At first, I thought this was a joke.
It’s a serious toy set sold on Amazon, and it came up in my feed.
Any parent who buys this for their kids either loves visiting the emergency room or hates their children.
Seriously, a swing hung from a tension bar in a doorway?
First, when we were kids, we treated swing sets like launch pads to the moon. We would pump hard enough to swing back and forth higher than the bar.
And what kid wouldn’t be tempted to jump off the damn thing, whether it’s indoors or outside?
Crash!
Right into the china cabinet.
Or the kid jumps and flies through a plate-glass window.
Even if nothing else happens, the kid swings high enough to bonk their head on the ceiling.
Also, do you really think that flimsy tension bar is strong enough not to break loose?
We used to rock entire swing sets hard enough to pull the poles out of the ground.
Even if the parents have the skills and tools to install it properly, the molding around the door will probably rip off, sending the kid flying.
Put the swing aside and look at what comes with it: a knotted rope and a rope ladder.
Watch the kids accidentally hang themselves with the knotted rope while playing a twenty-first-century version of Tarzan.
Then count the minutes until one of them gets the idea to dangle the rope ladder out a window and scale the side of the house before plunging to the ground.
Amazing.
Do I sound like a parent, or what?
I survived childhood in the 1960s and 1970s, when playgrounds culled the weak and unlucky from the herd.
Concrete, steel, and scraped knees are what I remember.
Because of that, I know exactly what my friends and I would have done with this home swing set and its ropes.
If my siblings and I had owned this thing when we were young, our parents would have invested in their own ambulance.
I don’t want kids playing the same survival games we did when we were young.
Oh Lord.
*Originally posted on my Facebook page, 12/14/2021.*
