When I was their age…
By Thoreau
Before I start my old guy rant, let me acknowledge that some things never change: My nephews and I played with transformers, and then they pretended that a hockey goal net was a fort and I was a dragon and they were knights. That’s totally the same as when I was their age.
Anyway, my little nephew is five, and he’s big for five, and he still has a car seat. When I was in kindergarten, I remember riding around without a car seat. I remember friends sometimes riding with us, or sometimes riding with parents of friends. You can go places and do things without A Big Production if you don’t need a car seat. But in this more protective age, that Simply Is Not Done. I’ve lamented before about things like this, and it’s just another example. I don’t fault his parents, it seems to be One of Those Things We Just Do These Days. Now, for all I know, maybe this isn’t even the most egregious example. Maybe it makes sense. But I know that we do a lot more things “for safety” than we used to once upon a time, and while any particular safety measure might be defensible the total package just doesn’t make sense. I get the feeling that if somebody proposed having kids wear padded, bullet-proof outfits at all times, it would be hard to argue against it. I mean, you don’t want them to get hurt, do you? Well, do you? See, thought so. Good thing you didn’t argue against it, otherwise we’d have to put you on a list of people who might be a threat to child safety, and then you wouldn’t be able to live within a 5 mile radius of a school.
Oh, he lives two blocks from school, but it’s against school rules for him to walk alone. Now, maybe a 5 year-old shouldn’t be walking alone for the first few days, and one can even argue that he shouldn’t walk alone at all. But the school’s rules apply to older kids as well (I don’t know what the cutoff age is). When I was in grade school, I got a ride to school (because we lived far away) but after school I sometimes walked 2 blocks to my grandparents’ home and stayed there until my mother got off work. I’m still alive to tell the tale.
Comment by Flobble-de-flee! —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:46 am
So you don’t know any specifics of the situations you’re talking about, but you’re mad about it. Okay. I liked the original better.
Comment by bob —
August 3, 2009 @ 10:11 am
The evidence on car seats for children in that age range, is, in fact, spotty. See, e.g., this paper by Steve Levitt:
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/rest.90.1.158
Abstract:
Over the past thirty years, the use of child safety seats in motor vehicles has increased dramatically. There is, however, relatively little empirical evidence regarding the efficacy of child safety seats relative to the much cheaper alternative of traditional seat belts. Using data on all fatal crashes in the United States from 1975 to 2003, I find that child safety seats, in actual practice, do not provide any discernible improvement over adult lap and shoulder belts in reducing fatalities among children aged two to six. Lap-only belts are somewhat less effective, but still far superior to riding unrestrained.
Comment by Rick —
August 3, 2009 @ 10:56 am
You may enjoy this: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 10:57 am
Seriously. Thoreau, unless you have a philosophical objection to the idea of doing things that make children safer, then your beef is that we’re doing things to protect children that don’t make sense, or aren’t worth it. In other words, that we’re not distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate actions.
If this is your argument, then you need to make a point of making that distinction yourself. Otherwise, where do you get off bitching at anyone else?
The WTF are you complaining about it for? Parents do things to keep their kids safe, and it pisses you off, because no one has proven to your satisfaction that it makes sense, and also, you have these overall feelings about how things are these days? You sound like a birther.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 10:58 am
Half-birther, half-Katherine-Mangu-Ward complaining about people buying organic carrots.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:19 am
I’m familiar with Free Range Kids.
If the school let parents decide when the kids can walk, I’d be less upset.
Comment by bbartlog —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:24 am
your beef is that we’re doing things to protect children that don’t make sense
Although Thoreau doesn’t touch on it, car seats for kids are mandatory. So one point here is that the decision about risks and costs has been made by the state and not by parents (in this instance).
Depending on the nature of the risks under discussion, there are (at least) three reasons I can think of for allowing children to take risks:
First, it’s the only way they will be able to gain the skills they need to deal with those risks. This applies to things like letting your kids use scissors, knives, lighters and so on. It may also apply to things like climbing trees, though if you consider that lifetime-optional you could just teach your kids never to do it.
Second, taking precautions all the time gives children an unreasonably dangerous picture of the world. If you insist that your kids can’t walk to school alone and act as if anyone who doesn’t use a carseat is likely to end up in the hospital, or if you refuse to let anyone under the age of ten cut vegetables with a knife, you’re raising children with a distorted picture of reality. And possibly an excessively fearful and risk-averse disposition, as well.
Third, even if complete freedom from risk could be achieved, it would be an inhuman and inauthentic life. This also applies to childhood.
Here’s a preschool I like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp4Nny_rIiw
Comment by David —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:31 am
Damn, joe. Isn’t that sort of an angry reply to a fairly vague post?
I doubt that thoreau is bemoaning the use of safety equipment as much as the attitude that not using the latest or deciding not to use any is seen as equivalent to child abuse. If that’s his point, it’s a fair one, because you’ll hear the “tantamount to child abuse” line come up often.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:34 am
Odd, he seemed clear about making such to me. Alas, I must be a carrot-birther.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:47 am
THOREAU! Thou hast dared to question the Cult of Child Safety! Thou hast committed heresy! Prepare to be lashed.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:55 am
More thoughts:
1) Leaving aside the fact that When I Was Their Age I could ride without a car seat, my friends could also ride without a car seat. This meant that sometimes we could ride to school together. It was good for social development. You do care about kids’ social development, don’t you?
2) Car seats above a certain age defeat the whole purpose of the SUV. The point of the SUV is that a soccer mom can take a bunch of kids from the neighborhood to soccer practice together. With car seats, each kid must ride to soccer practice in a separate SUV. (And yes, 5 year-olds are in organized sports. Playing spontaneous games with friends in the park is Simply Not Done.)
Although, to be fair, with 1 SUV per kid there’s no need to fight over which DVD to watch on the built-in TV. So that’s something.
3) The parental escort to school thing extends at least to 2nd graders. The 2nd grader next door has to be escorted by a parent. I don’t know if the rule bars kids from different households from being escorted by 1 parent, sort of a “walk pool” arrangement.
Comment by Aunt Deb —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:57 am
Thoreau, I sometimes think parents are too afraid to try to think about these safety measures. Or they are so uncertain about what is good for their kids, they go with the cultural norm. At any rate, they don’t have much choice about car seats for their kids because they can be arrested for failing to use them, as someone upstream commented.
I don’t really understand what’s going on vis-a-vis kids, parenting, safety. The carseat stuff may or may not make sense, in terms of outcomes. But what about the cars those carseats are in? Sometimes, when I’m trying to pull out of a parking space without getting creamed because my little Yaris is dwarfed on either side by huge things with macho pseudo-adventurous names, I have to wonder what is going on here. I have a friend who bought a big ‘car’ because it was ’safer’. Well, that comes at the expense of little kids riding in their carseats in crunchable Yaris-type cars.
So hey! Maybe the carseat mandate is a bit like the health insurance mandate. It’s a way of seeming to protect those who can’t protect themselves while actually putting the blame on poor parents.
Comment by dhex —
August 3, 2009 @ 12:01 pm
i birthed a carrot once. terrible time. i also learned bunnies are assholes. yet i do not enjoy rabbit stew.
the world is a curious place.
so in terms of being not allowed to walk to school (as opposed to from school, which seems more easily controlled by the institution) do they have a sign-in requirement for parents to signify the kids were transferred to the institution’s care?
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
See, this is precisely the Mangu-Wardish thinking that pisses me off.
Putting kids in car seats isn’t a “cult.” It’s an obviously intelligent thing to do. The evidence is clear, and there is no valid argument on the other side. The “Optimist” can’t even stir himself to try to make one.
However, because of these feelings about the latest horror – “the cult of child safety” – he doesn’t need to have an argument, or evidence, or a thought process. I must be wrong to say Thoreau offered a bad argument, because Thoreau’s argument was opposed to “the cult of child safety,” whatever the hell that means, so it cannot be questioned.
We don’t like “the cult of child safety” or “eating local” or whatever, so anything done for those reasons is guilty until proven innocent. If you say otherwise, you’re part of the cult.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
I can fit three car seats across the back seat of my Honda Civic, Thoreau.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:03 pm
At any age, joe? Because in the example I saw, the child is a “big” five year-old. Assuming he’s in the 85th percentile, that puts him at, what, 45-50 lbs.? It doesn’t sound like the shirt-rendering crisis your shrill attitude makes it out to be.
I did not say it could not be question, little one. Just that you questioned it poorly.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
bbartlog,
Those are three fine arguments for, say, letting kids climb on rocks and things.
The point is, they don’t apply to even the slightest degree to putting kids in car seats. Kids gain no skills from riding without a care seat. Using a car seat no more tells kids they’re going to end up in the hospital than does my own wearing of a seat belt. Third, we’re talking about kids under 10 years old riding in a seat that fits them, and this is going to make their lives less authentic?
It is the mere fact that car seats make kids safer, rather than any of the three issues you raise, that causes some to lump their use in with, say, not allowing kids to walk two blocks to school.
Comment by bob —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
It’s not, it isn’t, and there is. See the research referenced in my comment #2.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:10 pm
Under about age 12, yes. Read the literature.
I don’t give a crap about your feelings about how I make my argument. You need to stop whimpering about my phrasing. Either address my argument, or STFU. You’re neither my editor, nor my PR director.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:11 pm
I can fit three car seats across the back seat of my Honda Civic, Thoreau.
Great. Now, if you want to pick those 3 kindergartners up after school for soccer practice, unless you keep 3 seats suitable for kindergartners 2 of those kids will have to bring their seats to school. If you drop them off and leave them with the coach so you can go to a doctor’s appointment and some other parent is going to pick them up, you need to leave the seats at the game.
You see how complicated this becomes? When I was in kindergarten, this wasn’t an issue. Mom could drop me off, grampa could pick me up, or we could take a friend home, and nobody had to make sure the car seats were in the right place.
In fact, I recall a day when it was rainy, and a friend who was originally going to walk home instead got a ride from us. That can’t happen if everybody needs a car seat.
The opportunities for kids and parents to do spontaneous things with other kids become diminished if kindergartners (who could previously ride without a car seat) now need a car seat. There is a social cost to be paid here.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:13 pm
bob,
You’re found one article. This question has been studied for decades, and there is a strong consensus in favor of the benefits of car seats.
As we know from the global warming debate, one can find individual articles to support anything.
Comment by JasonL —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:14 pm
So, it seems like the argument is:
1) From personal history, people didn’t really feel their children were at risk doing all sorts of things back in the day – but for some reason they do these days. What’s the cultural component of this? Does the culture that mandates safety seats suggest a culture that is becoming increasingly risk averse?
2) Leavitt’s study makes the practice of unclear value at best. There’s an implicit question, do you need any evidence to pass a law if it is ostensibly for child health?
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:15 pm
twelve? TWELVE? joe, do you really think it is appropriate to put a twelve-year-old in a car seat? If you do, I feel sorry for your kids.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
To continue this, what if a parent unexpectedly has to work late or gets sick or something? They can’t call on their network of friends and relatives to pick the kid up after school unless one of those people has an extra car seat. It becomes more necessary to have everything carefully planned, and thus we wind up in a society where kids can’t play sports in the park on their own with whatever made-up kid rules they were playing by. Instead, everything is planned in advance, with coaches and schedules and uniforms (and fees, something that’s not an issue for privileged suburban kids) and rulebooks and so forth.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
TAO, to be fair he said “under 12″ so presumably he only means up to age 11. So we’re talking 5th graders here.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
It’s actually a size issue – seat belts don’t fit people below a certain size.
Age 10-12 is about when the smallest girls (excepting “little people”) become large enough not to need a booster to keep the shoulder belt from going across their throats.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:19 pm
Car seat laws actually distinguish between boosters, full car seats, and infant seats.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:19 pm
Well, when it comes to acting paranoid, throwing around restrictions, or demanding that society be restructured to suit one’s preferences (to the extent that some locavores do that)…yeah!
I am perfectly happy to require demonstrated need before I even consider buying into extreme policies. I’m not sure what the case is for doing otherwise.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:25 pm
I’ll point out that this sort of reaction, particularly that last line, is exactly the mirror but not the opposite of the people who freak out about parents letting their children walk further than to the end of their block.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:26 pm
Of those by the people, even. Darn object clauses.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:38 pm
And to further the point to TAO, who but a reasonably-informed parent is best able to make a judgment as to whether his daughter(s) (or son(s), for that matter) needs a child seat, a booster, or some such?
I’d much rather joe make such a call about his kid(s) safety than some guy who’s never even seen them. That’s exactly why paranoid blanket measures about kid safety are so irksome.
Comment by bob —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
A couple of reactions:
1) re: “one article”: Fair enough, but I still read the count of actual citations to literature in this thread as bob: 1, joe: 0. And all it takes is one good article to destroy a consensus. (Though I’ll concede, I’m not a transportation economist, and don’t know this literature well enough to judge–still, would be better to demonstrate a consensus than assert it.)
2) re: “benefits of car seats”: But this issue isn’t whether car seats have benefits, at all, it is whether those benefits outweigh their costs. In addition to the inconveniences Thoreau and others document, car seat regulations require the expenditure of many millions of dollars by parents.
3) re: “global warming debate”: The analogy is somewhat apt, but not for the reasons you think. In this case, industry has an interest in findings that show a need for car seats.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:48 pm
Eric, actually, I agree with you. Parents should be the ones making the cost-benefit analysis and determine what is and is not appropriate.
Which is why I find joe’s anger at thoreau’s evaluation of the parents’ CBA so interesting. joe, what about thoreau’s discussion of the CBA done by his nephew’s parents bothers you so much? The fact that he came to a different conclusion than you would?
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:50 pm
Also, to Eric – does that mean if you saw a child swaddled in a bulletproof padded suit, you would say “meh – the parents are more informed than I am. That must be the right decision.”
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:52 pm
TAO, what? Thoreau might be implicitly complaining about the parents, but every distinct thing he cites is an external mandate upon the parents, not any decision of theirs.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:57 pm
But have they put in trauma plate inserts? If not, then they’re just half-assing it and deserve criticism.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 1:57 pm
ah, Eric, I was operating under the assumption that we were talking outside of the legal aspect. At least, I thought that was where joe was coming from.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
Ask joe as to his angle, TAO. Even outside any legal aspect, though, there’s a huge difference between your broad complaint about 11-year-olds in child seats (which turned out to have a very reasonable scenario) and something like actually seeing a kid swaddled up in ballistic armor in a first-world nation.
The very reason you want those decisions in the hands of the parents is because they’re both best-motivated and best-positioned to make a good decision about their kids’ welfare. That doesn’t mean they can’t screw up, but it does mean criticizing a parent’s decision requires that one understand the specifics of the decision.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
true, and I should not have initiated a broad attack without understanding that. And for that, I apologize to joe. But does not thoreau exhibit sufficient understanding to criticize the decision? Like I said, thoreau did his own CBA and found the benefits-side wanting. I just do not understand vitriol directed against the very reasonable decision…unless it is because thoreau dared question “Child Safety”. Then it makes sense.
Comment by bbartlog —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
The point is, they don’t apply to even the slightest degree to putting kids in car seats.
Yah, I did qualify by saying ‘depending on the kinds of risks were talking about’. Obviously russian roulette type risks where the kid has no agency are different.
this issue isn’t whether car seats have benefits, at all, it is whether those benefits outweigh their costs
Secondarily the argument is about who gets to make the decision. The other day all three of our car seats ended up (through lack of attention) in my wife’s car, and I wanted to drive my daughter to swimming lessons (using my mother-in-law’s car). So for the first time I decided to be a seatbelt scofflaw and drove my daughter sans carseat to the pool.
But I was thinking also of a previous incident of some years ago, when my wife and I had just one (infant) child and were driving down the Pacific Coast Highway. It was late and we were still several miles from the campground we were headed for, and our baby was very tired of the carseat and was crying inconsolably. She would have calmed down if her mother had held her (and cried again if placed in the carseat, as a trial showed). My wife and I both thought that in this particular case it would have been better to take her out of the seat and do the last few miles with her up front; but my wife being fearful of the law didn’t do it.
Ultimately, even if we accept the idea that car seats provide a benefit, this is an example of a policy that hurts people with good judgment(*) while benefiting those with poor judgment. Progressive in the same way as prescription drug regulation.
(*) – true even if you don’t think I’m an example of such a person.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
No telling. I would have sympathized with some of joe’s rant if Thoreau had, you know, actually faulted his nephew’s parents for putting him in a child seat, instead of simply questioning the need to do so while allowing that it might be justified.
And on that point – Thoreau, unless his parents are hypersensitive, you might just ask them about why your nephew needs the child seat in a curious, non-judgmental way.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:21 pm
Another common mistake among libertarians. Your feelings about the proper limits of regulation have fuck-all to do with the benefits provided by any particular safety device.
Extreme policies? Child safety seat laws?
That is loony. You are the extremist here. That’s just loony.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:24 pm
What? It’s a very simple question of geometry. Seat belts are designed to fit a body of a certain size; below that size, the shoulder belt goes across the throat instead of the chest. This is not a subjective question.
Since you don’t know this, then I can say quite confidently that I would rather that question be answered by an actual informed person, who understands the objective criteria, than by you.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
There was enough weird stuff going on in the family this weekend that the last thing I needed to do was stir the pot by asking a question that might seem insensitive towards safety or questioning of their judgment calls.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:28 pm
Bob,
1) Do you walk across bridges? Or do you need a list of citations first?
2) The claim you made, and which I responded to, is here – The evidence on car seats for children in that age range, is, in fact, spotty. You made no reference to cost. We were discussing benefits only.
3) The industry with the most at stake is the auto industry, and they have consistently, for decades, sought to discredit the benefits of safety equipment in order to reduce their costs.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:30 pm
Indeed! Thank goodness I never applied my “feelings” (or any aspect of that concern) to the issue of the benefits of any particular safety devices, or safety devices in general.
Yes. No.
I’m just a carrot-birther, but that guy you’re responding to sounds a little extreme, yeah. I’m afraid I didn’t catch his name.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:30 pm
TAO,
I’m sure you did. You always do.
I defy you to find a single word I wrote on the subject. You never can.
Thoreau used to write little disclaimers about regulation when he wanted to discussed the merits of something. I prefer to watch you doing this over and over again.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:33 pm
Actually, they benefit the minor children of parents with poor judgment.
Unless you’re claiming that children who don’t themselves choose car seats are the “people with poor judgment.”
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:35 pm
Children should not be held hostage to their parents dumb-assery. There is a certain sphere of privacy, of course, within which even objectively worse judgments of parents must be respected, but safety equipment in cars operating on the public streets is well outside of it.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:37 pm
Eric,
Indeed! Thank goodness I never applied my “feelings” (or any aspect of that concern) to the issue of the benefits of any particular safety devices, or safety devices in general.
Don’t mention it.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:39 pm
TAO:
Thoreau, to which the above is meant to refer:
That’s quite the cost-benefit analysis.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:43 pm
And I said it was “subjective” exactly when? We don’t have a federal agency in D.C. with a magic sensor that mails you notices on whether and which of your kids need a car seat or a booster. You’re the pair of eyes on hand to judge that geometry. You know whether your kids get the belt across their necks or not, not some random person on the internet.
Oh, good grief, joe.
Me:
You:
Emphasis added to the funny part because you just don’t get it, joe. You don’t even get it when someone’s agreeing with you on a point and saying the same thing you are.
Do you genuinely not understand why people don’t believe you when you go on about how you understand libertarian ideas?
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:44 pm
That sounds like an opinion, so you blandly stating it as if it were objectively true makes me laugh.
Regardless, joe, what do you think society’s CBA should be with regard to safety equipment? And, given that thoreau has given you a host of benefits on the other side of this argument, I would suggest that your personal CBA is not as cut-and-dried as you would pretend.
Of course, it never is.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
I defer to your local judgment of the situation, of course.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
I mean, in all seriousness, joe, you have costs on one side and benefits on the other. One of the costs (though you might not think much of it) of forcing people to do a thing is that you substitute the “studies” of “experts” for that of your own. What troubles me is that you do not think anything of that cost – it’s a trifling one, and one you would gladly impose on other people. I would expect that a liberal such as yourself would not be so reflexively pro-faith.
Comment by bob —
August 3, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
This is so terrifically nonresponsive that I’m forced to conclude that you are not here really engaged in a good-faith debate.
You maintain that:
Statements like these make factual claims. Their defense requires evidence. I happened to know of, and linked to, research that undermines those claims. I took your statement of these claims, and the force with you made them, to suggest that you had knowledge of research that supported them, but that does not appear to be the case.
I find it a little weird, to say the least, that one should hold so strongly beliefs about matters of fact without having some knowledge as to whether those beliefs are justified by evidence, but I guess I am just an emprical kind of guy.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 3, 2009 @ 3:12 pm
because libertarianism is unclear about the rights and responsibilities of children and parents, I think that child-safety laws should be predicated on a good CBA. So, the relevant questions here are: how many auto accidents (deaths and injuries) did children as a group suffer in the past year (or, pick a year, if you will). How many of those could have been prevented by the judicious use of car seats?
My sense is that the death rate for children under twelve is so low already that I doubt that there is even much accident data to deal with. Meaning that, yes, the government is imposing millions of dollars of costs for (what I believe to be) little benefit. I am interested in hearing a fact-based counter, however.
So, shorter question: how many preventable deaths and injuries is considered “acceptable” before we impose top-down solutions on parents?
Comment by J sub D —
August 3, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
Why would a parent place a kid in a car seat when these are so readily available?
You can enjoy the music and text message uninterrupted while the rugrat simultaneously gets fresh air and a superior view. The need for Baby on Board bumper stickers are also rendered pointless.
Everybody wins!
Comment by Thoreau —
August 3, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
Car manufacturers may not be the best analog for child car seat manufacturers in this case. Child car seat manufacturers make money if you (or the lawmakers) see a hazard and respond. Car manufacturers make money if you see no hazard.
OTOH, if somebody alleged that a particular model of child car seat had a safety flaw, I assume that the manufacturer would behave in a manner similar to a car manufacturer, insisting that their product is extremely safe.
Comment by Ceri B. —
August 3, 2009 @ 5:20 pm
This post is partly shit-stirring, but also fairly serious.
I agree with you, Thoreau, about the rising obsession with child safety and its costs in children’s opportunities. I note that it seems to move in parallel with loss of parental agency in other areas: declining real wages for almost everyone, decreased social mobility, increased income volatility, reduced reliable access to health care, and the like.
A lot of net fighting, I’ve always been convinced, is displaced fear and anger about other things. I think that a similar thing holds here, that a lot of parents are obsessing over child safety things that they might control because so much of the rest of their lives seems (and generally is) way outside their control. Parents who didn’t feel their prospects to be such a huge pile of suck probably would be more relaxed about what they let their kids experience.
Comment by brandon —
August 3, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
Jesus fuck, is Joe from Strap-Em-In-Car-Seats-Till-Puberty’s SUV-liberal thumbsucking the only exposure this blog gets to opinions from the left side of the fence? I hope not. We’re not all that kind of crazy.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 3, 2009 @ 7:13 pm
No, Brandon. We also get semi-coherent far-leftists and the occasional moderate.
After elections, most of the Team Blue folks we see (the ones who hover around libertarian blogs and forums going on about how they don’t need us, but if we were Serious, we’d vote for their guys) wander off.
Comment by Kolohe —
August 3, 2009 @ 11:34 pm
but of course, as the fines are presumably a flat rate, given equal amounts of judgement (or lack thereof) it more greatly effects a poor family than a rich family
(and a true liberal would be arguing for greater amounts of public transit making the car seat arguement moot
)
Comment by Mojo —
August 4, 2009 @ 1:40 am
Swing and a miss, Thoreau. Oh well, your batting average is still leading the league.
Pingback by Positive Liberty » Seat belts and air bags and car seats, oh my! —
August 4, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
[...] at Unqualified Offerings, Thoreau recently blogged about rules forbidding children from walking to or from school and this segued into a lively, [...]
Comment by D.A. Ridgely —
August 4, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
My take on such matters here.
Comment by Richard Cownie —
August 4, 2009 @ 1:43 pm
So you grew up doing dangerous stuff and survived.
Lots of people did that same dangerous stuff and
died – and of course those people aren’t around
now to write cranky-old-man posts. It’s a matter
of percentages.
And it’s really not a big deal – as it happens,
I just bought booster seats for my twin 4-year-
olds yesterday, $60 each and it took ten
minutes to assemble them and put them in the
car. [Before that, they always travelled in my
wife's car in Britax seats with a 5-point
harness].
In many states, it’s *illegal* to carry a young
child without an age-appropriate restraint. Now
the numbers may not be big enough to prove the
point with statistical certainty, but it’s
really not much more than common sense that
using an adult belt that goes across the neck
of a child is exposing him/her to various
avoidable dangers.
Another prominent example is bicycle helmets,
and there I’m pretty sure the statistics are
clear. And I don’t think there’s a whole lot of
experiential value in getting a concussion or
a skull fracture.
As for the walking home alone, sure, a lot of
kids did that for years and were fine. And a
significant percentage did it and were *not*
fine. In particular, you might want to read up
on the rather horrifying history of research
into sexual abuse of children: up to about
1970, everyone pretended it didn’t happen.
Then real research suggested that a very
substantial percentage of children – maybe
15-25% – did suffer sexual abuse by adults
(usually relatives or neighbors). And from
then on responsible parents got a *lot* more
careful – or paranoid, depending on your point
of view – about things like letting kids go
off on their own or hang out at neighbor’s
houses.
Do we risk being *over*-protective of our kids ?
Sure, it’s a balancing act. But I don’t think
the 60’s and 70’s were any kind of golden age
for kids: on the contrary, it was pretty
dangerous and a lot of kids got badly hurt, physically or emotionally.
Comment by sab —
August 4, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
My husband once left his firstborn in a car-seat on the roof of the car when he backed out one harried moment. The kid and the seat fell off the car-roof. The kid was okay because he was in the car-seat, but he wouldn’t have been on the roof at all but for the car seat.
It just shows that exhausted parents can screw up anything no matter how hard we try to protect them. All the more reason not to have the little guys rattling around loose in a car those parents are driving.
I used to have to walk about five blocks to school in first grade. There were herds of little kids all walking. Nobody got hurt, nobody turned up missing, and we only had a couple of plump kids in the whole school. But my husband, walking to school in a rougher neighborhood of a different city, had his lunch money stolen a couple of times a week every week.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 4, 2009 @ 2:31 pm
The vast, vast majority of sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by family members and people they know. What on Earth does walking home alone have to do with this, or preventing children from doing so protect them from it?
Comment by D.A. Ridgely —
August 4, 2009 @ 6:18 pm
It is, if anything, by walking home alone that we learn to stand up to bullies. A lesson which, if not learned in childhood, makes it that much easier for the authority figures throughout the rest of our lives to cow us into submission. Or even if we do keep getting our lunch money stolen, at the very least perhaps the experience permits us see those later authorities more clearly for the bullies they are, too.
Comment by All Your Summer Songs —
August 4, 2009 @ 8:19 pm
Eight years olds, dude.
Comment by Gary Farber —
August 6, 2009 @ 5:29 am
“Flobble-de-flee!” gets it all wrong in the first comment with a link to “the original.”
This is the original, and it took a bit of doing to track it down, rather than one of those johnny-come-lately Python performances, and hadn’t also been pulled from YouTube. Enjoy it while you can.
Comment by Gary Farber —
August 6, 2009 @ 5:31 am
Whoops, here, I meant.
Comment by Gene Callahan —
August 6, 2009 @ 10:03 am
“Putting kids in car seats isn’t a “cult.” It’s an obviously intelligent thing to do. The evidence is clear, and there is no valid argument on the other side.”
Not holding discussions with Joe is an obviously intelligent thing to do, but, here goes: Joe, safety does not always and everywhere trump all other values. Sometimes, say, when one of my infant children was distraught, and we were driving on a quite country road, I would risk arrest by taking the child out of his/her seat and holding him/her on my lap for a while! Do your “studies” show the correct emotional suffering / physical risk trade-off that applies to all children in all situations so that we can make a law about these choices? Does the slightest, tiniest risk of physical injury trump any and every amount of emotional suffering?
Thanks for showing us the cult mentality so very clearly, Joe!