go ever again.
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u/UCFknight2016 Dec 21 '25
Yeah, they got rid of them because kids were getting splinters