As a parent, living abroad, I have had a very hard time finding free places for my children to play. This has been an ongoing difficulty for the last 18 years. Parks and recreation areas exist, but are not geared for children.

In Beijing, there are a lot of green space parks. I see them all around the city. We walk through them and can relax easily. The one thing I have noticed about these parks, is that they are often equipped with outdoor exercise equipment. Equipment that is suited for the aging senior citizen population. There are no swings, or see saws, or climbing rigs. Instead there are walkers, and stair climbers, and rigs for rotating arms and wrists.

I asked someone about this once. I was told that children needed to use their energy to study and prepare for adulthood. After retirement, they could play.

Apartment compounds are similarly equipped for seniors. The one compound we lived in did have an aging wooden climbing rig with some metal rocking horses on springs. but they were falling apart and not cared for at all. It had no children playing at it.

The school I worked for years at fluctuated on this. When I joined 18 years ago, they had a jungle gym with a slide, climbing bars and stepping stones. Less than a year after I joined a little boy got hurt on the rig. The school removed it to avoid a lawsuit. For the next 2 years there was no playground, just a running track, and soccer field.

Three years later, they installed some new climbing bars. That same year, a girl fell off them and banged her head on the bars on the way down. They were dug up and removed.

5 years later they installed a swing set near the front gate. The security guards would keep an eye on it. I am not clear on the cause, but within a month, they removed the swing and left the frame.

Every few years the school would put something in, and within 2 or 3 months it would be gone.

For the entire primary school years of my two older children, we had to pay for them to enter private playgrounds. They would appear at supermarkets, or malls. However, as soon as there was enough Yearly passes sold, they would disappear. Few of them stayed open. and they were always packed.

I asked one of my son’s classmate’s parents once about how they arranged social time. I was told, that they arranged for their child to attend the same math classes and English classes after school as their friends. Then they could play in class. This seemed to be the general consensus. We did eventually get my son to be able to visit his friend’s house to play a few times. My daughter was not so lucky.

When we moved to my new school I thought things might be different. The school has a lovely playground, and it takes care of it. During the pandemic, my children had free reign over the playground with the other kids that lived on campus. It was great.

Kids at this school had to have insurance. It was a requirement to even register with the school. So if a child gets hurt, the parents wouldn’t sue the school. Theoretically.

Last summer they replaced the playground with a great big new playground. It has climbing poles, and nets, and slides, and in one area 3 roundabouts. 2 that you can sit on and 1 that you hang from.

Well a little girl was on the roundabout and flew off while it was spinning. So the school welded them all still. The kids, being kids, broke the weld by forcing the roundabouts around. and the school bolted them.

So now we have 3 brand new roundabouts that are useless, and are just seats, or hanging bars.

My point with all this is this. When did society decide that children cannot play? Or that they can only play where there is a profit to be made from them?

I remember being thrown off of a seesaw when I was a child. I lost a tooth, and bloodied my nose. It was terrifying, and I don’t recommend it. But from my experience, everyone nearby learned. The compound kept the seesaw. When the other kids played on it, they made sure that the weight was close to even.

I cannot imagine what would happen here and now if that happened.

Look I don’t want my children being mauled or disabled by playground equipment. but I do want them to be able to learn from making mistakes. They need to learn to identify problems or dangers. If we take all dangers away from them, they cannot learn this fundamental skill.

My children used to see more playgrounds in Peppa Pig and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse than they did in real life. So with the youngest I want to keep her out playing as long as the air is clean enough. If she gets hurt, we’ll hug her and she will learn from it. Worse case scenario, she needs a doctor for an injury. but still, she will get support from us, and will learn. She will also get time to play with other kids, and learn social skills that we had to fight hard to expose her older siblings to.

Does this make me a bad parent in the world’s eyes?