Is the Obama Girls' Play Set Good for America?

Go outside and play!

Michelle Obama gets to say that now because as of this week, the Obama girls have a place to go: their own backyard play set. It's not much different from a whole lot of other backyard play sets in America, except that when you're on the swings, you can wave to that guy in the Oval Office.

The whole thing looks lovely and even cozy. There's a treehouse (which probably will be protected by a very bored Secret Service guy, but still, cozy) and a tire swing and a climbing rope, climbing ladder, climbing this, climbing that. And if my kids were the most famous children in America, I'd want them to stick around my backyard, too.

But because anything the Obamas do tends to set trends (think: J. Crew), I do have one little worry: This play set is about as generic as they come. And playgrounds are generic enough already.

Ever since the '70s, when the legal world cast its eye on playgrounds and saw cash in them there broken arms, playground equipment-makers have been dumbing down their offerings to the point where it's harder to find a merry-go-round than a needle in a sandbox.

"Climbing structures" go so high and no higher. Slides are stunted. Horsy swings seem to have ridden off into the sunset. It's not that I'm all for shards of glass under the twisty slide. But there is something to be said for a jungle gym that is taller than Dad — a playground with the slightest frisson of risk. And there's even something to be said for a playground full of stuff you really can go wild with — boards, blocks, beams, an old pair of boots …

OK. It's hard to make a really compelling case for a junk heap on the White House lawn. But let me try.

Such "adventure playgrounds" really do exist. They were invented in Scandinavia during World War II. "What did the Danes have to throw away while they were under occupation?" asks Susan Solomon, author of "American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space." "Somehow they managed to find things that were going to be disposed of — whether cardboard or metal or some paintbrushes that were no longer useful and rusty hammers. They literally threw these into a cordoned-off area and said, 'Go for it, kids!'"

See? There's nothing like a Dane.

Sorry. Anyway, the Danes did think to add a playground minder to make sure the kids didn't hammer directly into their playmates. But otherwise, the kids were free to make things — forts, scooters, sleek modern furniture. And because the options were so endless and varied, these playgrounds attracted a wider range of kids than the simple climbing structures do today. (My youngest, age 10, is already through with the cookie-cutter plastic equipment found in our neighborhood.)

Today adventure playgrounds are thriving in, of all places, Japan — a country that looked at itself mired in (ahem!) recession and realized that the only way to get out of this is by raising children who are inventive, resourceful and able to work together as a team. In other words, kids who think outside the box.

Even if that box is a lovely, all-wood, prefab treehouse.

Surely, the Obama girls will have some creative time in their new digs. They can invent games up there and read and dream. But if someday you see an old tire on the White House lawn and some plywood and hammers and a rubber boot or two, don't be alarmed. Think of it as a creativity stimulus bill.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at Advertising Age. She is the founder of FreeRangeKids.com. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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