Empty Playgrounds

When you are a parent of pre-schoolers, sometimes you lean on them to make the keenest observations. In our first weeks back in the United States, our two year old Asher brought an American truism to our attention as we zigzagged across Pennsylvania in our car. Every mile or so, he’d shout with exuberance, “Playground!”
Sometimes he was fishing for a chance to stop and play, but usually he was simply exercising his power of observation. I’d turn and look to find the structure, and, sure enough, there was another playground. After a while, the sheer number of playgrounds and parks in York County became overwhelming.
In Africa, finding food and clothing for your children is the highest priority, and so it’s rare to find a play structure anywhere. If you do, it’s probably there as a money-making enterprise.
Feeding and clothing children are meant to be the jobs of parents. Kenya however, the specific country where we’ve worked for the past four years, has an AIDS rate of about 5% among adults. Dying adults means orphaned children, and thousands of orphaned children are a burden on extended families and ultimately the country.
When you’re struggling with survival, concepts like “play” and “entertainment” are awfully foreign. It’s no surprise that my two year old hasn’t seen many play structures along the roadsides of Africa.
He may be shocked by little examples of American affluence like this, but I’m not. I’ve spent the last four year trying to grow accustomed to the dirt and the poverty and the disease of African life with little success. The luxuriousness of my home country always served as the norm for me; the squalor of Africa was unusual.
What I did find shocking, however, was the vacancy of American parks. Nearly every play structure we’ve driven past, colorful and shining in the summer sun, has been notoriously empty. Parks and playgrounds everywhere. Joyful, grateful children nowhere.
Perhaps this article could be an indictment on childhood fitness or community spirit or some other ailment of American culture. That’s not the biggest issue I see.
My question is “Who are all these parks for?” Why does every apartment complex, every borough, every township, and every house need a play structure?
Are they for the children? If so, the kids seem to be saying no thanks as they stay indoors.
Are they for our own sense of parental responsibility? Are we so paranoid about providing everything conceivable for our children that we’re overcompensating?
Are they for our own wallets? Property value assessment considers things like parks and recreation. Perhaps we build to excess with our common funds to bolster up our individual investments.
I don’t know. But as I transition between a culture that struggles to feed and clothe its children and a culture that builds beautiful unused and (dare I say) unneeded play structures, I have to feel a pang of sadness every time Asher yells out, “Playground!”