Nobody likes when other people tell you how to raise your child, but I’m going to do it anyway. The reason I can is because I have three generations of child rearing to refer to. I grew up in a family with eight children, I had three boys myself and I can look at my son’s generation as they start to raise their kids, even though my three sons are all in their 30s and childless. I guess my line of the family name is coming to a crashing end. (Think that will guilt one of them into giving me a grandchild?)
You are probably wondering why I decided to go off on this tangent. I just saw a picture of my cousin’s new grandson, strapped into his modern stroller. He looked like one of those drivers in the Indy 500, strapped into the seat of their car, with all the safety devices to prevent injuries when slamming into a wall at over 200 miles an hour. My first thought is, why not just avoid the wall in the first place. There is nothing good about hitting a wall at any speed, I can attest to that. It involved a bike ride and a hospital stay but it was a well learned lesson, if I could remember the lesson because of the brain injury, but I digress.
I don’t think we really have to worry about a stroller running into a wall at 200 miles an hour but in today’s world, parents can’t be too safe. I’m sure my parents were concerned about my and my siblings safety but it was hard to tell. With as many kids as we had in our family, my dad had to drive the minivan of the time, a station wagon. It was a tank that had three bench seats and could seat up to nine passengers. For our family it had to fit ten. Somehow we were able to shoehorn one of my little brothers into a corner. Not a car seat or seat belt in sight. My mom was able to drive the beast of a car with the infant of the hour in her lap, who was puking on her, with three or four other children fighting in the back seat and still light her cigarette. How’s that for a circus act?
When we went on vacation, besides having ten people stuffed into the car, my dad was able to jam our luggage and summer fun stuff inside and on top of the car. Somehow he also stuffed all eight of us kids into the car. Some would be in a seat but several of us would be lying on top of the pile of luggage hanging on for dear life for the eight hour drive. I think dad and mom were playing child bingo. Every once in a while my dad would have to slam on the brakes and it resulted in one of us flying into the front seat with them. I think they were keeping track of who ended up there on a card. The big give away was when my youngest sister ended up on the dashboard and my mom yelled bingo.
I know it sounds barbaric but when I grew up, all parents smoked and any house or car you were in had a lit cigarette. I also think my mom drank alcohol while she was pregnant with all of us. That would explain a couple of my siblings…they’re not reading this are they? We were allowed to wander as far as we wanted during the day, as long as we were home by dinner. We got in fights with other kids that didn’t result in a lawsuit being filed. We didn’t wear helmets when we rode our bikes and we played in places that would be labeled a hazardous waste site today.
When I had children, I was a different kind of parent. When my boys were young, car seats were not required…yet. Cars did have seat belts and we made sure they were strapped in. When they were babies, we did have those bassinet things we could carry them in a car with. They were also handy to hold some loose groceries so they wouldn’t fly around the car. It also helped keep the baby occupied and not crying. A few years later, it would have been a different story. I had one son who was so small when he was a freshman in high school, by current car seat laws, we would have had to drop him off at his high school football practice with him riding in a child car seat. What kind of bullying fodder would that have been?
Today is a different lifestyle for parents and children. My parents let us run free. If someone sees a child at the park by themselves, they report the parents for child neglect. If someone puts their child to bed in the same crib that all three of my kids slept in, their lives are considered in danger. I guess the bed all three of my kids survived is very dangerous. For baby showers today, I just bought the parents a big roll of bubble wrap so they can wrap their children up until they are teenagers.
I have figured out how to get rich. Considering the direction this world is taking, with pandemics, pollution and climate change, I am going to build and market baby size haz-mat suits. This will protect the little one from all the nasty stuff happening. Of course, trying to keep it on them will be a trick and you know they will eventually figure out how to pick up that disgusting thing on the floor and put it in their mouth.
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