[I write this one not from the balanced perspective of a normal human being, but from my personal perspective as an archetypal warrior queen within a multiple system. Which, quite often (although apparently not while being copy edited!) is my truest emotional reaction, although many people cannot tell.]
If you want to rile a bunch of mothers (and I do mean mothers) of children under 8 up, apparently all you have to do is mention that you allow your child to go UP the slide.
No, seriously. This is the third such discussion I have been stupid enough to get into, in three different parenting groups/communities, and every time it seems about half the mothers take mortal offense. Possibly more than half.
Let us assume, gentle reader, that I have some sense about this. That I do not allow Noah to take 5 minutes to try to get up a slide that’s too hard while 6 kids wait at the top, jostling each other closer and closer towards the edge of the platform. That the slide in question is a fairly short straight slide and it is not that he is crab-walking up in the inside of a tube slide. Let us also assume that I do not allow him to go when it is not his turn or when there is any drama unfolding anywhere in the vicinity: a new tot cowering at the top, perhaps.
But, here’s the thing.
The slide is a piece of plastic on an incline. It works in both directions. At some of our parks, the slides even have toe holds!
And even if it does take longer to go up than to go down, although Noah’s pretty good at it, it only takes perhaps twice the time. And as far as I know, there is no time rule on the equipment. Take the swings. There is not a rule that you can only swing for ten swings or something. Why the slide has a 10 second time rule on it or something (in some people’s minds) and therefore Your Turn must be Down is beyond me.
So there’s the slide case laid out for you. This, apparently, is controversial. I think I was told… let me get this week’s quote…
“Oh no, the dreaded “We are free spirits being oppressed by you sticks-in-the-mud” people? Who knew that your child was allowed to monopolize a piece of equipment to prove his creativity and free-spiritedness while a group of children wait at the top for him to finish up so they can slide down?”
!!! (I had already laid out the group condition as above.)
This is really ridiculous. I kind of see where it probably started: we used to play shove the people off the slide/try to get up the slide at school on a long metal slide attached to an asphalt hill (I’m not even kidding) and there were plenty of black eyes and split lips. I’m sure some entrepreneurial teacher came up with the novel “only go down the slide” rule. And in a situation where the children outnumber the adults 100 to 1 (like at recess), that’s fine. School is full of senseless rules for crowd control.
But on a normal playground in a normal situation, I think it’s ridiculous. I’ll go even further: I think it’s crazy. It’s not really an unsafe way to use the slide (sure your feet can slip and you can bang your chin, but you’re really less likely to fall off than you are sliding down).
Plus, in my opinion, playgrounds are there to be scaled and conquered. They are places for children to master their controlled environment. And getting up the down slide seems to me to be one of the best ways to use that environment, actually.
It’s good for the muscles, good for coordination, reasonably safe, and as I said… it’s plastic on an incline. Kids should know these work in both directions.
Although it makes me almost sick to think about it, because I know I am going to have to let go enough to do this too, I have to say that any good relationship I have left with my body – ah, this body, raped, abused, and strangler of Emily; grower of Emily and Noah and source of sexual and sensual pleasures alike – is at least partly grounded in all the opportunities I have had in my life to “go up the slide” – to get an idea in my head and carry it out with my body.
Many of those things have not been entirely rule-following or globally safe: canoeing out into a provincial park with teen leaders and then being the teen leader; solo canoeing in choppy waters where it took 3 hours to get back against winds, where it would normally take 20 minutes. Swimming until I threw up to pass lifeguarding exams. Skinny dipping. Climbing up the shed behind the school to the roof and hanging out there with friends. Climbing down the bluffs.
Standing around making rules so that it’s always the same play, always up the stairs/ladder and down the slide, seems to me to be kind of resisting the point of outdoor free play. Which is to look at a bunch of stuff and figure out how to test one’s limits again it. Tool using primate behaviour and all that.
Also… I am trying to picture a group of men standing around making up slide rules for other people’s children (I have no objection if someone doesn’t want his or her child going up the slide). And I am failing.
No, what I think it comes down to is women who are suddenly thrust into one of the most out of control situations – childbirth and child rearing – trying to impose control. On everything. Including each other, and the slide. And I refuse to get into that. If Noah wants to go up the slide, as long as it’s in a respectful way, I’ll be right behind him every step of the way.
I lurk here occasionally, and I’m regularly on the blog where this fist-fight broke out. I have to say that I thought you handled it well. And you’re right.
When my daughter was little and I was new to the playground culture, I stopped her from climbing up the slide under any circumstance, but I got over that, especially at home and at the neighbor’s house. (That said, I’ve never seen a slide with toe holds.)
Climbing up the slide is great for all the reasons you mentioned and also for Motor Planning, an area in which my daughter has a delay. She actually needs to climb up the slide. And, as you mention, it’s as safe to climb up a slide as go down. And it’s a safer place to practice climbing than, say, the vertical rock wall where my daughter once fell and nearly hanged herself when her wide-neck shirt caught on one of the holds. But down-only proponents don’t want to hear about that.
Amazing what vitriol comes to the surface over such a non-issue, don’t you think?
Wow. I didn’t realize there was such controversy. my kid goes up the slide all the time. I’ve encouraged it because I think it is good for his coordination, etc.
I didn’t appreciate big kids blocking little kids from below when mine were toddlers, but that is (so far as I’m concerned) a totally different question than the “which direction(s) are sanctioned on the slide” issue. So long as everyone is more or less the same age, and feeling the same level of comfort on the slide, then “have at it” is my general rule.
I do want my kids to be always respectful and careful of those younger, differently abled, or differently emotional about a piece of equipment than them. If they do that, then the rest should be up for them (the kids as a whole) to negotiate.
I’m a i don’t care mom. As long as no bigger kid is gonna be sliding down the slide and plant a boot in my kid’s face fine, whatever. I fact the slide my son uses has a center divider so if one kid is going up the other can go down.
It builds dexterity and as you said it works different muscle groups. You’re all responsible enough to know if its safe and if it is such a horrible thing to witness they can look away or find a different slide.
oh and start point out when their children are using anything improperly. because they aren’t playground perfect either.