Playground Games Then vs. Now

Playgrounds have changed a lot since I was a kid. Not only are there more safety regulations that they have to meet but even the type of equipment has changed. If you know me, you probably expect me to point out how all the older things were better but that’s not the case across the board here.

Let’s take a head-to-head look at some of today’s and some of yesterday’s playground equipment and see which comes out on top.

Merry-go-round vs. Sit-and-spin

Everyone reading this probably knows what a merry-go-round is but its technical name is “spinning wheel of death”. What else do you call a spinning metal contraption that gets hot enough to cook a pizza on in the sun and is  positioned on top of concrete?

Sit-and-spins are the significantly pared down version of a merry-go-rounds on playgrounds today. They’re usually a tilted, cup-shaped apparatus big enough for one kid to sit in and spin themselves. Basically they deliver all the dizziness and inner ear chaos of a merry-go-round with little risk of falling off or cooking your leg. So, unless that’s your cup of tea, sit and spins are the winner as far as playground equipment goes.

Metal jungle gym vs. Rope climb

It seems weird to us now, but at one time most playground equipment was made out of metal. There are still some versions of the classic early 20^th century jungle gym around although I haven’t seen any on the classic early 20^th century playground surface: concrete.

Metal jungle gyms attract kids like a magnet. I don’t know why they’re so inviting to climb and play on but they are. Our modern attempt at an equivalent is the rope climber or geometrical net climbers. They take many forms but are basically less angular jungle gyms made of rope. Kids like to climb on them but they don’t seem to have the same appeal as the metal ones. I think it’s because you want a metal structure if you’re hanging upside down by your legs. Winner: Metal jungle gym.

Dodgeball vs. Gaga ball

I didn’t know there was a structured way to play dodgeball when I was a kid. The games I participated in were a free for all where my siblings, friends, and I threw various sports balls at each other in the yard. There were only two things that had to happen: If someone caught the ball you threw you were out and at least one kid was going to argue the ball didn’t touch them even though you totally hit them square in the head.

Gaga ball is sort of a gentler and more structured version of dodgeball. It takes placed in a Gaga pit – which sounds intimidating but is just an octagonal fenced-in area (we have at least two of these in town at the Heritage Park and at Gilleland Creek Park). You use only one ball and the goal is to hit the ball with your hand and make it strike an opponent below the knee to eliminate them from the round.

If you like the gritty chaos of dodgeball this probably sounds boring, but I have to say it’s a lot more fun than it sounds. Especially, if like the boys and I, you don’t read the rules closely and/or incorporate house rules like ignoring the below the knee rule. The biggest thing gaga has going for it is it allows vastly different aged kids to play together.

Even I’m not going to have the 14-year-old hurling dodgeballs at the 5-year-old. But all of us can get in the gaga pit and play a round of gaga – and being small even has advantages in the pit. This one is a tie for me.

Outdoor musical instruments vs underground shout cone things

I find this difference amusing. A lot of the newer playgrounds we’ve been to have incorporated some sort of musical instrument -- drums, chimes, metal xylophone keyboards, etc.

What’s funny to me is they appear to be replacing those underground “telephones” where you could yell into a funnel shaped structure on one end of the playground and someone could hear it through the same structure on the other side.

The appeal of the underground shout thing surely has been impacted by video technology. When kids can see live video of a relative on a phone in another state being able to talk to a friend who’s 30 feet away (and who you can hear better listening outside the cone) loses some of its appeal. I think the playground makers felt the playground were getting to quiet with no kids yelling into the underground secret phone system, so they added questionably harmonic outdoor xylophones and rums to bang on.

I think kids like the musical instruments better, but I’m not so sure about the parents.