Who TF Is Responsible For Designing Playgrounds & Why Is It Never A Parent?

Have you ever taken your child to a playground only to wonder how the absolute death trap of a play structure in front of you got approved by the city? Random openings with 10-foot drops into the mulch below, metal slides in direct sun, and oh goodie, there’s no fence between it and the parking lot. It all makes it really hard to actually sit down and relax while the kids play. If it feels like the people who design playgrounds despise families, well, you’re not alone in that.

“WHY don’t more playgrounds have shade?” begins one such parent’s post on r/Mommit. “My city has been weighing getting rid of some playgrounds lately because they aren't used much in the summer. Yeah, they aren't being used in the summer because you can fry an egg on the slide! Just get some damn sunshades or an overhead cover or at least plant some trees closer to the equipment, something! I just don't understand why shade isn't a priority at all for playgrounds full of metal equipment.”

“I say this all the time. A new park/splash pad was built around my house. I looked up how much it cost…. Over $2 million. They couldn’t spend any of that on any shade?” one commenter replied.

“Ugh peeve of mine!!” wrote another. “Had to fundraise to put up a covering for part of the play area at our elementary school because they didn’t budget for that in the new school’s building! In Florida!!!”

On a similar post titled “Can we finally get properly shaded playgrounds?”, another parent commented that yes, even in extremely hot states, shade seems to be an afterthought in playground designers’ minds.

“We’re in Tucson and I bitch about this all the time, the freaking slides are never in the shades that are at some of the parks!! It’s hotter than Satan’s butthole almost year-round, I don’t get it.”

Of course, a lack of shade is far from the only design fluke parents have to deal with at public playgrounds. In fact, some new ones are apparently being built in ways that very obviously obscure caregivers’ ability to even see where their children are.

“There’s a new playground that opened up last year and they put three huge artificial hills right smack dab in the middle of the playground. So from one side of them, I can’t see my kids on the other side and vice versa,” one parent wrote. Cue a bunch of parents sitting on top of the hill glancing nervously around like meerkats, probably.

Then of course there are the characteristic random openings in the sides of play structures, which make zero sense given they’re always in the part of the jungle gym that’s two stories above the ground. If Reddit is to be believed, kids really do fall out of them — that’s not just an intrusive thought we all have. Then there’s the new trend of building playgrounds with metal slides. Not only do they heat up like a skillet in the sun, but they’re surprisingly slick, enough so that they’ve literally become a meme.

As one mom pointed out, a startling number of playgrounds also have no fencing, or at least not any legitimate barriers meant to actually contain human children. “As a parent of a runner I’d like to request fencing. Not like a wooden post and a couple planks or 3 feet of grass before a parking lot (where no one drives the speed limit anyway). Like actually fenced in with some kind of latch. What the heck do city planners have against playground families?”

But deep within the comments, one mom’s call to action stands out:

“In my area, most public playgrounds have a public comment period during the design phase. If your park district or municipality has an email list, join it. Specifically check if there is an email list for their planning division. I was able to provide comment on a recent playground renovation and was thrilled that they incorporated one of my requests into the final design.”

So yes, it seems that nationwide, we are all struggling with some aspect of our local playgrounds being built without really taking family’s ease, comfort, and safety into mind — which, when you’re literally building a place explicitly for families, is pretty disheartening. However, when we reach out to our local officials about our concerns during planning (and even afterward!), we may sometimes be surprised by how eager they are to listen. Perhaps it’s time for me to email my city’s parks department about the broken latch on our nearest playground’s gate...

Now, who do we have to call to get a coffee shop or a wine bar built alongside the playground?