Loading Even so, I cannot stand the idea that my, super-cautious, generation of parents will be the one to send much-loved monkey bars extinct, as safety experts are advocating. We have risk-reduced, sanitized and safety-proofed childhood so much already that if we compared what kids now are allowed or encouraged to do, and the freedoms we loved as kids, we'd see we have just about child-proofed childhood. Such a desperate act of over-protection as killing the monkey bars is simply a bridge too far. In the span of a single Aussie childhood (my eldest's), us cautious Gen X parents have stood by as handstands, cartwheels, ball games in the playground and even somersaults are banned at some Australian schools.

We've seen the swings ripped out of our local parks, watched all varieties of those mad-fun playground merry go-round-style rides disappear, and seen everything made lower to the (sensibly spongy) ground. Now, even the humble monkey bar is under siege it's time to take a stand. This ubiquitous playground feature occupies such a special place in the inner child of generations of Australians, the right of current and future kids to enjoy it is worth fighting for. Who doesn't cherish the memory of seeing the world from a different angle – literally – while swinging upside down. Who doesn't cherish the memory of seeing the world from a different angle – literally – while swinging upside down, your hair flying and your school dress over your head (if you're a girl). We have tested our limits and scared ourselves trying to skip ever-greater numbers of bars. We've jumped form great heights, balanced over imaginary crevasses and gazed over the heads of adults, free of the limits of the ground.

David Eager, professor of risk management at the University of Technology Sydney, and chair of Standards Australia's playground equipment and surfacing committee, is no doubt coming down on the side of sensible, Medicare cost reduction when he argues time's up for monkey bars. "Monkey bars were OK when I was a kid 60 years ago, but they’re not an appropriate form of play equipment in 2018," he said. Playground fall injuries are up in Victoria, and a Macquarie University analysis has revealed there were 56,723 kids taken to hospital in the last decade after a fall. The National Kidsafe symposium in Sydney heard 80 per cent of the injuries were "minor", such as fractured arms, 17 per cent was "moderate" (such as fractured femur) and two per cent were "serious injuries", such as brain trauma. Trampolines (outlaw them asap, I say, except for adults jumping in their PJs when the kids aren't around) and "playground climbing apparatus" each accounted for about a third of hospital visits.

Falls from playground equipment are the most common, mostly from "horizontal" stuff, which is code for monkey bars. Of course I would never sniff at the pain and suffering parents and children have experienced due to serious trauma, but before we chuck the monkey bars out with the 5cm-and-no-deeper bath water, I'd like to see the stats on hospital visits and injuries resulting from falls from skateboards, scooters and bikes too. No one is suggesting we should ban all those. Like monkey bars, learning how to master them could be considered an essential developmental tool. Apart from that, they're fun, something which isn't always safe. They're also part of standard childhood – that, ideally golden, time when little humans learn by doing, taking (limited) risks, exploring and, most importantly, using their bodies in what we hope will be life-long patterns of outdoor exercise. I have had to learn, as we all do, that you simply cannot protect your precious little people from every threat around. Neither can we throw a hole-free safety net around our adult loved ones (who may just as well meet a terrible end falling on a knife in an open dishwasher or slipping getting out of the bath).

As a parent, you really do never stop worrying about any and every tiny, or real risk, physical or emotional. But robbing kids of the chance of a priceless sense of freedom, experimentation enjoyment and agency over their own destiny, is not the way to go.