They didn't use car seat!

[jollybobs89]

Ok so DD almost 2! Grandparents looked after her at the weekend for the day asked if they needed the car seat to which they said no probably won't go out!

Anyway turns out they did go out and took DD in the car with no car seat on MIL knee to a supermarket which was probably a 13 mile round trip!

DH has gone mental said it's not acceptable at all which it isnt! Caused a massive row as they said she was 100% safe that they are upset that we think they would put her in danger?! (But they did there was no need to take her in the car one of them could have stayed home) they have said that she was probably safer on MIL knee that she would be in a car seat!!! And said thats just what they do ?! They have numerous grandkids.

AWBU? To be mad re this?? They didn't tell us they'd gone out it was till a few days later we realised from pics they sent of having her.

Just don't want everyone falling out re this! But they won't hold their hands up and apologise they just think it's acceptable

Send them this
www.standard.co.uk/news/seat-belt-warning-after-baby-on-mothers-lap-is-catapulted-150ft-through-car-windscreen-at-80mph-6913488.html
And tell them you can’t trust them not to kill your child so they will not have sole charge of your DC until said child is old enough to look after themselves.

If they won't consider their grandchild's safety enough of an incentive maybe they will take a £60 fine and three penalty points More seriously.

What they did is illegal and unsafe. If they refuse to see this, then they don’t get to have their grandchild unsupervised again. Isn’t the safety of their granddaughter more important to them than their egos? My parents are in their 70s now, and while this sort of thing was normal when I was growing up, they were absolutely on board with using child seats etc with their own grandchildren.

If you want to be charitable one could say it is what they did with their kids, and they have somehow missed all the laws and campaigns about the complete necessity of having a correctly aged and sized car seat, the fact they have reacted angrily to you is making it worse.

A full-size apology and a promise not to do I again would have helped.

Now though, no re alone visits until you can trust them again and your child is old enough to refuse to get in the car.

In my ‘parent’s day’ a friend saw a car in front of them bang into the car in front and two small children flew through the windscreen and were killed

If they put the seatbelt around both of them then in a crash your daughter would be crushed by your mother whose weight will be magnified by the speed of the deceleration so could be the equivalent of over a 200 stone .

Ah - Happy memories of sitting in the back of my brothers MG Roadster with the top down, and completely unrestrained, aged 4 . Also rolling around in the back of Dads car journeying to Italy. Lovely to be able to spread out when you had no air conditioning and vinyl seats.

No seriously though. Times have changed. Yes, it is a generational thing in that in the 60's and 70's car safety seats did not exist, but the consequences were often catatrosphic. You did have seats that allowed the kids to look out of the window, but certainly not safety seats. Like a pp, I also knew a child who opened the door of a moving car and died, I think that was fairly common.

I think not allowing to look after GC's is sad and punitive. However, they do need to understand and accept that safety seats are now the law, and that they need to abide by your standards and requests (in all things).

My grandparents used to let us and our cousins travel in their boot when we were little, it doesn't bear thinking about now. That was in the 80s. My parents are in their mid 70s and would never ever not use a car seat for any of their grandchildren so even if it is a generation thing, they haven't moved with the times and are far too closed minded. The attitude of "it was fine in my day" irritates me. FIL was like that when I was pregnant and not drinking or taking painkillers etc, he kept telling me that MIL drank, smoked and took any painkillers she wanted and their boys were all fine. Well that was maybe just luck, and there's been a lot of research done since then, just like cars are now faster and a lot more dangerous as a result.

• I mean the grandparents in question haven't moved with the times, not my parents

I had my children in the early 80's. They always went in car seats. The car I had at the time didnt have rear seat belts, so I had some fitted. Every one I knew who had children used car seats so its not a generation thing.

MY parents are in their early 80s - my sister was born in the mid 70s so she was in a carrycot in the boot etc etc BUT my parents have and always use car seats for my children so I doubt it's an age thing far more a "we know best" thing.

Staggering especially as you'd even asked them and they weren't planning to go out. A supermarket trip is hardly an emergency!

We used to have "salon bar" experts saying that in a crash your better off without a sealbelt as you'll be "thrown clear" of the car!!

People seriously used to believe that!

When i were a lad i noticed that most cars in the scrapyard where we used to nick lightbulbs the steering wheels were badley bent, we wondered how that happened the owner of said yard told us that in accidents the driver would be thrown forward and his chest would bend the wheel and most all times he was killed outright.

First car i had i fitted and always used sealtbelts.

They helped save DD3 from a nasty a while ago!

Your GP's need a lecture on Netons laws of motion and Now!!!

I think you just need to show them this thread OP!

As a grandmother, and a person with common sense, this absolutely horrifies me. Please tell me she didn't also have her inside the seat belt with her as well. You can tell them this story if you like. It's absolutely true. It happened in the 70s. A Gas Board van was slowing down to turn left. His turning was right next to the exit from a pub. Doing about 5 mph, he collided with a car just edging out of the pub car park. Both drivers got out to investigate the damage, couldn't see much, beyond a scuff on the van, so they shook hands and got back in their vehicles. As the van driver started to move off he was halted by violent hooting on the car's horn.
The car driver's wife had wound down her window to listen to the conversation. When her husband got back in the car and turned to speak to her, she was sitting with her three year old daughter on her lap, not realising the child was dead. She had hit her head on the dashboard, and didn't have a mark on her.
Please don't trust them with your child again.

@Baaaahhhhh My eldest child was born in 1970. We always used car seats for our children.

81Byerley

she was sitting with her three year old daughter on her lap, not realising the child was dead

That, just goes to show how fragile a childs brain is!!!!

Putting the seatbelt around her and MIL is even worse as in even a small impact the weight of MIL behind dd would have killed her.

Anyone that cavalier with my child's life wouldn't be around her ever again.

You can't argue with stupid, and since they know better than you even if there was a seat in they would probably "forget". So no unsupervised visits until they wise up or the dc are over 10/don't need seats!
She would have crushed her dgc to death in an accident if both under the same belt.

They would have known if the police seen them!!! They’d have been fined!

You’re definitely NOT being unreasonable. They were bang out of order and was no need for it at all.

Clearly can’t be trusted and think they know better 🙄

Show them THIS:

That's terrible!

I have 6 grandchildren and moving the car seats is such a pain in the arse, so now we don't bother, if I have any if the grandchildren I will also have the parents car, that way we know the seat is fitted safely and no messing moving them around.

Does it matter if they 'didn't have car seats back then'? You'd have to be living under a rock not to know safety standards have thankfully changed for the better.

People get so defensive about stuff like this, as if they're being accused of being lax about their child's safety 50 years ago, when it's just that now we know a lot better so we do a lot better. It's the same with safe sleep stuff. Some people take it as a personal affront or insult to their parenting, even though it's just that advice has changed because more research has been done.

We had car seats as soon as car seats became available. It is no good "knowing so much better now" if the technology didn't exist.
The first proper Britax seat was invented in the sixties and became widely available in the early seventies.

Older people didn't grow up with airbags fitted to cars as standard so don't seem to appreciate the risk - IME they seem to believe that the only damage that can be done to a child is on a par with the damage to the car itself.

OFFS! We are not all geriatric fools you know! I am well aware of the dangers of airbags even in my dotage!

I am sick to death of the ageism on this site. You can be stupid long before you're old.

I think not allowing to look after GC's is sad and punitive. However, they do need to understand and accept that safety seats are now the law, and that they need to abide by your standards and requests (in all things).

But they don't accept it!!