Soft play is a nightmare – so why are adults leaping into the ball pit? | Zoe Williams

Our galloping infantilisation continues at a new centre where there will presumably be less screaming than usual, greater participant continence and a bar. Is this what modern life has come to?

There is a generational sweet spot - I'm guessing anyone between 65 and 80? - who won't know what soft play is. You take the principle of a playground, then move it indoors, often to a windowless space in which redeeming features such as fresh air have been removed. Then you add a load of padding and hollow plastic balls in primary colours and reduce the mean age of the children to three or under - when they are mainly screaming or making bad choices. Mess with the acoustics - it's either the lack of windows or the aggressively cheap corrugated wall material - so that the cacophony is warped and comes from every direction, then submerge all the children beneath the balls, which mysteriously makes them louder, but now invisible.

Now, every adult is in a chamber of hypervigilant solitude - you can't see your kid and you can't figure out whether that noise is coming from him or her, or a pack of wolves - and disoriented by the visual overload.