Is this the most stupid parent ever?

[Booboostwo]

Beat this one if you can.

DD has a best friend at school. We often invite the little girl and her parents reciprocate. The first time DD was to be driven by the friend's mum I asked if they needed to take DD's car seat, but the mum said that it was not needed as she had a lot of spare ones.

DD came back from that visit saying that the friend's mum had not strapped her into the car seat but DD was 4yo at the time and I put it down to DD making up stories. DD was driven twice more each time saying she had not been strapped in which got me a bit worried.

The friend had picked up her DD the other day and we were chatting to them while they were both in the car. The friend was not strapped in as she was standing up and showing DD something out of the window. The friend sat back down in her seat and the mum went to drive off, so I said 'oh be careful she doesn't have her seat belt on', to which the mum replied 'It's OK she's sitting in her car seat'.

Is this the world's stupidest parent? Does she really think that the seat itself somehow magically keeps a child safe in case of an accident? Or am I even more stupid for entrusting my DD to this woman?

"It wasn't such an issue back then, cars were slower and there were fewer of them on the road"

Nope, it really was an issue back then - more people died on the roads!!! Cars in the 1970s were more than capable of going 60+ miles an hour, at which speed you'd very merrily go flying through the window and several tens of feet onto the road ahead in a crash. In fact you'd do it at 30 miles an hour. It wasn't safer then, it's just nobody cared! Weirdly, my parents were really hot on me wearing my seatbelt as a child - I had a proper 5-point harness seat well before it was normal. But I was also allowed to take it off and lie down on the back seat for a snooze on long journeys . And if we were going somewhere with more children than seats in the car, they'd very happily stick 2 or 3 or us in the boot and 4 on the back seat!

My cousins and I would all sit in the back of my aunt's pick-up truck with the week's shopping, open to the air. Uncle would shout at two boys not to stand up, as if they fell out at 55mph onto the highway, they'd deserve all they got. That passed for attentive safe parenting in the 80s!

My mother, however, would put me age 4- 6 months in the high chair and put things on the tray to play with. Like drawing pins, marbles, treasury tags, sewing pins...

The HV came round and told.my highly-educated mother that this was a bad idea as I might put them in my mouth.

Mum argued that I'd have to be really stupid to do that more than once, so it was fine. She cited this as an example of HV uselessness for the next 35 years...

We did a lot of daft things in the 70's 80's and 90's but we should all know better now. There's no excuse for not strapping and child into a car seat . We told our children that the engine wouldn't start unless the belts were clicked in. My grandchildren never complain about being strapped in its just natural to them. I do worry about buses for my own safety too. Some of them go at terrific speeds and a young child could easily be flung off a seat. I have known some people to take a chance not strapping a toddler in or having them ride in front seat as "I'm just driving around the corner" it only takes one car to do something silly and how would that person feel if their DC was injured or worse.We sometimes have to make a long journey twice to pick up three children as we only have space for two car seats. I would never take a chance with a child's life.

Indeed annemac.We really did daft things then.Maybe because of the free flower power years.

I raise you traversing the African continent in a Morris Minor ,packed with luggage ,bottles of wine and small children standing up in the back.

Now I am utterly paranoid about car seats and 'childproof'everything.Such grace that bad things did not happen to us as very young parents.

Miss those flowers in my hair,though.

guns, racist, ignorant about safeguarding - I would discreetly disappear, wouldn't want them as enemies!

Not a car journey one, but one of my 40 year old friends kept pestering me to allow him to take my then 2yr old ds for a nice walk down narrow country lanes with no path - which cars speed down - to get to a ford....for ds to play in.
Once I'd picked my jaw up off the floor, I explained why it was a big fat NO.
He's never asked since.

I once saw my son's friend being brought home from school by his dad. His dad was riding his bike with his son sitting on his shoulders! Neither had a cycle helmet of course.

It is extremely hard to sink or capsize a (river-worthy) punt, so with a non-mobile baby and on the assumption there's an adult who will be responsible for holding the baby at all times, I think that would be OK. Once the baby is crawling (but not yet old enough to take instruction reliably) is the stage where I'd worry about a child in a punt.

unapaloma, so there were two of them. It made me feel ill when she did it, the thought of all his internal organs being squashed. I hope he survived, we moved house so I don't know for sure.

I can remember my parents guffawing at the neighbours who made their kids sit in car seats in the late seventies/early eighties. My brother and I would ride around in the boot of my mother's escort estate, sitting on the wheel arches.

My father still refuses to wear a seat belt. I can't believe he's never been caught. He is truly seventies man.

He's also a truly selfish and stupid man.

Yup

One day in winter in the late nineties/ early naughties when I was about ten my aunt was taking five kids aged 9-12 in her fiesta sized car, a few miles from where she lived. One in the front seat, four squished onto the back seats with three seat belts to go between the back. Because it was so squished, me and the other kid in the middle where struggling to get the belt secured, so my aunt decided to just drive without the belt done up. As she was coming down a hill she had to break to avoid a lorry, except there was a patch of black ice and she wasn't able to stop. The next thing I remember I was in the back of an ambulance with the sirens on. I was fortunate to not have any permanent damage but did have concussion.

I have seen people skiing with a child on their shoulders, and off piste, in a toddler backpack, those kids must have been frozen apart from anything else.

My friends DD thought I was a total loon and weird.

Why?

Because I'd make her sit in a car seat, make her keep her seatbelt on properly and threaded through car seat correctly, pull over if she slid down to kick seat in front and when she took seatbelt off whilst I was parking I'd stop until she put it back on again.

When she was old enough to understand I did say "your mum may not care about the law or your safety but I do"

My ExDH was a policeman and he was absolutely resolute about kids being strapped in properly. He said he'd had to literally peel too many toddlers and babies off the inside of windscreens. He once came home utterly incandescent about one mother in a brand new top of the range Mercedes whose very young baby (approx 1month old) sat propped up on her lap whilst she drove with a new, very large Royal Doulton dinner service was carefully strapped in using all the seat belts. Baby seat was in the boot.

OMG, I can understand how he felt, people are hard to understand at times.

I was speechless as a friend lifted her stroller into the boot area of the MPV. Child strapped in.

"Not going far" and it was easier than the struggle to strap him into the car seat.

Hmm

suzy2b

You can get clips that go on car seat straps to stop them getting their arms out.

www.pushchairsandcarseats.co.uk/displaydetail.aspx?prodid=3132&gclid=CjwKEAjw387JBRDPtJePvOej8kASJADkV9TLVToCCaeChFPYNZln7oKl9LJ9kAdiqgjt4mB1yF0kRxoC-w_w_wcB

This sort of thing. There's all sorts of types though, this one's just an example.