poppins - I'm really sorry if you feel that anyone's slated you for being dyslexic or said that you don't know your job because you don't have children of your own - thats unfair and totally wrong.
However, I have to take issue with you on the matter of playpens - and I'm not meaning to use it as something to 'hurt you' about - I just disagree with you, but that's a different point of view, not a personal attack. In dd's playpen she can crawl, roam and pull herself up and cruise perfectly well, without so much danger of hurting herself. And she can still move where she wishes, with boundaries of course but there are always boundaries to where a baby can go. She still uses her muscles just as well as out of the playpen, and uses the bars to hold onto while she jumps up and down and 'dances', which use her muscles very well. At 13 months she is not walking but can stand alone extremely well but lacks the confidence to stand alone for long enough to take steps - her muscles are fine but she has to adjust to the idea of walking, which IMO she will do soon and then will happily walk.
Yes, most of your children may have learnt to walk at 9-12 months but thats no reason to criticize playpens - some children take longer than others and all should be given the chance to develop at their own rate. Most mothers have an extremely hard job juggling a baby and general life and its far better for a baby to be kept safe and develop a couple of months 'late' then be put at a higher risk for the sake of developing quicker. Some mothers don't have the time to watch their children every waking moment to allow them to roam all the time and, as long as the children are well looked after, there's no reason why they should feel guilty for that. And if playpens do delay development by a short period, I don't think that can be classed as 'stunting growth' as the child will still develop the same skills, be it earlier or later. If my dd walks a few months after someone else's, I certainly would not appreciate being told that was stunted development!!! Thats just natural differences between babies and natural differences between the environments they are in.
To say 'they will just not learn as fast that is all' is a big generalisation. How can you tell exactly what a baby is learning and when purely by milestones such as walking? My dd does not walk yet, and isn't talking as well as some babies her age but is extremely clever for her age - such as problem solving, dexterity etc. So how can you judge whether she has learnt as fast as another baby?
I really hope you don't take this as a personal attack, thats not the way I mean it and to attack someone for something like being dyslexic IS wrong but you must appreciate that if you make a statement such as your one about playpens, people are entitled to disagree with you.