Jamie's son took a hard fall at the playground the other day (sounds like a concussion to me) . Here's her ER story.
Today she's getting back on the horse:
I remember a college acquaintance opining that safer playgrounds were to blame for the decline of hardihood and determination in American youth. …My kids gripe about it too: one of the playgrounds near our house is much less fun than it used to be.
…For years I have wanted my kids to play hard on the playground: to get stronger, to figure out new skills, to wear themselves out so they would take longer naps. (Wait, perhaps I shouldn't admit my secret agenda.) I have rolled my eyes inwardly at parents who seemed to want to control the playground experience. "No, no, Sadie!" they say. "We go UP the steps and DOWN the slide." Isn't it more fun to go up the slide and then down the slide some more? Is there a rule against going up the slide? Aside from the Big Rule, of course: Don't Be A Jerk. If someone's waiting to go down the slide, or heading up the ladder in preparation for going down the slide, then you don't go up the slide. If there are littler kids around, you are vigilant about their safety even if you have to slow down your own fun. Courtesy trumps fun. But fun is the reason we have playgrounds, isn't it?
And then. Friday. My little guy's little body, the body I bore and nursed and diapered and tended — motionless after that horrifying thud.
I would insert a joke here about bubble wrap, but I can't even joke. We're scheduled to go back to that park for swim lessons tomorrow, and I don't want to go. This is the wrong thing to take from his accident. Even as I was biking home that day, grateful for a fast bike and strong legs and good health insurance, I thought, "This should teach me not to be so fearful, because it's so easy to fear the wrong thing and the actual disaster always takes you by surprise."
bearing blog 
I have to squelch the desire to say "No" to things all the time. I send the kids out on their bikes knowing full well that they could be hit by cars or accosted by random nasty persons or or or or….
I remind myself daily that there is also a huge risk associated with never taking risks. This is the belief that sustains me. And it's the sort of thing you have to hang onto, because you just know that, with everybody so focused on blame blame blame, an accident is never allowed to remain just an accident anymore. Someone must always be at fault. There oughta be a law. Every mother harbors the knowledge, it seems, that should something bad happen to one of your kids, God forbid something that makes the papers, not only will you be suffering your own regrets, but you'll be bearing society's evil eye and possibly charges of abuse and neglect.
Still: I firmly believe that to protect our children from every hazard is to refuse to bear one of the fundamental crosses of motherhood.
So it happens to be countercultural these days, to let kids explore their own limits. Since when has cross-bearing been popular?