To be up to here with older generation's attitude to car seats

[comoatoupeira]

It's this time of year again, it's the Summer holidays, and they're at it again about the car seats.
My youngest is only 11 months and they're trying to get us to put her front facing (the legs...). I reminded them we talked about that 4 years ago with the eldest (and they've been front facing since age 2, hardly radical, actually against advice).
Loosening the straps (a lot, you could get a teddy bear between them and the straps) on the 5 year old's because she says it's too tight, then driving for 5 hours on the motorway like that.
When the 5 year old gets cross because she gets tangled up getting out, muttering (not quietly, so I can hear): 'yes I know, these car seats are so stupid and unnecessary, we are living in anxious times'.
I'm just ... why? They know driving a car is the most dangerous thing we do. They've all (my parents and my in-laws) had car crashes at some point in their lives, one still has physio because of it. We know someone who's child's life was changed forever because of a car accident.
Why can't they just take it bloody seriously? What are they actually trying to achieve? What do they get out of endangering the safety of my children?
Please rant with me. Thank you.

My mother is the same. Need to upgrade my 15month baby car seat and she thinks it's OK to.go front facing. I've offered to buy a seat for her (rear facing) amd she says it won't fit in her car.

Says she only takes them (4 yrs, 15mnth) short distances so its not really a factor.

I get really upset about it.

I hear you. My parents are in their seventies and super switched on in most ways. They’re very proud of having adhered to the car seat standards of their days and don’t dispute the need for car seats for a minute - but they seem to struggle to accept those standards have changed, especially around RF/ERF. My youngest was ERF to age 4 and you’d think it was a form of abuse. Especially as DSis chose to FF her 15 month old.

Grandparent here with rear facing isofix car seat in my own car for DGC opportunities. Always strapped my own DC's in with best available car seats in the 1980's 1990's. Please don't insult all older GP's with the incompetency of your own family.

Your generalising is very ageist.

if you refuse to put up with their shit what can they actually do? You say strong characters but put your foot down. When they mutter ask them to repeat what they said. When they do it wrong correct them, if they do it wrong again, then their child in their car privileges are revoked. I am presuming as you have In laws that you have a partner? Do they support you? Yes okay have a rant on here but go fix the issue!

The quick way to deal with it is just to say the kids can't go in their cars. Just tell them you are aware they find the car seats frustrating so you are leaving it until they are tall enough not to need a seat.

Well yes, because it is. I’m old enough to remember before seat belts were compulsory and child seats weren’t used. I think the behaviour described is appalling.

TBH OP I've seen some horrendous advice on here and other social media with parents millennial and younger choosing to make their life easier by buying an unsafe car seat or refusing to one once they've been educated on the dangers because their child their choice. I think it comes down to either people are too stupid to understand why it's important or they don't care because they don't see children as individuals entitled to their own safety above convenience.

I saw an interview with a father of a young child, I think she was 3/4? Head on collision only going 30mph but she was forward facing and died. Had she been rear facing she'd have survived. Always sticks with me, it's so so sad how avoidable it can be.

Not just older but younger to.
I the designated driver, was being bullied into taking a family child in my car without a seat as the car was full capacity, the MOTHER said to me "oh it is fine just pop them on the lap of so and so! Uuuuuuuh no! The mother built up hope for the child and tried to guilt trip me when the child cried and I refused.
Trying to push their child on us to have a break and be child free and this journey is 1.5hrs on the Motorway for 60% of the way.

Unfair to generalise like this. When my children were driven around by PIL or my own parents, they always used car seats correctly and would regularly ask us to check everything was still fitted correctly. Both sets of grandparents were super careful about up to date car safety for all their grandchildren. And I don't know any grandparents being careless or not following the correct advice,
Your parents are clearly an exception, they simply do not comprehend the importance of this. Maybe you can find some YouTube videos to show them some car seat safety tests, to make them see sense?

'the older generation'

I talk to my dc about how it was when I was a child (no seat belts) in front or back; how it was when we brought them home from hospital (in a loose carrycot strapped into the back seat) etc. But I tell the stories with a sense of shock at how careless we were.

As one of the 'older generation' I am obsessive about making sure my dgc are in age/size/weight appropriate car seats. Always.

I look after my granddaughter once a week. I have a rear facing car seat which she is still in at 2.5 and will be until her parents say otherwise.

I didn't know anything about rear facing seats before she was born but I fully support my DD and SIL's choices and wouldn't dream of undermining them.

It's not a generation thing.

I absolutely hear you! Both my mum and my granda are a nightmare when it comes to car seats. ‘That’ll do,’ declared my Granda as he tried to simply put the seatbelt round my 3 week old’s seat. ‘It’s only a short journey, a cushion will do’ says my Mum quite regularly. Or, ‘We didn’t need these in my day and you all survived.’ Or my personal favourite: ‘No, we can’t go there because I don’t have enough car seats and your Mummy won’t let you go without one ‘ (this to my children about various day trips when visiting my mum). There was also the time my daughter told me where she’d been and when I asked how she’d got there without a car, she told me they did take the car, no there was no car seat, but Grandma had told her not to tell me. That has definitely not happened again since.

100%. Thanks.

good idea. Could show my DH too. He agrees with me on principle (because he's my husband) but I don't think he really understands, factually. So it's all on me.

I don't know what to say. Maybe it's cultural differences.
I'm thinking of other countries - those with people with enough income to use the same equipment, but who don't currently. E.g. some people in say Russia.
I'm foreign though I've been here over 20 years, and having kids as old as 6-7 - (school age kids!) in car seats....

When my parents had us (late 70s) our car didn’t have rear seatbelts and we didn’t have car seats. We went from carrycot on the seat, to lap, to sitting by ourselves. And yes, sometimes in the boot!

now my dc are small, my dad (nearly 80) says he isn’t up to date with the latest research but that he’ll do whatever we tell or show him. He reflects on how crazy it was for us to have traveled how we did.

I don’t have daughters, but if I were like your parents and in-laws (I’m not, I was careful with my kids and am even more so with my grandchildren), my daughters-in-law would have gently but obviously avoided giving me the opportunity to take their children anywhere, and my sons would have read me the riot act, both for endangering their kids and upsetting their wives.

Just get your husband on board, and take control of the situation together.

(And I’m joining the chorus of ‘you’re ageist’)

What older generation? They can't be that old if yours are still so young

This is interesting. Tell me more!
It's also politics isn't it? Being a libertarian... (like people who want to be able to smoke in pubs)

Well, I'm going to call her ageist because she appears to raging against the entire 'older generation' from the title, but she's actually angry with maybe four people?

Try not to tar us all with the same brush, OP.

I'm sorry about the title, you've shown me why it's wrong, and I apologise. Don't need to be told twice (or 50 times).

The only thing that I find odd is the much older kids rear facing when I can see that the seat isn't secured properly because the huge seat doesn't fit properly in a small car. Fitting your seat is so important both to the car and securing the straps to your child- that 5* Swedish safety test or whatever is pointless with it. From 2 years old, forward facing is better if that fits your car

I don't know, don't think it's politics.
I intellectually can see the rationale but it just doesn't compute, it looks so wrong.

Well unless you get 'older generation' edited to 'my parents', my monies on you being told at least another 50 more!