to insist on using car-seat?

[RSVP]

Am visiting my parents abroad with DS (3.5).
I do not drive and neither does DM. We have a car-seat in DF's car.

A good family friend suggested the other day that DS and her grandson (2.5) meet up to play. I said yeah sure, good idea.
She spoke with my mum this am (whilst I was still snoozing) and offered to drive her DGS, DM and DS to a play-area about 8 miles from here.
I said to DM that it's fine but they need to transfer the car-seat from DF's car to her friend's.

DM said it would be selfish as there is no car-seat for the other kid and was reluctant to do so. I had not realised that family friend does not use car-seat for her DGS. I said in this case, they would be better off going to the local play-area on foot.

DM said I was overreacting and that I should make an exception and let DS go without a car-seat. I was adamant, so in the end they agreed to walk to local one.

WIBU?

No.

Not at all.

I would have said it was even more important to use a car seat in a country you are not familiar with.

At home you know the tricky/dangerous parts of the road to look out for. Local knowledge is very important.

YANBU. Even if you are in a country where it is ok by law not to use a car seat, it's still your decision. I would do the same.

I thought I answered this one

Of course not!

I live in foreign parts and I have a reputation amongst my friends for being nuts about carseats. In the uk it is the norm to have them, use them and switch them between cars when necessary.

I don't know a single person who would transfer their carseat for a playdate or a grandparent who has their own carseats.

It's ridiculous.

YANBU. I think it's terribly selfish and stupid when people don't use car seats that are available with the excuse that its a short journey / low risk / not necessary. I've seen so many lazy parents who can't be arsed to take the five minutes needed to transfer a car seat....makes my blood boil.

Thanks, all. I too consider it as the norm, same as putting seat-belt on.
Was just taken aback by -otherwise very sensible and low key- DM's reaction.

I don't live in the UK and have been regarded as a total meanie for the last 12.5 years becuase DS goes nowhere unless strapped in correctly. Here children bouncing around front and back seats is not seen as an issue.

Until they open the front door of a moving car and fall out.

Then for five minutes people take the idea of restraining children seriously before they forget again.

One of my students is an ER doc who has lost count of the number of kids over the years in just in our area who have been hurt becuase their parents think "I'm a good driver" plus "car seats/belts upset children ergo they are bad/not needed".

It is far, far, far better to be seen as the unreasonably and cultrally irrelvant meanie than be in the postion of the mother my student had to treat three months ago, who had an accident that killed both her children, who had been unrestrained in the back seat. Not a visible scratch on her, but utterly utterly broken with no hope of mending.

Yanbu, I wouldn't take my son (19mths) anywhere without a carseat and recently refused a lift home and walked 2 miles instead as thought it was safer.

You were totally right but maybe you should have ditched the snooze and transferred the seat yourself.