Worst Mother Ever

[Chinchilla]

Today has been a sh*t day. I was at a friend's house, and ds kept going down the side of her house, while we were in the garden. I didn't worry too much, because there was a gate stopping him getting into the road. I was more concerned that he might hurt himself on the concrete path there, so kept shooing him back into the garden where he could be seen. Anyway, my friend's son told me that ds was down the side again, so I got up and went after him...no ds. The gate was closed, but on closer inspection, the toy that ds had been playing with was outside the gate.

I got a cold feeling, and chased out into the cul-de-sac, calling his name. He did not respond, but I heard a banging (which turned out to be him hitting the next door neighbour's garage door), and went in that direction. It was him, happy as Larry. I grabbed him and hugged him close, with the biggest relief that you can imagine.

Then the shock kicked in. Did I follow him soon enough? Was I talking to my friend too much to even look after my child? I know in my heart that this could happen to anyone, but I feel so guilty. Thank God that my friend lives in a quiet bit of road. But what if a car had come along, or even a child killer? I know it is a bit dramatic, but it does happen.

Then, I went round my Mum's to get a bit of sympathy, and ds fell through her garden bench into a flower bed. He wasn't hurt, but was about an inch away from hitting his head on a wall

He then proceeded to have a paddy for ten minutes because Mum and I were talking in the house, and wouldn't let him out into the garden on his own. (I hasten to add that he had already caused havoc in the garden for half an hour, and we needed to sit down for a bit).

I am exhausted from feeling guilty, and am currently debating eating a tub of sorbet and some creme eggs.

Please someone tell me your horror stories to reassure me that I am not the only one who has done something like this.

well if you've admitted it rhubarb then I'll come out of the closet too - mind you my excuse is that I'm actually the only person in the entire country to ever use one at all or so it seems - but yes, I have occasionally travelled holding ds on my knee and the poor mite regularly travels in his car seat without it being attached to anything at all as taxis don't have seat belts here - it's rear facing though so I think it's better in a seat than not at all.
But that doesn't make me the worst mother in the world by local standards - that's for not cleaning food off his tshirt before taking him out, making him wear skimpy clothing in what I would call hot weather and everyone else calls winter, not feeding him before 4 months and anything else in the world that I do that's dfferent;
dh is worst father in world for checking ds in at luggage counter whilst buying alcohol in supermarket - now I sit back and wait for the howls of abuse!! We are good parents really - honest

Droile, I feel very strongly about children / babies in cars without seat belts / car seats. Not when it's occasional and mum's sat in the back with arms around them, but when it's obviously just the norm and parents are belted in but kids don't even merit a seat belt ?! However, I would prefer the police to concentrate on crimes where someone else is liable to be hurt. If there were enough officers around to enforce zero tolerance then this should be on the list, but there just aren't. And I wonder if it's not a great risk to take anyway - there's never to my knowledge been a safety campaign about strapping kids in or using car seats, unlike drink driving, using rear seatbelts generally, adhering to 30mph limit. presumably not many kids are injured or killed from travelling this way or you'd think there'd be a huge campaign about it ?

tomps, there are sometimes local spot checks/campaigns here.

I pulled out of the end of our road about 3 years ago with DD strapped into her seat in the back and saw a police car on the side of the road. As soon as I drove past, he pulled out and followed. I turned down a side street, hoping he'd go past the bottom but he followed me -gulp. Why is it you feel bad, even if you haven't done anything wrong?

He signalled for me to pull over and I did. He had a road safety officer with him and they asked me various questions about the age of DD, the car seat, did I know how to fit it, etc.

I saw the results in the paper a couple of weeks later - usual hihglights of x% of parents not knowing how to strap child in, etc.

Slight change of subject. Same week as event in previous post, same child, got left on the platform at the train station! (Guess who was supposed to be watching him...:0)

I was at the front with the buggy & the baby. DD & DS1 (5 & 4) behind me. DH was supposed to bring up the rear, with DS2. We got on the train, found a seat, settled down & I counted heads.. AAARRGGHH!!! One missing!! Dashed down the train & opened the door just as the guard was waving his flag. There is the dear little soul, in his paddington duffel coat, standing forlornly on the platform calling "mummy".

Needless to say, DH did NOT live that down in a hurry! (& I had nightmares for weeks thinking "what if he'd fallen on the tracks", "what if.." )

tomps, if I'm reading you correctly, then my friends are right and the police are unable to do anything.
Looks like I'll have to go and eat humble pie with Mrs Adamant!

Rhubarb - of course I am not comparing you to that man in the car. I am sure that I would do the same thing as you in the same situation. However, it is easy to be OK with it if nothing happens on the journey, but what if an accident had happened to this man's child? When my ds escaped out of my friend's gate, if he had been abducted, I would have been berating myself for it happening, when I could have avoided it by checking that the gate was locked. This man had a car seat in the car, but chose not to strap his child in. You did not have that choice.

I know Chinchilla, and believe me I don't like to see irresponsible parents either. But at least he had a car seat, so we can presume the intention is there, the baby's mother probably has a bit more common-sense. I still wouldn't tell the police though. Your ds escaping from a friend's gate is different, it was an accident. But how would you feel if some neighbour reported you for letting your ds loose on the streets? Sometimes we don't know the whole story. I think with that situation the onus is firmly on the parents, and nothing you can do would change that.

Rhubarb, (and anyone else that does it), I appreciate that you are trying to protect your child by hodling them tightly in the back of the car. But if the car is an an accident it would be physically impossible for you to hold them. The weight of your child would be multipied by the speed of deceleration and it would be like trying to hold onto an elephant. They did a mock up of this outside a local hospital. Parents were strapped in, and asked to hold a 10 pound doll, and were given a simulated 10 mph shunt. None of them could hold on to them. It isn't a refection of love, its pure physics I'm afraid.

We know the risks Hmb, I am not ignorant of what potentially might happen. But yourself in my situation at the train station, would you have turned down my brother's offer because he didn't have a car seat and walk the 3 miles to my mother's home? Or would you have brought both buggy and car seat on the train with you along with dd? In some situations you don't always have a car seat and so you take a risk. Have you ever taken a risk with one of your children - ever? It happens. If we had a crash no doubt I would be devestated, but that would be my lookout, no-one else's.

The biggest killer of children between the age of 1 and 4 is a car accident!!!!
A small child is like a missile in a car crash of only 20 mph and it has been known to decapitate a front seat driver/passenger. I have seen a video of a child without a seat belt on in an impact at 20 miles an hour - trust me you'd never do it again!!!Belt up - it takes 2 seconds

I don't want to row about it but does that statistic also include children running out in front of cars etc or being in car seats but still killed or just those who were not strapped in - just asking cos I was really surprised by the high figure.
I know we shouldn't but sometimes parents just do take risks like that because life isn't always that simple. If you have your own car and so can keep the car seat strapped in at all times then tbh it's much easier for you - but if you have to rely on taxis (which don't even have front seat belts half the time here for example) or friends then sometimes you do end up cutting corners. I try really hard not to and end up walking round all day carrying my car seat sometimes just so I can use it for the 10 minute taxi ride there and back but who knows what we will do when ds is older and has a different style car seat.

Oh gosh no Morrocco, don't want to argue, not my style. You're dead on. You can't carry a car seat round. I have used a taxi twice and had to make the best of it by using the belts for adults in the back. Some protection is better than none I suppose. I am a bit obsessed by belts etc.. I've spent 8 years telling people in aircraft to fasten their seatbelt and seen a fair few accidents at very low speed! You see some sights though don't you! I've seen a child of about 2 in the front of a car at 50 mile an hour using the dash as a car race way without any belt. I don't know if it's naivity or laziness! Ilive on an Island where using a belt only recently became law so I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to belts!

The only time DS has been in a car without a car seat was a taxi on the way home from A&E. Oh and I suppose the ambulance on the way there.

According to the government's road safety website, "An unrestrained child must never be carried in the front seat of any vehicle"

Rhubarb, I wasn't having a dig. A huge number of people don't understand the risk, because they think that they realy could hold onto their child if they were in an accident, and it is a physical imposibility. I hadn't had time to read the whole thread so I didn't know if you knew or not. If you know the facts, and the risks, you make the call for your child.

As this thread seems to have become all car seat stuff, can anyone clarify the legal position re children in car seats travelling in the fron?

my ds (3.5 yrs, nearly 3.5 stones in weight) is normally in the back of my car in his seat. But the journey to granny's is 2 and a quarter hours, and if I take him on my own I prefer him in his seat in the front so I can more easily talk to him, and be sure he isn't Playing with his seat belt/dismantleing the car/strangling the dog etc.

My car does have an airbag on that side, which I can't switch off. I have the seat positioned as far back as i can in case of airbag deployment.

Am I legally allowed to do this?

easy, I think legally you are allowed to do it. But I don't think it is at all advisable, if you have ever seen a grown adult who has been 'saved' by an airbag, I don't think that a child would withstand the force, I read that a person should be around 5 feet tall before it is safe to be with an airbag.

Rhubarb - I was not the one who mentioned reporting this man. I was more mortified at the fact that I was too scared of getting my head kicked in to tell him to strap the child in. Of course I would not expect anyone to report me for letting ds escape, as most people would realise how horrified I was at my error. I think that the major difference in the two cases is that mine was an erro, and his was a choice. I realise that it was not my business to interfere in this case, and I am more upset than anything to think that he could have killed the child and I could have stopped it.

easy - as I understand it, you are allowed to fit a child seat into a front seat legally, but the manufacturers say never to do it where there is an active passenger airbag, as this is apparently potentially lethal.

Whenever I go somewhere with DS on our own (ie without DP), I much prefer to have him in the front where we can chat, so I did check this out quite carefully. On my car we got the garage to disable the passenger airbag - is that a possibility for your car?

I flew to Scotland with DD in march, did not take car seat as my Parents had bought one and fitted it in the car in which we were being collected. When I tried to put dd in it the straps were not in the right position. As it was late at night I put her in the papoose on front of me and the seat belt round it. I wasn't happy but it we couldn't see how to alter it in the dark.

DD (1.5) and DS (3) and me were all in the bath together and I got them all out to dry them - whilst drying ds, dd did a massive squidgy poo on the bathroom floor - slipped on it, got hysterical and walked footprints over to me - I lifted her into the bath and she promptly slipped cause the bath mat wasn't in and banged her head which is now also covered meanwhile ds had tried to clean the floor with loo roll and fell in it himself!! bad mother day I think

Mocha, you had no choice in this situation, poor you. For your information though, in the event of a crash, a child on your knee/papoose with an adult seat belt round it would be crushed by the multiplied weight of the adult shooting forwards. But if you hadn't restrained her at all, she would have shot through the windscreen. Some choice, huh?

Easy - please don't put your child in the front with the airbag on, it will suffocate your child should anything happen. If you have a choice, use the back.
Chinchilla and hmb, I know you mean well . But Morrocco's point is a good one. I don't have a car, but dh does and we leave the car seat in there, we also have another one in granny's car. However when I'm out and about by myself, I don't have a spare car seat to carry, and it would be impractical to take a spare one everywhere I go anyway! So I choose to accept short lifts knowing full well the danger, but not seeing that I have much choice in the matter.
It just seems to me that as a mother, everywhere you look you are being made to feel guilty about something! Life is not always that simple.

I agree with you Rhubarb for your situation. I just hate feeling like I should have done something and was too scared for my own safety to do so. It makes me feel cowardly and weak. Meaning well just isn't enough sometimes

Just to add that I am not judging you in any way Rhubarb. I was amazed at the man at the petrol station who had the option of a car seat, and chose not to use it.