Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for May 29, 2016

“Look, Mom, I found these needles that look like the ones at the doctor’s office.”

Sometomes a scraped knee teaches more than a dressing like the Michelonon man

We all manage to find what interests us.

There are people in one city who keep calling the police because some parents allow their children to walk to school. At some point, this effort to force everyone to wrap their kids in sterilized cotton or be thrown in jail will bear bad fruit…

It’s a good thing grow up kids without the short breath of the parents , but this is too much

Last time I was watching kids in a play area, a parent asked me which one was mine. Apparently, “I haven’t chosen yet” was the wrong response.

The chick with the phone is what is wrong today. Growing up I was out the door early, played in drainage ditches, open fields, a cemetary ( until the caretaker drove me home anyway…) at times a very long walk or bike ride from home. I think it made me independent and a stronger man for it. I do not have a panic attack in every confrontation or freak out in unfamiliar situations, I simply assess and move on. All of this was reinforced by my joining both the Boy Scouts and the military which wanted or formed independent thinking boys and men.

There are ways of making things both thrilling and fairly safe. For example a slide can be set into a sort of artificial hillock so that if children fall off it they roll down a rubber slope instead of dropping through space, and then it can be as high as you like. But old-style playgrounds with high frames and concrete floors were genuinely dangerous and rubber mats are a life-saver.

presumably Michelin Man

With the experiences of a childhood from the late fifties and through the sixties, along with living in the sticks, I think I’d find todays childhood somewhat boring.

People are terrified that their children may die, so they never let them live!

I had the alley, a long strip of concrete which, in the fall, was covered with piles of burning leaves, a perfect place to play. The multitude of trash cans provided an ample number of empty soup cans with which to play Kick the Can.

Yeah, those “rubberized” playgrounds. They buy used tires and chip them and put them around the swings, slides, and so on, and all the kids are exposed to serious carcinogens because tires that have been exposed to car exhaust emit noxious gas. And people deliberately buy chipped tires to put around outside their homes, too.You might as well just teach the kids to smoke.

Not sure a lot of the comparisons about how great the old days were is 100% accurate. Years ago and now, the neighborhood molesters existed. Some parents are more aware of this and some are not. When I grew up, it was before they realized maybe missing kids weren’t just going somewhere fun, maybe we should put their pictures on milk cartons and mailers, etc. Children will at least have the chance to survive if they can avoid predators. I don’t have entirely fond memories of some of my own independent adventures.

I was raised rural. I took a few falls but nothing bad. I took a few falls but nothing bad. I took a few falls but nothing bad.

www.freerangekids.com

I was in an apt complex once that had a tennis court— selling point! But the kids were playing basketball using a cardboard box held up by shutting a side door on one flap (inventive) and trying to dribble on the narrow walk to it.

I mentioned it to the rental agency and they put hoops for a small court sideways across one end of the tennis court— good for them!

I was a dumpster kind of kid. We kind of looked down on those wussies that had a parent at the other end of their leash.

Back then ( before Social Security and birth control ) everyone had “big” families in the hope that at least a couple of the kids could survive long enough to support gramma when her money ran out.

the stuff we used to do as kids would our parents arrested big time these days

Looks like Mike with boobs.

Michelin man.

We didn’t have dumpsters when i was a kid,but we had the City dump! Best and we all grew up!playground around

And we shall never learn how this played out, because of it being a Sunday strip. Was she arrested? Were the boys taken away from her? Did they come to harm from the dumpster diving and crossing the street alone? Did her husband give her a lecture? He seems to be the more responsible one.

The Michelonon Man existed in the hills of Southeast Asia around the same time as the Neanderthalon Man in Europe, and before the Cro-Magnonanon Man. While few locations have been found where Michelonon Man stayed for extended periods, some remains have been found and are remarkably preserved. The skin of these proto-hominids was smooth and remarkably lacking in blood vessels, so must have been very white in appearance. However, it has a rubbery texture and resists decay quite well, unlike the internal tissues, which have vanished without a trace.

Frankly, while I agrees many playgrounds have become sterile, I do agree with " soft landing" surfaces. Many of my generation were injured in falls onto hard dirt or concrete.I finally recovered from my fall but still ocassionl$& #*{]>.

Please stop drawing these horrible cardboard en face noses.

Didn’t Boopsie once have a similar conversation?

Oh great…the kids we’ve never seen…and already CPS is on the way.

Anyone who hasn’t gone dumpster diving hasn’t yet lived.Those who have may not have much longer to live, yet it was fun.

Good training.

and there goes the reason the playgrounds are that way.