Webthoughts

This is wrong. Simply wrong.

I completely understand wanting to protect our children and make sure they are safe, but there are certain things that are going to happen to a kid, no matter what. Banning tag and other "contact" sports is simply wrong.

What person grew up without ever playing tag? I'd say that those individuals are few and far between. It's just something that a kid does. Children have a lot of energy, and they need to expend that energy. Tag is a great way for them to expend that energy. Running and laughing are two things that children adore doing. Tag allows them to do both. I'd go as far as to say it's built into each and every one of us.

But now, this school district has decided that tag is too dangerous for kids. They might get hurt, you understand, and when that happens, the parents will rain down upon them with the might of the lawyers and sue the district into oblivion. This, of course, is a perfectly valid reason to ban tag. It's also stupid.

This is just another example of how stupid our society is becoming in many ways. We are so scared of being sued that, rather than saying "You know what? Kids will be kids. They're going to get hurt from time to time. It's part of the growing up process", we'd rather say "We're not going to let kids be kids anymore. They might get hurt. That will cause them all sorts of anguish and trauma."

I was a kid once. In elementary school, we played tag. We played dodgeball. We played on—*gasp*—monkeybars! We were in situation each an every day where there was potential for getting hurt. In some cases, that potential was for getting seriously hurt! I remember one boy who fell off the monkeybars and broke his arm in the process! Did his parents sue? Of course not! He was just being a kid! These things happen! Granted, they probably were full of all sorts of sympathy of the pain the boy was in, but guess what? He healed! He grew up! He's probably a well adjusted member of society today! Horror of horrors!

This type of thing is just becoming stupid. At first it was distracting, then it became sad, now it's just disgustingly stupid. As a society, we have got to figure out that things happen. No one wants kids to get hurt, but it's going to happen, no matter what.

No one is deliberately trying to hurt these kids by letting them play tag. Provide reasonable adult supervision and they will be fine—bumps and bruises, the occasional broken arm and all!

This goes just the same for the rest of life. We need to take responsibility for our own lives and stop trying to blame things on others all the time! We're human. We're going to make mistakes. Accept that and move on! But, it's now going to be that much harder for these kids in Massachusetts to learn that lesson.