Yep...I'm old

God makes children so cute for a reason. And those of us with kids know what that reason is.

It's amazing what we do for our kids. And now that I'm a father, I understand much of what my own father went through. I also found out how old I feel when I looking back to my own childhood and seeing how different the world has become. And all of this insight happened while I joined the fraternal society of fathers who have assembled a swing set.

First of all, the metal swing set has been around for over one hundred years. And during all that time, I don't think they have ever changed their manufacturing processes or assembly instructions. I don't know how exactly they do it, but the people that make these things seem to have a sadistic bent. I half wonder if they somehow include a video camera so they can record the assembly and laugh their evil little engineer asses off.

The holes seem to never line up, even accidentally. And if you ever do happen to force a screw into a hole to put two parts together, it isn't long enough to actually get a nut threaded. How is this solved? With the hammer the instructions recommend in the tool list. It seems to have no documented purpose, but is listed as a requirement for assembly. But even bending the metal and twisting the nut onto the one and only exposed thread, you now have a problem you could not have expected.

The bolts are straight slot screw heads. Why does this fact matter? Well, they are almost impossible to screw into the provided locking nut with a manual screwdriver. So, you reach for your trusty 18 Volt cordless right? That's what I thought too. But this happens to have more torque than the cheap bolts can handle and you wind up shredding the screw head into something that can never be removed and can reach out and cut a child wide open.

So the hardware will need to be replaced with hex head bolts, and the lock nuts replaced with lock washers and regular nuts. The places you had to bang with a hammer will need to be sanded and painted to avoid surface rusting. And then to top it off, we need to figure out a way to anchor the thing to the ground? Why does it need anchored? Well, it just makes good sense. And this brings us around to how much things have changed.

My metal swing set that I had as a kid was never anchored down. That just added to the thrill of it when I was finally able to make it rock while I was swinging. Also, my swing set had a metal slide. And the steel wasn't rolled tight in places so I managed to cut my hands sometimes when I griped the sides on the way down. And if it happened to be sunny and I was wearing shorts, that metal slide got very hot on the thighs. Not much of a chance in that happening with the plastic one on my boy's swing set.

The slides on the playground were different back then too. First of all, they were metal, so they had the same skillet effect on the sunny days. Secondly, they were about 10 feet tall with a ladder going up the whole way without a fall cage. And the final proof that adults in the '70s were trying to kill us, the playground was not built upon deep sand and mulch or those snazzy rubber pellets made from recycled tires. No, the ground was covered with rocks. Not smooth ones either, but the hardest, pointiest and sharpest ones they could find. If we got cut or skinned on the rocks or griddle marks from the slide, the nurse would give us a squirt of Bacctine and an Aspirin and tell us to walk it off. Today, that would be a lawsuit.

Yep, things are different now, and the moment you have thoughts about how much things have changed, you are officially old. Things may be safer now, but I wonder if we are also doing our children a disservice by making them pawns in a legal chess match. Our kids are precious and should be protected. But should they also learn that life brings lessons in the form of skinned knees? Were we shaped by our playground? Without question. Now we are more careful on the monkey bars, pour water down a metal slide and don't put our feet on the bar of the teeter totter. I wonder what new lessons our 'green' and safety friendly playgrounds will show my kids.