Experimental Playgrounds

As soon as I saw the images, I was reminded of these, in Denmark we called them "skrammel-legeplads" lit. "junk-playground", they were still fairly popular when I was a kid.. I remember the one I visited most often had a (mostly) gutted jet-plane (some gauges, seat, sticks, flaps, lights, some tubing and wiring was still intact) that we could crawl around in, I was small because i remember being able to crawl into the wing! The amount of cuts and bruises was astounding, and very helpful in teaching my young self to keep track of where hands, feet and head were, and how they moved :D

Here's a short black/white movie that seems to take place at the one pictured in the article: https://www.danmarkpaafilm.dk/film/skrammellegepladsen

I'm glad to see that, at least here, consensus is to not wrap the kids in quite as much bubble-wrap as was the norm in the early 0s. I'm okay with my son playing and learning about his body and it's relation to the world around him by getting hurt, to a degree.. I generally step in if I determine the consequences of a likely accident to have ER potential.

This is the urban equivalent of my childhood growing up in the countryside. There were fewer kids, but just as much freedom to learn.

Too much bubblewrap parenting these days.