The Swing of Things

What do you see in this photo? I see a little girl fully engaged with her world. Shoes off, enjoying the squish of mud between her toes, she's looking for pollywogs, waterskaters, and possibilities. If she finds something interesting, she'll pick it up, find out about it. Or just watch.

But there's another camp of observers who undoubtedly see something else in this picture. First of all, the little girl is not wearing a hat and sunglasses to protect her from the sun. She's carrying a stick - what if she falls on it and pokes her eye out? And heaven only knows what's in that puddle. She could cut her foot on glass! Besides, she's going to get DIRTY!

It is, apparently, these observers who are in charge of playground safety compliance for our school board. They are a dilligent lot - nobody can complain that they're not taking the job seriously. By gum, if there's a new safety standard, it's going to be applied. Rigorously! So rigorously, in fact, that our school has had its swings removed for non-compliance. The children are safe now, alright. Nobody ever got injured staring forlornly at a swingless swingset (although, if and when someone DOES get injured in this activity, I'm sure there'll be a new standard to take care of that).

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for safety. And so are the 15 or so other adults who have been trying to bring the swingset up to "code" for the past two school years. We did not build the thing out of popsicle sticks and binder twine, and locate it in a swamp full of alligators. No, we obtained the specifications from the school board, and had the swingset built to those standards.

So, what's the problem?

The problem is that the standards keep changing. First, we had to replace the pea gravel we'd used under the swings, as it was the wrong grade. (Replace pea gravel - check.) Then the inspectors decided the chains were the wrong gauge. (Buy new chains - check). Then the seats were the wrong type of material. (Acquire rubber seats - check.) Then the chains (correct gauge, now) needed to be painted with a special type of paint. (Cue Picasso - check). Then we had to cut down the trees behind the swingset, just in case a child might decide to jump off the swing into a tree. (Axe the trees - check.)

You have to understand that every change requires a vote at Home and School, which meets once a month, and holds the purse strings. It gets to be a bit weird to show up at meeting after meeting, only to discuss the swingset... again. Feels a bit like that Star Trek episode... you know, the one where they all end up playing poker, again and again? At least the Enterprise crew had snacks...

Anyway. We're still not up to code. By the time we've axed the trees, the standards have changed again, and now we need pea gravel spread to a distance of seven feet on either side of the swingset. And the clincher: now our new chains are substandard (yes, really) because the "new" standard requires all chains to be plastic-coated. And that's where we've lost the race, because we haven't been able to source the correct gauge of chain WITH plastic coating.

The super-dilligent safety team has taken the swings down, pending our ability to comply.

Now, this entire farce is obviously NOT about safety. Unless I've missed the nation-wide rash of children dying terrible deaths because they landed on pea gravel that's two millimeters away from standard. Or perhaps I'm unaware of the statistics showing that children's hands are being horribly maimed by non-plastic-coated swingset chains. If we're truly this concerned about our children's safety, we ought to just wrap them individually in bubble wrap and set them out on the lawn for recess. Forget the swings.

No, I think the reality is that we've constructed a swingset that could withstand a class five hurricane. The reality is that the majority of playground injuries occur, not due to unsafe equipment, but to lack of adult supervision. The reality is that we are living in a society that is increasingly getting in its own way with standards, rules, and requirements that no longer achieve anything meaningful.

IS this about safety? Or is it about perpetually refining the requirements in order to justify the highly-paid bureaucracy that runs it all?