Kick rocks, New York

New York officials are worried for our kids’ safety, and now it has nothing to do with drugs or obesity.
Be prepared to see No Playing in Playground signs right next to No Smoking soon throughout New York since our officials have deemed sports such as wiffle ball, kickball, dodgeball, and freeze tag unsafe.

I can remember back to my happy-go-lucky childhood days, which are merely in the early 90s, and remember recreational activities such as these played daily in school and at summer camp… and I’m still kicking.

The age of kids using or experimenting with drugs is getting lower every year, and the number of kids doing it is higher. It is becoming harder for kids to be kids and now the state wants to give them more reason to put aside their fun and get into trouble.

A ban such as this seems completely un-American, unless we consider George Orwell somewhat of a Nostradamus, predicting completely unjustifiable rules imposed by our officials. These bans are being implemented because allegedly kids are more “brutal.” Take away the energy outlet of kickball and now where do you think they will express their brutality?

To add to the factor of outrageousness, the state put kickball and tag in the same category as archery and scuba diving, but not sack races or tug-of-war. Kids cannot play a game of mock baseball with air-light balls but can pull a rope as hard as they can until the opposing party falls into a pit of mud.
There is no way that someone who truly thought this rule through could agree with it. It’s not a matter of being “wimpy,” it’s a matter of being irrational. Kids should not be left to the option of sitting, eating, and playing violent video games that fuel their aggression. They need to go outside and play without the restriction of straight jackets.

The new rule also wants to include a requirement for medical assistants to be present at summer camps. That would be fine, if the parents weren’t required to pay $200 for it. Kids need a place to go, more now than ever. By making it more difficult for them to play with peers, the state is only asking for an increase in troubled youth. Perhaps a more productive way to go about this is to have parents individually sign off on whether or not they personally find it endangering to their children to engage in tag, because I know if I were a parent, I would much rather prefer my child playing tag than singing kumbaya.

State officials are asking for a more violent youth by attempting to create a tamer one. I don’t think any of us can imagine a warm summer day at camp where children want to lie on the blacktop and meditate rather than running around with their friends. If that is what our society is coming to, then I can only hope that Nostradamus was right about 2012.