There is no such thing as a “quick trip” to the store anymore. Those days of yore when your mom would literally throw you in the backseat of the car and be at the local grocery store in three minutes are long gone.
Today’s time-intensive replacement routine has become nothing short of pre-calculated child appendage weaving and high-impact parental calisthenics. The aerobic saga of strapping your darling brood into their car seats, that is. It’s an endless myriad of military-grade carbon-fiber buckles, snaps, straps, latches, pads, mounting brackets, bubble-wrap, and eight-point racing harnesses. It’s the equivalent of prepping a NASCAR driver for a couple hundred laps…just without the assistance of a pit crew or a toddler-sized shoe-horn.
Couple that routine with the actual effort that it takes to actually strap one of those things into your car. And if you’re lucky enough to have one of those older cars without that “latch system” installed? Best of luck to you. You’re basically left to fend for yourself, using thousand year-old origami techniques on those shoulder harnesses.
You must also ensure that you use the proper leverage during the installation phase. Otherwise, be dazzled upon initial speed bump impact, as you witness junior’s car seat begin to spin counter-clockwise like the knife-throwing “Wheel of Death” act from the circus sideshow tent. Not that I’ve personally witnessed anything like that before…
My installation technique usually involves jamming my less-than-narrow 210 pound frame into my child’s car seat in order to achieve that maximum, required leverage. Once I’m thoroughly wedged in and the car seat is properly weighted down, I tighten the straps to attain the appropriate placement tension.
Although masterfully resourceful and highly effective, it also leaves the neighbors curious as to why a grown man would sit in a toddler seat and violently rock back and forth…all while cursing like a North Atlantic sailor. While debatable, I have found that a frequent smile and wave provides them with the needed assurance that all is right at the asylum and communicates that the local constables aren’t required at this juncture. Not that they’ve personally witnessed anything like that before…
I really do understand the safety benefits behind all of it. The way my family staggers, teeters, and pavement-bounces their way through life, safety-first is essentially requisite for simple survival. After a humorous New Year’s Eve discussion on the matter though, it begs the question. Where were these safety measures when we were kids and how did we survive without them?
Think back. Yesteryear’s car seats were basically mom or dad reaching into the backseat to hold you in place while swerving and braking. Occasionally this technique would go awry and you would wind up on the floor under the passenger seat. However, you’d always manage to score that handful of loose change that had fallen under there for future candy machine use. Concussion winning!
Much like car seats, bike helmet safety has evolved as well. Modern helmets are now fully-equipped with the latest blast-proof foam, adequate ventilation, and engineered to withstand a head-on collision with a 747.
Head protection in my era was basically your eleventh-hour attempts at strategic flailing. Aerial efforts skillfully executed to target your delicate melon towards the hydrangea in the neighbor’s front yard. The end result of a failed bunny-hop of the curb at 15 mph, followed by the subsequent, twisting catapult over the handlebars. A hydrangea, by the way, that never quite grew back…much to my neighbor’s chagrin.
Even if you were smart enough to wear a helmet in those days, it was probably one of those flimsy toy helmets that you entrusted with your cranial well-being. It probably had more to do with looking like “Speed Racer” than actual safety in most cases, but the general idea was there.
Unfortunately, my mouse pad has greater impact-resistance than any of those helmets ever did. Thinking back, I never recalled seeing that ASTM certification sticker next to the “Made in China” stamp either. In hindsight, the lead byproducts in those things probably did even less for my cerebral development than my epic hydrangea dismount ever did. That explains a lot, actually.
Outside of car seats and bike helmets, US Government child safety directives of my youth could probably be best summed up by the cars of the late 1970s. Those spectacular, twenty-ton battleships labeled by “The Big Three” as the “family station wagon”. Part 350-horsepower battering ram; part cross-country touring hearse.
Especially endearing to these automobiles was the built-in babysitter. The rear-facing “way-back” seat. Not only could you completely ignore what your kids were getting into, but it was seemingly designed to eliminate all instances of kid-related static through a combination of distance and rear-facing projection acoustics. Well-played, Detroit! A prime example of demographic marketing at its best.
Ironically, this was apparently where my wife “quietly” spent most of her childhood. Maybe that’s the reason why she gets that look of complacency when the kids are screaming “huh, what” from the back seat.
I have to be honest. After all of those exploding Ford Pinto allegations of the time, you really have to wonder how the idea of a “way-back seat” over the gas tank ever really gained traction and came to fruition.
So where does this all leave me in my quest to shave seven minutes from my trips with a carload of children? Cutting corners by off-roading through people’s front yards at high speeds? Jumping over neighborhood retaining ponds like those “Dukes of Hazzard” did? Although an enticing personal challenge, I’m not 100% on the amount of “air” that I could get out of that minivan. Not yet, anyway.
Maybe the reappearance of the automatic seatbelt would help trim some time. Belts that automatically strap your youngsters in for you. Remember those wonderful safety devices of late 1980s fame? Your head out of the window, talking to a member of the opposite sex after school. Looking cool. Then, upon turning your car off, the seatbelt suddenly rolls forward across your neck and pushes your face into the steering wheel. Coolness personified. Not that I’ve been personally scarred by anything like that before…
On second thought, I’ll take my chances jumping the retaining pond.
