I hate playgrounds

The swings, the monkey bars, the slidey-handle thing that’s like a mini zipwire – kids love ’em all, but to me an afternoon around these things is akin to Lt Colonel Nicholson’s stint in “the oven” in The Bridge on the River Kwai. I’ll come right out and say it: I hate going to the playground.

It’s supposed to be a win all around. The kids burn off energy and get some exercise while mum or dad has a nice sit-down, fiddles with the smartphone, or reads the paper. In reality, it never works this way. It’s a constant stream of “Watch me” and “Help me” and of course guarding against head-ground meet-ups. It’s constantly DEFCON 1.

I thought I was alone in finding it a bit dull. After all, as parents we’re supposed to love this kind of larking about with the kids. But when I tweeted my boredom, several parents tweeted back immediately.

@Goriami wrote, “We avoid the playground wherever possible as I get bored..they should have swings and slides for parents!”

Although that’s not always a solution. “We have one of those parks with grown-up equipment,” @Motherscuffer wrote, but still that doesn’t keep the feelings at bay.

Personally, I’d love to play alongside on some adult-sized swings or walk on an open-air treadmill. That way I’d be getting as much exercise as the kids.

Instead, we get limited seating, often at a rundown playground in a tucked-away overly shaded area (have they not noticed? We’re not exactly a nation suffering from sunstroke).

Where’s the wifi? Where are the quality snack bars and cafes? And most importantly, where are the heart-to-heart talks with my girlfriends while the kids play in the background, in soft focus?

Really the problem is that going to the playground is another one of those parenting responsibilities these days that’s it not enough to just do because it’s a good thing and because, y’know, you’re the parent. You’re supposed to love it. It’s supposed to be an utter blast watching the children clamber over the equipment for 45 minutes. Somewhere along the way — maybe because it’s so beneficial to the kids to get out in the fresh air, exercise and learn the attendant social skills — it feels like it’s become sacrilege to admit it doesn’t ring your bell.

We should combat this mindset and acknowledge out loud that there are parts of parenting that aren’t satisfying. They are just a boring grind and not at all how they looked in the brochure.

For some people, it’s staying home with baby. For some, it’s bath time. For me, it’s playgrounds. (Actually for me it’s all those, but let’s tackle it one thing at a time.)

I do take the kids along to a playground practically any time they like. I do encourage their acts of derring-do on heavily repainted metal and plastic and wood apparatuses. But along the way I want to be able to admit out loud that when it comes to type of bars, I prefer cocktail, not monkey.

About Jennifer Howze

Jennifer Howze is the Creative Director and co-founder of BritMums. She blogs about family travel at Jenography.net, tweets at @JHowze and Instagrams at @JHowze. Previously, she wrote the Alpha Mummy blog at The Times and as a journalist has contributed to The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, Budget Travel, CNN.com, Allure, SELF and Premiere, among others. She won The Maggie Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for a health article in Seventeen magazine.

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