Where the Heck are all the Swings?

I literally had to drive two subdivisions over yesterday to find a freakin' playground that had a swing set! WTH?!?! There are at least four playgrounds in my subdivision alone and not one of them has a swing set... can somebody tell me why? Are swings considered dangerous? If the answer is yes than that is just ridiculous. What isn't dangerous at the playground if you're not paying attention - tons of places to climb and break arms, tons of places to give yourself a concussion by hitting your head on low hanging wooden beams, for goodness sake - the freakin' slide gets so hot when it's sunny out, it's literally a burn hazard (who the heck designs a playground with a dark green slide????).

Yesterday, in our "we're sick but we don't want to sit around" boredom, Jane and I set out on a quest to find a swing... and A swing is what we found. One swing (well, technically there were two but only one was one of those swings that you put your legs through that Jane could use). In all honesty, Jane liked the swing but it definitely wasn't worth the 10 minutes of driving around, searching. However, if there was one within walking distance, definitely would be a fav spot for us. When we were growing up, we spent our lives at the playground on the swings.... we even hung out there when we became teenagers and started getting into "trouble".

On that note, where the heck did all the see-saws go? And merry-go-rounds (sp?)? Who is the person "on top" who decides that these things are too dangerous for playgrounds. We all had see-saws and merry-go-rounds when we were growing up and I never heard of a serious, life threatening injury caused by a see-saw... broken bones, I'm sure, but life or death, no. What kid doesn't break a bone at one point or the other. It's like a right of passage. To teach you that you don't want to do stupid bone-breaking things again in the future... plus, when you're a kid, breaking a bone sucks but the attention and few days off school seem totally worth it. Somebody tell me how see-saws are dangerous please. You hold on, you go up 3 ft in the air and down. Inevitably some toolbox gets on with you and when you're up, the hop off and you slam down but the worst I ever got from that was a bruised toosh - nothing bad enough to warrant expulsion of the see-saw from playgrounds worldwide. If see-saws are injuring kids, perhaps it's not that see-saws are dangerous but that we're raising stupid kids?!?! I mean, if your kids falls off the see-saw or hops off, or whatever would cause a see-saw related injury, then perhaps you should have explained the whole - handles are for holding onto concept... Hmm, thinking about it, maybe kids were going under the see-saws and getting bonked in the head? Again, maybe more of a less-than-genius kid move vs. a dangerous see-saw move.

Perhaps we need to stop removing everything from everywhere that could possibly ever cause anyone injury if used incorrectly and start teaching our kids the meaning of "no", how to use things properly and the consequences of bad decisions... just a thought.