Counting On (everyone being civil in...) - part 2

[anotherone]

15 minutes ago, Snarkylark said:

I'm having trouble with my phone right now! My last post was supposed to say that with all the concussion information we have now, I think it's only a matter of time before kids have to wear helmets for all sports. Can you imagine wearing helmets for basketball and soccer? Sounds silly but I have witnessed several head injuries with each sport. 

Kids ice skating in my area are all wearing helmets now. But few wear bike helmets...

[Chickenbutt]

18 hours ago, Grimalkin said:

 

Bike helmets anyone?

lol...I had thought of this a few pages ago. Decided no to go there. you brave woman you!

[Jucifer]

On March 17, 2016 at 11:31 AM, paulypepper said:

Yep things were soooo different back then and thinking about it even though I can laugh and smile and reminisce about it all, I'm thankful to still be among the living. Back in the late 50's my mom was pregnant with me and was the passenger in a car that was in a wreck with another and everyone except for her and I were killed...no seatbelts and such back then.. so I'm definitely in favor of being safety minded at all times. I used to sit in my dads lap and steer while we were driving...come to think of it, what was wrong with parents back in the day?...

My husband drives a 1960 Mercury Comet. I drive a 1961 plymouth valiant. Both cars have after market seat belts installed. 

I believe seat belts were part of a safety option package you could get with the comet. An option- can you imagine?

Not sure about the Valiant. 

[missegeno]

And that brings me back to the breastfeeding discussion. Breastfeeding has been pushed to a point that I sense that people want to push back. But in many places the choice between formula and breastmilk is a matter of life and death. With unsafe water, no knowledge of germs and unreliable milk powder, I can see why the WHO does push breast feeding so much.

Breastfeeding is ideal and in many regions necessary for the reasons you mention. However, formula is also lifesaving in other environments. I'm thinking particularly of mothers who are HIV positive and do not have access to effective antiretrovirals. The benefits of breastfeeding are well documented and I think it should be the first choice, but women should not be so rigorously attacked for taking advantage of the alternatives, especially if we don't know why they chose those alternatives (not saying you were attacking, I just am riffing on what you said as I can't imagine being in that position, trying to protect my child from a deadly disease, and having to out myself to the soldiers of the mommy wars who think they know best).

[Mothership]

When I lived in Kansas in the 80's-early 90's, there were post cards available from a state agency (I'm guessing something like social services) that you could fill out with a license plate number (had to be a KS plate) when you saw a child not in a car seat or a toddler (before the booster seat laws) without a seatbelt--that was when car seat laws were first on the books and parents were ticketed for not restraining kids.   An observer filled out the postcard and sent it in to the state agency.  The car's owner was sent a letter notifying him/her that they had been observed in violation of the car seat/child restraint law.  

The great thing about the system was that it wasn't used to prosecute the drivers, but instead they were referred to local agencies that provided free or inexpensive car seats and helped to install them properly.  It was a twist on Big Brother--reporting for a good reason. 

Sadly, I suspect anything like that wouldn't even be considered these days in KS under Brownback's leadership.

[anotherone]

Who cares what the reason is. Its not like formula is toxic, its more like frozen or canned vegetables vs. fresh organic.  Sure fresh is the best, but how many adamant breastfeeders end up letting their preschoolers have happy meals just out of convenience.

[EmCatlyn]

On March 17, 2016 at 2:24 PM, ClaraOswin said:

More random thoughts while reading this thread......

A good, safe car seat does NOT have to be expensive. There are a lot of really affordable ones out there.

If someone can't handle the 30 second "hassle" of a coat or use of a blanket (or we use a 'car seat poncho') then they probably would be better off without a child because there are a lot of way worse "hassles" when it comes to parenting.

Rear facing vs. forward facing...google it in relation to "internal decapitation." Since rear facing is literally no harder than forward facing...why risk it?

You can never make your child 100% safe in a car. Same goes for adults. But you can certainly do all that is available based on current research.

Not arguing against car seats in whatever form they need to be today.  But the rear facing seat can be miserable for kids prone to motion sickness.   

[InThePrayerCloset]

On 18 March 2016 at 8:53 AM, anotherone said:

Kids ice skating in my area are all wearing helmets now. But few wear bike helmets...

My psychiatrist talks about seeing significant frontal lobe issues from heading the ball in soccer. You now can't head the soccer in most junior leagues in my area, with big signs saying "Headers Go Home"

[JillyO]

14 hours ago, anotherone said:

Who cares what the reason is. Its not like formula is toxic, its more like frozen or canned vegetables vs. fresh organic.  Sure fresh is the best, but how many adamant breastfeeders end up letting their preschoolers have happy meals just out of convenience.

Just popping in to say that frozen vegetables are actually better than many store-bought fresh vegetables because they are frozen fresh from the field (thus preserving vitamins) vs. transported for days (which means they lose some of their vitamins). Continue.

[Petrel]

On March 18, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Maggie Mae said:

What does "worked in plastics" even mean? Were you on an assembly line? HR? Why should I believe you, random person on the internet? 

I don't trust corporations any further than I can throw them. They do not have people's "best interests" in mind. They exist to make a profit. Why should I care about their arbitrary expiration dates? 

Can always count on Maggie Mae to Dunning Kruger it up.

[SilverBeach]

In 1985 the hospital told me that it would supply a car seat if I did not have one because no newborn could leave in a car without one. I had my own (and everything else, my DD was 17 days past her due date). She was properly restrained all of her childhood. I grew up with none of that. True, cars were big metallic boats, but all of us had childhood battle scars resulting from falling down on sidewalk skates, falling of while riding on handlebars (heaven forbid), hot metal slides and monkey bars, and other mishaps/dangers. I appreciate the rise in safety consciousness over the decades, but sometimes the fear can overtake the fun for modern day kids. Rather be safe than sorry I guess, but many childhood mishaps are not deadly.

Interestingly, I wore a huge puffy coat the winter of 84/85 ( my DD was born in Feb during one of the coldest winters ever). Until I read this thread, I had no idea I was putting myself and my baby at risk by wearing that big ole thing. Eek!

On 3/20/2016 at 4:22 AM, JillyO said:

Just popping in to say that frozen vegetables are actually better than many store-bought fresh vegetables because they are frozen fresh from the field (thus preserving vitamins) vs. transported for days (which means they lose some of their vitamins). Continue.

I keep my freezer well stocked with veggies, the quality is excellent without the waste.

[anotherone]

42 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

I appreciate the rise in safety consciousness over the decades, but sometimes the fear can overtake the fun for modern day kids. Rather be safe than sorry I guess, but many childhood mishaps are not deadly.

 

Not like I would ever defend this practice, especially with current safety knowledge, but some of the "fun" I remembered was when the back seats of the station wagon were put down and we'd all lie there in the back.  Dad would turn a corner and we'd all be sliding around that metal base and be bunched up on the sides or back window.  It was a blast   Another was when you could flip the back of the station wagon down to make this sort of shelf.  We'd sit on the back as he was slowly driving and jump off to load stacks newspapers people put out for recycling (before recycling centers.)  No one thought twice about any of these things.

Those days are long over....

 

[anotherone]

59 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

falling of while riding on handlebars (heaven forbid), hot metal slides and monkey bars,

 OK, the hot metal slides.  At our old playground the metal was old and would separate a little at the bottom and sometimes curl up, creating this sort of slide of horrors.  You'd slide down but near the end kind of scrunch up towards the opposite side hoping you wouldn't get your leg cut.  Nowadays that would be lawsuit time...

Last year 4 kids at the gradeschool had broken their arms in the playground.  So I guess there is still room for improvement.

[QuiverDance]

On 3/18/2016 at 3:30 PM, anotherone said:

Someone is going to give you a hard time for that line and say you're putting your kids' lives in danger.  Just sayin'....

You truly read what you want to in others' posts.  Your choice to assume the worst attitudes in other people says more about your own attitude than theirs.  Or in this case mine.  I've been away from this thread for three days, and you're still snarking about a statement I made in passing four pages back.  

[anotherone]

20 minutes ago, QuiverDance said:

You truly read what you want to in others' posts.  Your choice to assume the worst attitudes in other people says more about your own attitude than theirs.  Or in this case mine.  I've been away from this thread for three days, and you're still snarking about a statement I made in passing four pages back.

??? Look at the date, I wrote that post 3 days ago.

[quiverofdoubt]

3 hours ago, SilverBeach said:

In 1985 the hospital told me that it would supply a car seat if I did not have one because no newborn could leave in a car without one. I had my own (and everything else, my DD was 17 days past her due date). She was properly restrained all of her childhood. I grew up with none of that. True, cars were big metallic boats, but all of us had childhood battle scars resulting from falling down on sidewalk skates, falling of while riding on handlebars (heaven forbid), hot metal slides and monkey bars, and other mishaps/dangers. I appreciate the rise in safety consciousness over the decades, but sometimes the fear can overtake the fun for modern day kids. Rather be safe than sorry I guess, but many childhood mishaps are not deadly.

Interestingly, I wore a huge puffy coat the winter of 84/85 ( my DD was born in Feb during one of the coldest winters ever). Until I read this thread, I had no idea I was putting myself and my baby at risk by wearing that big ole thing. Eek!

I keep my freezer well stocked with veggies, the quality is excellent without the waste.

I actually agree quite a bit.  For me it's a balancing act, with a cost/risk/benefit analysis.  What's the benefit of say, not using a carseat, or knowingly using it wrong? maybe convenience, though not much. risk? not huge, but significant. cost? could be severe. Not worth it. 

Same thoughts with things like wearing bike helmets for biking, or running on a pool deck.

Letting my kid take risks and play hard? You betcha. I'm ok with childhood knocks. And letting her take risks allows her to develop her own sense of danger/risk taking so that she can develop a healthy attitude about it.

Basically, I agree that people have gone overboard with safety and the hovering can be damaging to developing brains and bodies.  But reducing car injuries/deaths and drownings is not a bad thing in my eyes. 

The preschool i used to work at had tons of great monkey bars, a metal slide put in decades ago, 2 acres of uneven foresty land to play in.  We had very few mishaps, and almost no serious ones.  One or two broken arm in several decades. We let the kids take calculated risks. Ones that benefited them.   We did have a kid go down that metal slide once in a late afternoon. No idea while the builders put the slide on that side of the structure, because it got sun all day long, making it useless during the warm afternoons.  Poor kid actually got blisters it was so hot.  No lawsuits. Slide is still there. After that we just made sure to remind the little kids to check the slide with their hand before jumping on.

As a side note: it's a common misconception that "the old tanks" people used to drive were more safe than modern cars.  They are not. Older cars may have survived bigger wrecks and forces- only because those forces were taken by the bodies of the people in the car. With metal dashboards, no seatbelts or airbags. Modern cars crumple in a wreck and that is very intentional. They crumple in order to take the force of a crash so the passengers don't have to. Trust me, you would rather be in a wreck in a modern car over one of the old tanks. Much more likely to walk away from it.

 

Side side note: frozen veggies are awesome.  I almost exclusively use frozen corn, because we love corn here, but it's only fresh here like, 3 days a year. Same with peas.

[sophie10130]

On 3/18/2016 at 1:47 PM, OrchidBlossom said:

I actually would be somewhat surprised if they were very much earlier than they need to be. The sell by date isn't the same as the exp. date because the sell by date exists to warn buyers of when they should not purchase the goods from the store. Since a plastics expiration date exists to warn a user who has already purchased it of when they should stop using it, it's likely to be closer to a real danger point. Not to mention that child safety/automobile safety advocates AND big business advocates both have a strong lobbying presence, so it's unlikely that either side would be able to push the date too far in any extreme direction. Just speculation, though I have worked in/studied politics and policy.

Actually sell by, best by, best if used by, best enjoyed by, expiration date, etc. don't mean anything about food safety. And an expiration date means nothing different than the sell by date. None of it is federally regulated. And most of them just conduct taste tests to come up with the date. They aren't there to tell you if your food is bad because food won't just magically "expire" 7 days after purchase. Fridge temps, store temps, cross contamination in your kitchen, etc. all play a role. 

The podcast 99% Invisible does a great podcast about it here: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/best-enjoyed-by/

[EyeQueue]

On 3/18/2016 at 2:53 PM, anotherone said:

Kids ice skating in my area are all wearing helmets now. But few wear bike helmets...

Now, this seems a bit assbackwards to me.

I would think a helmet during ice skating wouldn't be necessary, while a bike helmet would.

Of course, I'm basing this upon my own experience (I grew up in the 70s/80s, so we never wore helmets for anything, and I practically grew up on rollerskates and never had a bad fall), whereas my daughter rides her bike to and from school every day and has been in 2 accidents where if she had not been wearing her helmet, she probably would have had a severe head injury.

Now, biking in an enclosed, safe area might be another thing altogether.

[Grimalkin]

8 hours ago, SilverBeach said:

In 1985 the hospital told me that it would supply a car seat if I did not have one because no newborn could leave in a car without one. I had my own (and everything else, my DD was 17 days past her due date). She was properly restrained all of her childhood. I grew up with none of that. True, cars were big metallic boats, but all of us had childhood battle scars resulting from falling down on sidewalk skates, falling of while riding on handlebars (heaven forbid), hot metal slides and monkey bars, and other mishaps/dangers. I appreciate the rise in safety consciousness over the decades, but sometimes the fear can overtake the fun for modern day kids. Rather be safe than sorry I guess, but many childhood mishaps are not deadly.

Interestingly, I wore a huge puffy coat the winter of 84/85 ( my DD was born in Feb during one of the coldest winters ever). Until I read this thread, I had no idea I was putting myself and my baby at risk by wearing that big ole thing. Eek!

I keep my freezer well stocked with veggies, the quality is excellent without the waste.

      Our favorite park has metal slides. It fucking hurts, a lot. It also is super fast, so the first time a person goes down it they usually fly off the bottom and land on their bum. 

[MarblesMom]

7 hours ago, anotherone said:

OK, the hot metal slides.  At our old playground the metal was old and would separate a little at the bottom and sometimes curl up, creating this sort of slide of horrors.  You'd slide down but near the end kind of scrunch up towards the opposite side hoping you wouldn't get your leg cut.

This made me LOL. 

And no soft, bouncy mat to land on, either!  Lucky if you had cedar chips ... but my playground in the 70s had asphalt to land on.  First you had 3rd degree burns, possibly cuts, bleeding and then crack your tailbone on the asphalt.  Good times!

[anotherone]

1 hour ago, MarblesMom said:

This made me LOL. 

And no soft, bouncy mat to land on, either!  Lucky if you had cedar chips ... but my playground in the 70s had asphalt to land on.  First you had 3rd degree burns, possibly cuts, bleeding and then crack your tailbone on the asphalt.  Good times!

Asphalt that had cracks repaired by that gooey tar that would get all soft and sticky in the hot sun.  So burns, cuts, bleeding, cracked tailbone, and gooey tar on your legs that would not wash off for days...

[Karma]

The primary school my kids went to had a playground which was never used because one kid fell off the monkey bars, broke her arm, and the parents used the department of education.  Back when I was a kid, this wouldn't have happened, the parents would have told their their child to be more careful in future, and accepted that accidents happen and that it's important for kids to be active.

[VelociRapture]

8 hours ago, Karma said:

The primary school my kids went to had a playground which was never used because one kid fell off the monkey bars, broke her arm, and the parents used the department of education.  Back when I was a kid, this wouldn't have happened, the parents would have told their their child to be more careful in future, and accepted that accidents happen and that it's important for kids to be active.

Brief aside:

My parents sued our school district when I fell off the playground and broke my wrist in fourth grade. They did so because -

1. It was the middle of winter and everything was icy, yet they decided to let us play outside for recess.

2. None of the adults supposed to be supervising us noticed I was hurt or had fallen. It wasn't until a girl out in the field saw me that anyone realized I was hurt.

3. A day or two after my accident my teacher was told to bring me to the Principal's Office so he could interview me about the accident... Without parental consent and without a parent present.

4. Other kids had been injured for similar reasons on that same playground before I was. My parents didn't want anyone else hurt due to faulty equipment or negligence. 

My parents got a small settlement that paid for my medical bills. Other than that the only thing they ever asked for was the playground be replaced with a safer and up to code model. It eventually was, but not for a few years - other kids got hurt before it was replaced.

All this to say you honestly can't know why a family may sue and it may not have been the family's fault the playground is no longer in use.

[Karma]

Fair point, @VelociRapture, it sounds like there were many areas lacking in your school.  The ruling after this incident at my kids school was that there had to be a teacher stationed at the play equipment if there were children on it, but since the school had from memory only 9 classes at that stage, they couldn't spare a teacher from supervising other parts of the playground, so the play equipment was off limits.  

There were no security fences around the school back then so my kids (under my supervision) had plenty of fun on it on weekends and in school holidays  

 

[Four is Enough]

Some musings on this car safety thing: back in the 50s, when my sister was born, say... 58. My father bought a car that did not have a back seat. Truly. My brother and I stood up in the back seat whenever we went anywhere, and my sister sat in a little thing that hooked over the front seat.

I remember when we got a back seat, about 1960.. and then, a few years later, we got a "new" car, and my mother insisted we get the optional (!) seat belts. Dad said we didn't need them, but Mother insisted.

I believe one of the reasons that things were perceived as "safer" then was that, for one, people didn't drive nearly as fast. A trip that takes us 6 minutes now might have taken a half hour then.. either on back roads, possibly following a combine or piece of farm equipment versus speeding on an interstate.  And while those old "tanks" may or may not have been "safer"... I believe they were much heavier than cars are currently. People flew through the windshield more often, rather than being crumpled in wreckage.