Per Frank Krygowski:
We've all heard such tales. In our village, a clumsy young girl
climbing on a jungle gym fell and broke her arm. The family sued the
school system, since it was a school playground that wasn't locked up
after hours, and of _course_ anything that a kid can climb is obviously
an unconscionable hazard. (You know, like trees.) The rumor is the
winnings paid off the family house.

When we used to visit relatives in Germany, I was always impressed by
the amount of fence-less open space and publicly-available walking
trails/paths.

The spiel I heard was that, in Germany, if the neighbor's kid wanders
into somebody's yard and their dog tears it to shreds some very, very
hard questions are asked.

Questions like:

- "Where were that kid's parents" and

- "Didn't the parents teach that kid to stay out of other people's
yards".

Probably an exaggeration... but the greatly diminished litigiousness (is
that even a word??) shows up in increased day-to-day freedom to move.

I think some people envision European countries as crowded
claustrophobic places, but I found this part of Germany - in spite of an
apparent population density similar to where I live in the USA - to be
refreshingly open, free-feeling, and much less crowded-feeling.


_The Atlantic_ magazine, current issue (April 2014) has a cover story on
the consequences of such craziness and overprotection.

Of course, the kid on the cover is wearing a very safe hat. Plus elbow
and knee pads. Plus pillows. And holding his mom's hand. That cover
photo is viewable as a thumbnail at the very bottom of the article online:

I recall a photo of some Pacific Islander kids playing in a lagoon where
they treated a certain kind of shark as a sort of pet/plaything. Just
splashing around unencumbered, having a lot of fun. In the same pic
were a few USA-type kids all bundled up in life jackets and reef
walkers. I felt sad for those kids.
--
Pete Cresswell