Car seats are one of the best inventions since automobiles.  They have saved countless young lives, and they make travel nice.  They give the kids a place that is “theirs”, they provide a nice place to sleep, and they keep kids from crawling all over the car.  I’m a big fan of car seats.

However, as with everything, they work best when used with a little moderation.  For example, I know some parents that leave their kids in car seats for 8 hours at a time, with almost no breaks in between.  Some parents even “lean over” their babies to nurse because they don’t want to take them out of the car seat.  Are you kidding?!?  Kids can’t sit that long, and it’s certainly not safe for a parent to lean over a car seat without a seat belt herself.  How do you burp the baby afterwards?  Use a little wisdom.  Stop in a small town and let them play on a playground for an hour.  Let them out for a few minutes to let energy on safer stretches of the road, then put them back in.

Here’s the latest: kids are now supposed to be rear facing to age two!   I have five kids, and I can tell you they travel 100% better facing forward.  There’s no way an 18 month old would enjoy a long trip facing backwards, away from everyone.  Should babies face backward?  Absolutely.  Should they be in the back seat away from the airbags?  Absolutely.  But where do we draw the line between safety and common sense?

The problem is many in the world want to make everything perfectly safe.  They want a Disneyland experience with life. In fact, we have legislated things to be so safe, we can’t enjoy family trips in the car anymore. Families don’t take trips together because it’s too difficult.  Boy scouts can hardly shoot guns anymore.  School teachers cannot discipline students anymore.  We’re losing a generation because we’re going beyond the mark.

Should we throw safety out the window?  Of course not.  Do I let my kids play with firearms?  Of course not.  Is an “accidents happen” attitude an excuse for negligence?  Absolutely not.  But the way things are going, we’ll soon have to wrap our kids in three feet of bubble wrap anytime they leave the house or ride in a car.  Of course, if that were to happen, we’d then find out the bubble wrap caused cancer in 0.0001% of the kids, and we’d then be legislated into keeping them home until 18 years old.  :)