Life with NO Warning Labels

Have you ever wondered what life would be like without the warning labels?

DANGER!! The coffee is hot, don’t jump, don’t look, and whatever you do don’t touch. Have you ever wondered what life would be like without all the rules? This weekend we played Mexico style and our family had one of the most amazingly fun weekends I can remember.

Day 1- Let’s go play in the volcano, kids.
About 90 minutes from our home we have 3 volcanoes. We went to visit one of them this weekend. Now before you start calling child protective services I have two defenses. One, it is an extinct volcano. Two, I am in Mexico and they don’t have CPS down here. So, we get up Saturday and start off. After getting lost two or three times we found the dirt road leading to the volcano. After about 20 miles across and 8000 ft up, we drove into the crater and parked next to the lava dome. Yes, you read that correctly we took a road into the very center of the volcano at 14,000 ft or so above sea level. We then climbed to about 15000 ft to the ridge of the volcano. I am so proud of our little troopers. All three made the climb (with an occasional piggy back ride). The view was fabulous… simply unbelievable. It was so quiet and peaceful, watching the clouds moving over the ridge line as a brisk chilly wind swept them ever upwards, two emerald lakes in the crater below contrasting with the steep red cliffs of red and gray and a dark blue sky you only get at elevation. The vegetation was mostly tundra grass and moss. It was an otherworldly beauty. The colors… the stillness… stunning.

Just for reference our car is one of the tiny dots near the left lake.

Then out of the clear magnificent scene of natural beauty rose a sound. Clearly ringing across the entire crater rose…Thriller. Can’t make this up… some local thought he would complete this scene by turning up his stereo so we could all enjoy Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The ALBUM, not the song… Surreal.

To get down from our lofty perch we had a choice, we could hike down the long gentle sloping path we used to get up or we could scree down. For those of you unfamiliar with scree, it is a lot like snow skiing, except there are no skis and no snow. All you need is a large slope with a very steep grade and small rocks…Basically you slide down the hill on a wave of falling pebbles. As you may have guessed, we took our children by the hand and screed down the crater wall. It was so much fun. We all laughed the whole way down and Stacey laughed so hard she was brought to tears.

Day 2 – They don’t wear helmets in Mexico
For day two, we drove outside of the city to the little town of La Marquesa. La Marquesa is an adventure park of sorts. There are vendors everywhere with quad racers, horse rides, zip lines, some kind of bungee trampoline, paintball, you name it and you can find it here. Oh did we have fun!! All of us took the zip line. We took the kids on the quads. Gwen and Nate got to ride a children’s quad. The kids did the bungee trampoline. Stacey and the kids took the horse ride. What was so much fun to see as their father is them learning to overcome fear. Nate got to the top of the zip line and did not want to do it, did it anyway and LOVED it. Gwen didn’t want to drive the quad and it was her favorite attraction of the day. Abby, well our little Abby has no fear.

An interesting aspect to all of this is the conspicuous absence of rules. No waivers to sign. No helmets to wear except on the zip lines. A 10 year old is running the bungee trampoline. If you want to ride with three people on a quad and have a sleeping baby on the front, then you make the decision and deal with the consequences. If you want to let your 5 year old ride the quad, it is called parental responsibility. As a libertarian leaning conservative, I couldn’t help but notice that it all worked. It would neatly fit my worldview to believe all of this is true because they are “working without a net” so to speak. If you can’t count on regulation or trial lawyers to protect you, you regulate yourselves. On the customer side, people were orderly and self-controlled. Parents looked after their kids because no one else would. On the providers side, the quads all had governors to limit the speeds. The equipment was all in good working shape. No one took shortcuts when opening or closing a carabiner, even the 10 year old (a carabiner is the clip loop you use when working with ropes). Each time the carabiner was opened, it was screwed down to lock it. All of this is not because of some safety inspection but probably because deaths are bad for business and no one wants to kill a kid.

At the end of the day, this wild crazy park that would not last 10 minutes in the US before being sued out of existence. However in Mexico it was filled with people having a great time. All of it makes me wonder what we in the US lose when we don’t let our kids play on monkey bars or carousels. We don’t let them play in the street. They need leagues, coaches and referees, so they will be “safe”. Do we run the risk of protecting our kids and ourselves so much that we stop learning how to think for ourselves. Do we trade "safety" for Life teaching us all a little common sense and responsibility for the decisions we make?