Mr. Mom I am not

Stop suing already

These days some advocacy group or another is always screaming at us that we need to avoid some thing or another or our children are going to die or at least be horribly mentally, emotionally, or physically harmed. . I have been told to avoid television, gummy candy, used books (they spread germs, what does the library sanitize them all), trick or treating, various games, trampolines, certain playground equipment, pressure treated wooden playgrounds,  tap water, soda, the sun, teaching them how to write, keeping firearms, keeping a pool, owning pets, vaccines, and countless other apparent hazards to children's health.

I don't have a problem with these advocacy groups telling me about the hazards of the particular activity or item. As a matter of fact I welcome the information they put out. The more information I have about any subject the better I am able to make decisions. 

What I have a problem with is when these groups try to prevent me from exercising my rights to participate in these activities through legislation or lawsuits. Sometimes they can produce good results, such as requiring car seats and booster seats for children.  But even in this case is it up to me to provide a safe seat for my kids if I know that they should be in a booster?  A booster seat helps reduce injuries by 58% over seatbelts alone. I know many people will just not use a booster if it is not required and I am not heartbroken that it is the law but does one positive make up for 10 negatives?

I know most of these groups have good intentions and are well meaning but we know which road we can pave with good intentions. 

What idiot doesn't know that having McDonald's food every meal is going to make your kids fat,  watching television all day does not make your kids smart, they should brush their teeth after eating candy, or that they should use sun block if they are out in the sun.  I am pretty sure that if you have a trampoline you should secure it and closely monitor its use. 

The problem is that if special interest groups don't get outright bans on these things they still raise the cost of them to all of us through lawsuits and threats of lawsuits.  Disney is going to shell out piles of money for the Baby Einstein DVD buybacks and for lawyers to help avoid future lawsuits.  To recoup that cash they are just going to jack up the price of something else like other DVDs or theme park tickets. Why did they have to threaten to sue Disney until they got money?  Yes the consumer is getting the $15.99 per DVD but how much did Disney shell out to the group and their lawyers? Disney had agreed to remove education claims from the DVDs.  Many of these educational claims were already on the DVDs when Disney bought the company so why not sue the creator?

Go ahead though keep suing until there are no shows produced at all for kids and they have to watch re-runs of H.R. Puff and Stuff on Hulu.  Now that was some quality educational programming for children.

Imagine now if the anti-vaccine groups got polio and measles shots banned.  Or what if they just got the vaccine producers to refund money to every child who had a vaccine in the last five years?  How much vaccine are they going to produce next year?

Guess what kills more kids under age 15, a gun in the home or the toilet. Yes more kids under age 15 drown in the toilet than are killed by accidental firearms discharges in the home.  The swimming pool kills about four times as many or more. 

Have you ever tried donating used toys to charity lately?  Good luck if you do.  If you find a charity that takes used toys let me know.  Too many charities are afraid of lead paint or toys that have been recalled. 

Playgrounds are becoming scarce in some towns.  Remember merry go rounds and see saws?  There used to be a wonderful pressure treated wooden play ground in a small town here on the Cape but one day a kid got a splinter and well that was it for the playground.  I would have just given the complainers a pair of tweezers but instead we all lost the playground.   

The role of these groups in our society is to inform us not protect us.  It is our role as parents to protect our families.  To do this we must use all the information we can get about any subject.  But it is up to us what to do with that information.  As for me I will still let my kids get vaccines, watch DVDs, jump on the trampoline, eat at McDonalds, go out in the sun sometimes without sun block, and go to the playground.