So there was this post

About car seats and safety. And it got locked and it was because some people are completely incapable of reading posts objectively. Does the phrase "blah blah blah" indicate basic respect and courtesy for the words to which it is the response? I think no.

Anyway, since I didn't get a chance to respond before the Blah Blah Blah-er got the thread locked, I'll post it here, since it was a darn good post--WhinyPerson comments in italics, comments from Myself in green :

WhinyPerson wrote:
blah blah blah...lol...just wanted to say something...lol...this subject is way heavy, can't we just leave it at we get what we want, and car seats now are a lot safer than they used to be, and just pray that we never have to test out the safety of any of them...


This is in the Hot Topics forum for the very reason that it is a heavy subject. Debates are often circular and can take a while to wind themselves down, as this one obviously is.


WhinyPerson wrote: good lord it's seems like it's being said that if you don't have a certain seat a certain way your child is gonna die and that it's your fault for putting them in that seat..bah...


I'm sorry that's the impression you've gotten. The bottom line is that a child is at considerably higher risk when improperly secured in an improperly installed car seat.



WhinyPerson wrote:
at least we are discussing the types of carseats not the lack thereof...I've seen several people riding down the highway with a young baby in their lap...


The point is that it is still unsafe to improperly secure a child in an improperly installed car seat.

Regarding forward vs rear-facing, I bet most of us that have chosen to keep our babies rear-facing past a year didn't know about the benefits of doing so until recently. I generally knew (through research via the internet of reputable websites) that it was safer, but I didn't realize just how much safer it was.

I don't know anyone who would call someone a bad mother for making a decision when they didn't know any better. The point of this is, now that the information has been made available, what will we do?


SomeOtherPersonWithWhomIGenerallyDisagree wrote:
Well if we want to get into the safety rating, then lets get into the car crash test safety ratings as well because if you are not driving the safest vehicle then you are putting your child in danger. Right?


The safety of various car seats depends on several factors. With the overhead shield type seats (see one here: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4645515), it's difficult to secure the child tightly enough in the seat, and it's been shown that 5-point seats are safer. Seats of this type only have three points, making it more difficult to secure the child properly.

For the rest of the 5-point harness seats, the place where safety ratings come into play is mainly in installation.

Consumer Reports bases much of their ratings on ease of install and ease of use. A seat that is difficult to install is obviously more likely to be installed incorrectly. Incorrectly installing said seat means the child is at greater risk of injury, therefore, the seat ends up with a lower rating by Consumer Reports. A seat that is easy to install but makes it difficult to properly secure the child (for instance, our spare Evenflo) will have a lower rating, too. For Baby Bargains' ratings, factors like how the company handled prior recalls and customer service enter the picture as well.

The main reason those of us who have Britax seats recommend them so highly is that not only do they perform very well in crash tests, but they are easy to install correctly in many vehicles, and the harness is designed in such a way that a secure fit for the child is very easy, too.

I've had a Graco, a Cosco, an Evenflo, and a Britax. For ease of use, I infinitely prefer the Britax.

That said, a correctly installed seat with a secure fit for your child is the safest way to go, be that a Britax or any other brand.

SomeOtherPersonWithWhomIGenerallyDisagree wrote:
If you want to get into statistics, no one should be driving anyway, it is very unsafe just for you to put yourself behind the wheel let alone put your child(ren) at that risk.


I think we would all agree that in this area, cars and driving are a necessary evil.

Me again--here's my PM to the Administrator of the Most Sensitive Forum of the Year:

Her:

Thanks in Advance for your cooperation . . . .This forum is now LOCKED!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Me:

J, you know I love ya, but I have to express my displeasure at the locking of this thread.

It's a shame that it was not allowed to continue and resolve itself. Yeah, I'm probably miffed because I just spent an hour compiling a very polite post that included information on several seats (that I never got around to after discovering the thread was locked) and some deeper insight into how car seat safety ratings are established, and asking for clarification on some remarks, all without insulting anyone. I have the whole post copied and saved because it was a good one. LOL

The point is that people are going to read something into anything, and if someone wants to see "you're a bad mom" then they're gonna see it regardless of what is typed. Heck, it seems some people will translate "I think the sky is blue" into "you're a bad mom." :wink:

The locked topic was in a debate forum. If we are not allowed to make points and our debates are not allowed to complete themselves, then I fail to see how this forum will succeed. There are always going to be posts that get riled up on any message board (I oughta know, I've been on various boards for 7 years, and I think I've been through every debate topic to come up on a parenting board LOL), and they always resolve themselves. It may not be to the liking of everyone, but people do reach an understanding. I regret that that was not allowed to happen in this case. If threads that get heated continue to be shut down without resolution by the posters themselves, then I don't think this forum is going to get very far. Pretty soon no one will feel like they are able to express an opinion other than the one put forth by an original poster. The board will stagnate and that will be sad. I'm not speculating, I've seen it happen.

We are adults and fully capable of disagreeing without being hurtful. I didn't see anyone call names. I did see a poster asking for clarification of the comment "blah blah blah." Since it's usually meant as dismissive and disdainful of the quoted segment, I was going to ask for clarification of it in my post myself.

I didn't see anyone telling someone else that their kid's carseat was unsafe and nowhere did any poster call anyone else a bad mother. There is a lot of misinformation regarding car seats out there, and a lot of it was getting aired and corrected. I think the discussion was headed in a good direction. It's a shame it wasn't allowed to continue.

Even regarding the "not hurting others' feelings" rule for the board, I think it's a little impractical. It's inevitable that someone will get hurt over some perceived slight, and I think that's just one of the hazards of a written forum. I don't think a post should be pulled, edited, or locked because someone might get hurt when a post is misinterpreted.

Of course, all of this is just my opinion. ;)

Adding--I just noticed that the thread has been moved back to Parenting Concerns. Obviously I'm not an Admin, but I think it would have been just find to continue in the debate forum. It appears as though it was moved back to Parenting Concerns and then locked, which, IMO wasn't really fair to us as posters.

Normal me again. I was very tempted to add, after typing out all of that, then seeing how things went, "And there are some of us that are more articulate than others, and I see no reason why the inarticulate weenies should ruin it for the rest of us."

But I'm a good girl, so I didn't.

That said, my comments about stagnating forums are correct. As an example, my due date boards. Board A is very nice-nice, and no one disagrees on parenting things because they don't want to hurt feelings or make anyone feel like a bad mom or anything like that. Board B has some of the most unusual and noisiest debates on the Parenting Community. And we've debated it all. Board A is extremely slow these days, and there's nothing on it but "the baby cut another tooth" and "S/he's walking!" Board B is still having insightful and entertaining discussions on everything from WIC to Extended Nursing to American Idol to the lastest episode of Desperate Housewives. Board B used to be known as the "mean" board. Actually, after a car seat debate over there, in which Board B people came over and got snitty, it held on to the title of Mean Board. Anyway, I love Board B. Yeah, so we squabble and bitch and moan, but should one of our members be insulted by some other board, we've got their back. :)