Fear of safety issues driving unnecissary spending

[hodt11]

When I think of all the money I have spent on unnecessary gadgets for the fear of this and for fear of that. just read this article, see what you think. The commodified childhood - www.independent.ie/lifestyle/the-commodified-childhood-30087503.html

[toomuchtooold]

I don't know. On the one hand I kind of bristle at these article usually because I have twins and actually, specially in the early days, a lot of the kit was very useful in place of a second pair of hands. We had a specially designed twin baby carrier from Germany (bought it second hand off ebay, mind) and spent a fortune to get a side by side buggy that is narrow enough to get in a shop door. But on the other hand I do think there is this annoying culture of everything having to be the safest it can be even if that means spending twice as much to get the one that's 99.996% safe instead of the one that's 99.995%. I'm exaggerating. But you know what I mean.

Also I sympathise with the no stairgate people. We bought stairgates when our girls started showing an interest in the stairs but didn't have time to fit them until a couple of weeks later by which time they were both happily crawling up and sliding down the stairs reliably. So we took them back! At their 2 year health check the health visitor asked me about "safety" and asked if we still had the stair gates up and I just said "we haven't taken them down". Oh, and bloody socket protectors! This is Britain, where we have an earth pin and a switch as well. If my girls get smart enough to realise that to get electricity you need to a) switch it on b) put something in the earth socket and c) bridge the two bottom sockets with something conductive, but then still do it and electrocute themselves, I'll think they deserve what they get tbh.

[hodt11]

Bristle at these kinds of articles ??, surely the point is the issues highlighted have NOT covered by the media, where have you seen similer articles?. You mention buying second hand bugies i think its fair to say you have not succumbed to the those marketing gurus, well done, clearly you got it right. and tbh you make a great point about the sockets lol