Posted on: Sunday, January 7, 2007
FAMILY MATTERS
Play nice or meet the Playground Police
By Esme Infante Nii
Those nifty little signs you see posted near the kiddie rides at carnivals, the ones that say, "You must be this tall to ride" — anybody got one to spare? Because the jungle gym in our neighborhood public playground needs one badly.
Except I'd cross out those words and replace them with, "You must be shorter than this to play here." Or, "You must be shorter than this AND lack facial hair to play here."
Or, "You must be shorter than this AND lack facial hair AND enjoy eating with your feet AND idolize your parents AND Pinky Dinky Doo to play here."
There are too many big kids playing where they shouldn't, and I am not afraid to play the role of Playground Police.
With a mere flick of the palm, I have been known to scare away gaggles of grade-schoolers too big and too reckless to be mixing it up with the wobbly babies and preschoolers for whom the playground was built in the first place. My stink-eye can render cussing middle-schoolers mute. And woe to the surly teen who sees the slide as a good place for a smoke.
Policing the public jungle gyms is a duty that conscientious parents have to take on with irritating frequency. It's not even just that big kids are hanging around when they should be moving on to big-kid pursuits.
It's that youngsters, and parents, too often seem to shed the rules of simple etiquette and common sense as they might slippers when they enter the playground.
Sure, we all pay taxes and should have equal access to the playgrounds.
Of course there are no posted rules or age limits. But you can't blame a mom of little kids for wishing there were, because on some days, it's anarchy on the monkey bars.
So until that day, parents, here is an Idiot's Guide on How to Act Like an Idiot on the Playground:
Bring Fido along. Nervous, restless pooch leashed to playground equipment + nervous, curious babies with smelly, groping hands = injury lawsuit.
Bring your kids when they're coughing, sneezing and dripping. You wouldn't take your little ones in that condition to play with your friends' kids; why is OK to let them smear their mucousy microbes all over the playground equipment and my kids?
Chat up a storm on your cell phone. I submit Exhibit A: one scratch on my chest caused by one largish rock hurled by one largish toddler while his oblivious mom kept all her attention on her Razr. If I hadn't dragged the child, and the rock, in front of her face, she might've never noticed it happened.
Expect other parents to guard your kids in dangerous areas. Some open ledges on our neighborhood jungle gym are nearly 4 feet up. My two hands are on each of my babies as they climb. If I have to lunge away to keep your 1-year-old from slipping off the edge, chances are one of my kids will slip off instead. I don't want to have to choose.
Spit on the playground. No elaboration needed.
Bring bikes, balls and other toys from home. Physics Lesson No. 1: Matter attracts. Thus, another child's plastic bat will be irresistibly drawn to your child's head. A 6-year-old riding his tricycle in speedy circles around the jungle gym eventually will come crashing into that baby just learning to walk. (And let's not even get into how babies and preschoolers hate to share the toys they bring. Add the 15 other kids on the playground who'll want the same toys. Then add some screaming, hitting and tug-of-war. The math does not lie.)
Allow big kids to run wild on the jungle gym. Physics Lesson No. 2: When a large object and a small object collide, the small object is likely to get its teeth knocked out. It bears repeating: Preteens and teens playing chase master, king of the hill and other frantic games around the jungle gym just don't mix with teeny tots who are just learning to get about. To rephrase that old saying: If you can't coexist nicely, don't coexist at all.
