SAN FRANCISCO, Ca., November 20 — Your kids are restless, you’re miles from the nearest playground, and there’s plenty of stuff you should be doing around the house. You could either drop everything and scoot Junior to the park for a few hours of kid-’n-play, or you could go about your business with the tug-tug of little hands on your pant leg. Guess it’s time to hire that high-energy nanny and take a load off, right? Wrong.
How did women's suffrage and slum reform make your yard a kiddie paradise? In the Beginning. A late-19th-century American movement in support of women’s suffrage fostered the Mothers’ and Children’s Movement, which fostered a slew of state-level policies designed to get the kids out of sweatshops and onto playgrounds. Soon playgrounds were popping up all over former slum areas, and legislatures were allotting funds to rig them up with equipment and supervision. The University of Virginia went so far as to put teachers in summer school (beginning in 1912) to teach them how to build the stuff. Soon enough, playgrounds and playground equipment found its way from public spaces into residential backyards.
Innovations
Well, scale, for one thing. We can certainly offer you models to put a municipal playground to shame, but we can also accommodate half-acre plots and shoestring budgets and give the kids a thrill in the process. As for all the playground add-ons to crop up over the years (trapeze bars, gliders, ladders, tire swings, etc.), you can either buy swing sets, etc.), you can either buy swing sets that include them or purchase them separately.
What’s In It For You?
Fun. Spend time in your own backyard with your kids. We’re talking about laughing, playing, happy, healthy, fresh-air-breathing kids. We’re also talking about some long, hard-earned naptime (read: quiet time) when they’re done playing (sigh).
Foundation. The need for quality construction is as obvious as the vertebrae on Susie’s little upside-down neck, and the manufacturers have delivered. Check out the warranties on our products — against insects, weather, corrosion, you name it — and the stability of their designs, and you’ll breathe a lot easier when the wee daredevils start exploring their love of gravity defiance.
Fixin’s. Swings are fun, we agree... there’s something addicting about pushing the limits of the gravity pendulum. That said, rope ladders, trapeze bars, tire swings, and their accoutrement friends can engage a few kids for an entire afternoon. Just think: an entire afternoon without questions or activity planning. Feel free to get back to us on that.
Meet your match:
Metal or wood. Slides, ropes, ladders, or all of the above. Balconied clubhouses to suit your budding country-clubber. One playset or eight playsets or anything in between. Lots of decisions go into designing your child’s dream backyard, so we’ll winnow ’em down to a few of our favorites (all of which have this dandy little free shipping offer in common):
| | Save & Share |  $100 off on $1,000!
Take $100 off any swing set over $1,000. Enter coupon code SWNGS at check out. Coupon valid through 11/30/2006 at | | |
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Tell us why you're so curious -- give us a good enough story, and we'll give you the inside scoop. (Nobody wants pennies these days anyway.) Send your reply to readers@mercantila.com | | |
