Baby Proofing

Yes, this is another baby post.

If you ever go to Toys R Us, check out the baby proofing items, there are tons of them! Even Home Depot carries a lot of these items. The outlet covers are probably the most familiar, though they've been changed over the years from the basic, clear plastic to the new off-white ones where you have to push and pull. The cabinet locks are also fairly common. Then there's toilet seat locks and things to keep kids from turning door knobs and brackets to fasten furniture to the wall so it can't be pulled over. Those things that cover the bath faucet could be put in the child safety category too (is this to protect them from hitting their head on it? Are people leaving small children alone in the bath?).



As we're looking at all of these items (we did buy some outlet covers on clearance at Target), I'm thinking, "are these things really necessary?" Honestly, a lot of it just seems like lazy parenting; it's a way for people to feel okay about not watching their kids and/or not telling their kids "no."

Think about it, did your parents have these things to protect you around the house when you were a kid? Mine didn't and I made it. In fact, I don't think most of these things were invented yet. That leads to another idea, is it all just marketing? Telling young parents they need these things for the safety of their child, but it's really just so the companies can make a buck?

When I was little, I didn't go into cabinets that I wasn't supposed to and I'm pretty sure I never slammed my finger in the toilet lid. I did slam my finger in the toy box lid several times and it hurt so I tried not to let it happen anymore. Then again I was also a kid who almost never broke a toy and cried and felt terrible if they happened to get broken by accident. I guess I was a deontologist even then.

My sister and I did climb furniture, but it didn't need to be fastened to the wall. Furniture was just made better then, it was heavy enough that we wouldn't have pulled it over, even with each of us climbing one side of the dresser simultaneously (we did break more than a couple drawer handles this way).

I can tell you what's better than outlet covers too. Out of curiosity, I stuck my fingernail in an electrical outlet when I was 3 or 4, never did that again! Learned my lesson the old-fashioned way.

This line of thought has caused me to really consider how much of the whole "baby proofing" is really unwillingness to watch and enforce rules for kids (lazy parenting) and how much of it is responsibly preventing injury from accidents.

Lazy parenting, in my opinion, is having to have a lock on all your cabinets instead of putting dangerous chemicals away and teaching your kids not to open cabinets (recently, I heard of a good idea about cabinets, where you let one cabinet be for your kids and have things in there they can play with and feel like they are doing what you're doing in the kitchen). I feel like some people never watch their kid. Are these people really enforcing rules of what can and can't be touched? Kids like to push boundaries, it takes more than just saying "no, no," there has to be a consequence to the bad behavior. If you're just locking things and covering things, you're escaping the whole learning/discipline part of raising your child. Some people use baby proofing and a parenting "out."

Responsibly preventing injury from accidents includes things like the bumper guards that go around furniture with hard corners and brick fireplaces. These are like knee pads in concept, they're there because accidents happen. Like when my sister was goofing around by the stone fireplace, and fell into a corner of it with her face, causing a dead tooth. Her injury could have been a lot worse, but it also could have been prevented by those bumpers. This was not a lazy parenting issue, what could they have done? Teach her not to play? Not to fall? It was an accident. Opening cabinets and turning doorknobs are not accidents.

(I realize some people may take issue with this post seeing as I am not a parent of a small child quite yet, much less do I have multiple children to watch at once [that would change things], to you I say, "oh well, our parents did it.")