Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Says Who?

Everybody loves Wikipedia (even if they sometimes have trouble pronouncing it). Then, every so often there's a big media harumphing because there can be inaccurate information, and how dare those little people go out and try to get their own information without relying on the almighty reporters. Not that I am really diminishing inaccurate entries on Wikipedia, it really can be a problem, especially since a lot of people don't necessarily realize that the fact checking on wikipedia is well...

How about I just give this example from a Wikipedia entry:

Chinese Jump rope is a fun game.

Could have fooled me. I'm sure to some degree it is a lot of fun, because why else would my children play every night, but the attendant screaming and shouting that goes with it really makes me wonder. I mean, I see that they want to play, enough to deal with the verbal abuse and ear shattering shouting that accompanies every other turn. One would think that this would be some form of deterrent to those being admonished. One would be wrong.

There was a short window of time here that we banished Chinese Jump rope. Last year, when we ended up with one kid with staples in her scalp and one with stitches right next to her eye. A week apart from each other, both a day before their birthdays!

Metal head slipped backwards while jumping and banged her head on the fireplace. Stitches girl banged her face in the corner of a table while playing at school.

Nowhere on Wikipedia does it say: "Chinese Jump rope is a dangerous game."

I decided, especially when the bigger girls play that perhaps it should only happen in the basement, where I don't have to worry about destroying a ceiling below or even the floor, right there. It's completely forbidden upstairs, especially after the night that eldest child convinced five year old to jump off her dresser so she could take a picture of her in mid-air, and the spotlight bulb flew out of the socket in the room below. Now five year old child is a small sort of girl, but that bulb crashed down anyway, therefore, there will be NO Chinese jump rope upstairs.

Truthfully, how do you complain about a game that is essentially just a big ol' rubber band, and a bunch of kids (ostensibly) playing together.

2 comments:

Doobie said...

you could even give citations to the claim that chinese jumprope is a dangerous claim. They are always looking for citations. or just direct them to this post!

wolfman said...

why is it called Chinese Jump Rope? is it because the American's who invented it fogured that if you jumped UP in China you'd fall off the earth ( they are upside down there you know). Or maybed the first Chinese to play were so small it looked they were jumping over a sedentary rope instead of swinging the rope over a reasonably staid body.

Or maybe because they don't have Cholov Yosroel in China