(no subject)
Aug. 11th, 2004 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerThe weather here has suddenly turned cold, to the point that I had to track down fall jackets yesterday. As I was buckling my kids into their carseats, I found myself thinking (as I do every winter) about the conflicting imperatives of parenthood. This is a long rant, so I'm going to attempt an LJ cut.
When I talk about conflicting imperatives, I'm not really talking about actual debates, like "how important is it to breastfeed" or "is it okay to let a little baby cry it out in order to teach them to go to sleep in their crib." I'm talking about imperatives, things that everyone knows that good parents do, but which are mutually exclusive.
For example: if you're going to transport a kid in a car, they need to be buckled up in a carseat, one that's been properly installed, to protect them in the event of a crash. This isn't debatable. If you're a parent who doesn't use a carseat, don't tell me that, because I will rip you a new one. A seatbelt will not properly protect a child (or a small adult, but that's another rant) which is why, depending on age and size, they need a carseat or a belt-positioning booster seat.
The carseat manuals, and most carseat experts (there are people who are certified "carseat techs," because carseats can be so hard to install properly) will tell you that your child should not ever wear a coat in a carseat because that will make the straps too loose. You should have your child in no more than a sweater or sweatshirt when you buckle them in.
I live in Minnesota, and here's the conflicting imperative: you're also not supposed to let your children freeze to death in the winter. "Just keep them in a sweater" works just fine in places like Florida where a really cold day is 30 or 40 degrees farenheit. It may even work okay in places like Kansas or Massachusetts. In Minnesota, "cold" means it's below 0F. "Really cold" is when the windchill is somewhere below -20F. You can not take your kids outside in a sweater when it is that cold.
The solutions that are suggested for this: cover your child up with blankets once they're strapped in. (Until Molly was three she'd have just kicked the blankets off; Kiera is the same way.) Strap the child in, then put the coat on over them, backwards. (Not a terrible idea except that the carseat itself is as cold as the rest of the car; they need some insulation between themselves and the seat itself.) Unzip the coat, strap the child in, then zip the coat up over the straps. (Doesn't work with a five-point restraint.) Heat your garage so the car isn't so cold. (I have an unheated, detached garage -- and anyway, I park on the street, my husband gets the garage because he's the one who would have to scrape ice off his windshield at the crack of dawn in order to get to work in the morning.) Turn on your car and run it for a while so that it warms up before you get in. (A fair number of people do this, but it is in fact illegal in my city to leave your car running unattended.)
I deal with this by buying my children warm but minimally bulky coats that use thinsulate or some other thin-but-warm insulator. When it's possible, I buckle them up with just a fleece jacket or something (we call fleece things "cozies"). But some of the time, they get buckled up in a coat, because I figure that vastly increased risk of hypothermia and frostbite outweigh the slightly increased risk of injury in an accident.
It would be really nice if the experts could all get together and reach some sort of consensus on this sort of thing so that we weren't given advice that basically boiled down to, "good parents don't live in frigid states like Minnesota" or "good parents have only one child, or else their children are all spaced ten years apart" or "good parents have more money than 95% of the U.S. population" or "good parents have four arms, and eyes in the back of their heads."
When I talk about conflicting imperatives, I'm not really talking about actual debates, like "how important is it to breastfeed" or "is it okay to let a little baby cry it out in order to teach them to go to sleep in their crib." I'm talking about imperatives, things that everyone knows that good parents do, but which are mutually exclusive.
For example: if you're going to transport a kid in a car, they need to be buckled up in a carseat, one that's been properly installed, to protect them in the event of a crash. This isn't debatable. If you're a parent who doesn't use a carseat, don't tell me that, because I will rip you a new one. A seatbelt will not properly protect a child (or a small adult, but that's another rant) which is why, depending on age and size, they need a carseat or a belt-positioning booster seat.
The carseat manuals, and most carseat experts (there are people who are certified "carseat techs," because carseats can be so hard to install properly) will tell you that your child should not ever wear a coat in a carseat because that will make the straps too loose. You should have your child in no more than a sweater or sweatshirt when you buckle them in.
I live in Minnesota, and here's the conflicting imperative: you're also not supposed to let your children freeze to death in the winter. "Just keep them in a sweater" works just fine in places like Florida where a really cold day is 30 or 40 degrees farenheit. It may even work okay in places like Kansas or Massachusetts. In Minnesota, "cold" means it's below 0F. "Really cold" is when the windchill is somewhere below -20F. You can not take your kids outside in a sweater when it is that cold.
The solutions that are suggested for this: cover your child up with blankets once they're strapped in. (Until Molly was three she'd have just kicked the blankets off; Kiera is the same way.) Strap the child in, then put the coat on over them, backwards. (Not a terrible idea except that the carseat itself is as cold as the rest of the car; they need some insulation between themselves and the seat itself.) Unzip the coat, strap the child in, then zip the coat up over the straps. (Doesn't work with a five-point restraint.) Heat your garage so the car isn't so cold. (I have an unheated, detached garage -- and anyway, I park on the street, my husband gets the garage because he's the one who would have to scrape ice off his windshield at the crack of dawn in order to get to work in the morning.) Turn on your car and run it for a while so that it warms up before you get in. (A fair number of people do this, but it is in fact illegal in my city to leave your car running unattended.)
I deal with this by buying my children warm but minimally bulky coats that use thinsulate or some other thin-but-warm insulator. When it's possible, I buckle them up with just a fleece jacket or something (we call fleece things "cozies"). But some of the time, they get buckled up in a coat, because I figure that vastly increased risk of hypothermia and frostbite outweigh the slightly increased risk of injury in an accident.
It would be really nice if the experts could all get together and reach some sort of consensus on this sort of thing so that we weren't given advice that basically boiled down to, "good parents don't live in frigid states like Minnesota" or "good parents have only one child, or else their children are all spaced ten years apart" or "good parents have more money than 95% of the U.S. population" or "good parents have four arms, and eyes in the back of their heads."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 04:28 pm (UTC)Anyway, yeah, those work really well when you have a kid who still fits into a baby bucket. Both Molly and Kiera outgrew their buckets at about six months (they weren't too heavy, they were too tall).