Bad time for a good idea

Author Lenore Skenazy, a former columnist for the New York Daily News, made headlines the other day when she suggested that a day be set aside to allow children to play in neighborhood parks & playgrounds----- virtually unsupervised.

In this day & age, a parent leaving his/her kids at a public park or playground unattended is begging for trouble. There have been too many cases, especially in New York City, of kids being abducted, and in some of those cases, they've been snatched right off the street. Ms. Skenazy would be well served to amend her idea to allow for parents to be at least within visual range of their children to ward off any seemingly suspicious individuals that might have bad intentions.

So far, Ms. Skenazy's plan has been met with predictably mixed reactions. Some think it's a good idea, others, not so much. While this might have met with greater approval, say, 40 or 50 years ago, it just doesn't fly in 2010.

Let's give her some credit, though. We live in an era where most kids are content sitting at home playing with X-Box or Playstation on their TV's. They don't know what it's like to go out to the playground and use the slides & swings, and that's what Ms. Skenazy is trying to advocate. A return to the days of innocence, where children from all over the neighborhood would gather, mingle, make friends, and have fun.

We've seen the NFL take steps to encourage kids to come out and play in an advertising campaign run over the last two seasons. Of course, there's also the current Ad Council commercial featuring Shrek and Donkey (Mike Myers & Eddie Murphy) encouraging kids to hit the playgrounds for at least an hour a day. That spot airs at least a dozen times a day, usually during sporting events.

The only way today's generation of youngsters will have a chance to get out and play is if their parents stay with them and supervise. Ms. Skenazy's own children, ages 12 & 14, might not need supervision, but children under the age of 10 will, because they're the ones that are usually prey for kidnappers. A detail that Ms. Skenazy apparently forgot.