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Comment by contingencies | Hacker News Reader

I usually live an Asia and often tell local people that the great play equipment available to children there would be disallowed in parts of the west (eg. my native Australia) due to health and safety concerns, generally as a result of mandatory insurance and greedy insurance companies.

No longer are swings and see-saws available! Instead, you get a padded piece of artificial plas-floor with a carefully rounded (so when your kid falls on it, they won't bleed - just pass out), mid-height (so you can't claim you didn't see it, but it's not high enough to fall off) not-thing (so you can claim it was custom designed for safety) in funkified ultra-hue (so it's easy to see and you can't claim it was a dangerous obstruction when your kid falls over it and knocks their teeth out).

As a result, we are failing to teach our children to cope with the real world.

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I'm from Australia as well. I lived in Canada for a while and we use to joke that when there was snow there'd be signs saying you can't play in the snow.

Canadian parent here. You are absolutely right and it's ridiculous. Kids are extremely sheltered these days and it's ruining them. I find the problem is that there always needs to be someone to blame. Well, sometimes kids just do things that get them hurt. It's part of growing up.

If you don't know what it feels like to fly down a ice covered hill on a piece of plastic, hit a jump, and run smack into another kid, you did not have a proper Canadian childhood.

American here, I've been run over by guys on skis more than once at the local sledding hill growing up. My favorite sled was literally a rolled up piece of stiff plastic...fastest thing on the hill and I routinely had other kids wanting a ride.

Not just insurance, though that is a factor. Parents get more hysterical over injured kids than they used to. If a kid gets injured, it's more likely for the parents to raise a stink. In ye olde days if a child got injured at the playground, parents would deal with the injury. Nowadays there's more (in relative terms) that would demand what it going to be done and harass the relevant manager. Add in that media love such stories these days, whereas previously the prevailing opinion was "well duh, kids skin their knees when they play".

It doesn't take many such parents - you could have a hundred kids and only a couple of parents like this - and you too would be using this super-safe stuff. The other parents could be fine with skinned knees and bruises, but you may as well save your time dealing with the angry parents so you can do the rest of your job.

Disclaimer: I am not a parent

I am an Australian parent, and whilst I agree there's some liability-averse nonsense[1], the parks we go to do still have swing and see-saws. Maybe a different state or council?

[1] E.g. a local spot where kids would jump from a rock ledge into water. Council concerned about liability put up a 6' fence. So now kids jump from an unstable footing at a greater height - but hey, the council can avoid liability.

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