The payoff for safety
Although the people advocating changes in child safety seat use have science and kids' health on their side, I'm glad this wasn't happening when Em was at that age: for several reasons.
Consulting the growth chart which is still on one of our door jambs, I notice that she was 11 before she hit the magic 4 feet 9 inches, when the safety experts say the child should stop using a booster seat. My heart goes out to those families who decide they are going to pioneer that effort, because there is little doubt that booster seats for kids past the age of seven or so will put a considerable strain on the parent-child relationship.
The other part of this has been on my mind ever since the safety experts, again with good intentions, banished all children to the back seat. When Em was an infant, we didn't have a back seat: we had a pickup truck. She rode backwards, according to the rules of that day, until age two. When we finally got a car (a 1969 Fury!) she was in the back when we went somewhere en famille. Often, it was just a parent and a child, and the seat was in front.
At an early age, the conversations started. First, they were the sort of stream-of-consciousness discussions that toddlers are capable of. As Em grew older and moved first to a booster seat, then to the seat itself, the talk became more articulate and wide-ranging. When my mother was still living, Em and I would often go to New Hampshire when my wife had her working weekend. We'd have some seasonally appropriate father-daughter recreation, visit my mother, and talk coming and going.
When adolescence came, Em put up the usual barriers between herself and the parental units, but the barriers came down when we were driving somewhere. Em was in USA Swimming by then, and those trips were often just the two of us. (From toddler-hood on, the requirements of a two-income household had meant that she often was with one or the other of us when we were working evenings or weekends. A colleague once remarked how I never talked down to her, but treated her as an equal partner in any discussion.) In the car, with no other audience, Em got to expand on that equality. Her insight and the breadth of her interests grew and grew, and never ceased to astound me. She grew up unimpeded by the shyness that has crippled both her parents.
I know what part our automotive symposia played in that, because she wrote about it. (I used to edit Em's papers from middle school on, under one standing rule. I told her I wasn't going to write them. I was going to do what a good editor does, to bring out her ideas and help her present them in the best way with suggestions and observations.) As a high school senior, she had to write an essay on one thing growing up that had been a formative influence. She wrote about our discussions and debates in the car.
How much development of the whole person are we sacrificing in a search for safety? That search is ultimately an illusion, for we live on an unsafe planet. A century ago it was chiefly the well-off who were able to isolate and insulate their children. Now, with SUVs with two rows of TV-equipped seats , several feet behind the parents and beyond any reasonable expectation of interaction, children living in McMansions and already isolated from their parents will be isolated even more. They will perhaps be safer in the car than they once were, but what kind of adults will they become?
Consulting the growth chart which is still on one of our door jambs, I notice that she was 11 before she hit the magic 4 feet 9 inches, when the safety experts say the child should stop using a booster seat. My heart goes out to those families who decide they are going to pioneer that effort, because there is little doubt that booster seats for kids past the age of seven or so will put a considerable strain on the parent-child relationship.
The other part of this has been on my mind ever since the safety experts, again with good intentions, banished all children to the back seat. When Em was an infant, we didn't have a back seat: we had a pickup truck. She rode backwards, according to the rules of that day, until age two. When we finally got a car (a 1969 Fury!) she was in the back when we went somewhere en famille. Often, it was just a parent and a child, and the seat was in front.
At an early age, the conversations started. First, they were the sort of stream-of-consciousness discussions that toddlers are capable of. As Em grew older and moved first to a booster seat, then to the seat itself, the talk became more articulate and wide-ranging. When my mother was still living, Em and I would often go to New Hampshire when my wife had her working weekend. We'd have some seasonally appropriate father-daughter recreation, visit my mother, and talk coming and going.
When adolescence came, Em put up the usual barriers between herself and the parental units, but the barriers came down when we were driving somewhere. Em was in USA Swimming by then, and those trips were often just the two of us. (From toddler-hood on, the requirements of a two-income household had meant that she often was with one or the other of us when we were working evenings or weekends. A colleague once remarked how I never talked down to her, but treated her as an equal partner in any discussion.) In the car, with no other audience, Em got to expand on that equality. Her insight and the breadth of her interests grew and grew, and never ceased to astound me. She grew up unimpeded by the shyness that has crippled both her parents.
I know what part our automotive symposia played in that, because she wrote about it. (I used to edit Em's papers from middle school on, under one standing rule. I told her I wasn't going to write them. I was going to do what a good editor does, to bring out her ideas and help her present them in the best way with suggestions and observations.) As a high school senior, she had to write an essay on one thing growing up that had been a formative influence. She wrote about our discussions and debates in the car.
How much development of the whole person are we sacrificing in a search for safety? That search is ultimately an illusion, for we live on an unsafe planet. A century ago it was chiefly the well-off who were able to isolate and insulate their children. Now, with SUVs with two rows of TV-equipped seats , several feet behind the parents and beyond any reasonable expectation of interaction, children living in McMansions and already isolated from their parents will be isolated even more. They will perhaps be safer in the car than they once were, but what kind of adults will they become?
Labels: child safety seats
posted by Uncle | 11:57
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