Car seats have also deterred me from a few trips, short and long. They're a hassle to get an uber and store at destination (say a sporting event), and they are a nightmare to lug around airports and add to the effective travel time by if you end up checking them in as luggage (and then waiting for them at the carousel).
Car Seats as Contraception
131–140 of 188 posts
Re: Car Seats as Contraception
#132I've mentioned this in another thread when the topic came up, but this has other effects like availability of backup childcare. With kids, unbelievably, needing some form of car seat until the age of 8~12.. you are limited in who can help with pickup/dropoff/after school programs to someone who borrows your car or is doing so often enough to buy the correct sized car seats for each of your kids. The upper limit being…
People are putting 12 year olds in car seats!?
Re: Car Seats as Contraception
#133Car seats have also deterred me from a few trips, short and long. They're a hassle to get an uber and store at destination (say a sporting event), and they are a nightmare to lug around airports and add to the effective travel time by if you end up checking them in as luggage (and then waiting for them at the carousel).
Last sporting event I went to I was able to check my car seat at the stroller check, the workers didn't bat an eye :)
Re: Car Seats as Contraception
#134car seats are one of the reasons I'm glad I don't have a car... don't need a car seat on the bus or train!
Re: Car Seats as Contraception
#135I've mentioned this in another thread when the topic came up, but this has other effects like availability of backup childcare. With kids, unbelievably, needing some form of car seat until the age of 8~12.. you are limited in who can help with pickup/dropoff/after school programs to someone who borrows your car or is doing so often enough to buy the correct sized car seats for each of your kids. The upper limit being…
People are putting 12 year olds in car seats!?
In CA AB-435 is written to apply a 5-point fit test to anyone under 16.
Re: Car Seats as Contraception
#136Car seats have also deterred me from a few trips, short and long. They're a hassle to get an uber and store at destination (say a sporting event), and they are a nightmare to lug around airports and add to the effective travel time by if you end up checking them in as luggage (and then waiting for them at the carousel).
Traveling with kids in car seats via any method other than one’s own vehicle is almost not worth the hassle. I always rent a car and car seat on the other end, or purchase a car seat for family to put in their car for us. I’ve also purchased strollers to stash with the same family. I’d rather buy all this than lug it through airports for “free.”
Re: Car Seats as Contraception
#137Wow, talk about the law of unintended effects! Without going into the specifics of car seats, I do think we overemphasize safety. The article mentions saving 57 children. How much are 57 lives worth? The answer is not infinite - a life has a numeric value, ask any insurance company. Every safety regulation ought to pass a cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis. Few of them do.
Cold-blooded cost/benefit analysis is an abdication of moral reasoning and responsibility. There is no such thing as an abstract life, only concrete realizations. What if the victim of an avoidable fatality is the one person who had they survived had the skills/insight/vision to literally save humanity from extinction?
I can accept an argument that there are societal tradeoffs that we must make that involve the sacrifice of human lives (obviously we should not try to remove risk to the extent that we live in sterile protective bubbles), but we should be honest about what we are doing and not hide behind some phony numbers that mask the fact that money, and hence numerical value, isn't an imaginary construct and that lives are fungible under this value system.
I further think that if we have an honest conversation instead of hiding behind quantitative analysis, we may actually have a productive dialogue about risk tradeoff and accountability. Perhaps if there is a wide gap between the bean counters and the bleeding hearts, there is a third possibility that needs to be explored.
Re: Car Seats as Contraception
#138I've mentioned this in another thread when the topic came up, but this has other effects like availability of backup childcare. With kids, unbelievably, needing some form of car seat until the age of 8~12.. you are limited in who can help with pickup/dropoff/after school programs to someone who borrows your car or is doing so often enough to buy the correct sized car seats for each of your kids. The upper limit being…
People are putting 12 year olds in car seats!?
I've observed that a whole lot of people absolutely do not keep putting kids in car seats once they're about the height & weight of a petite adult (us included).
So the guidelines say one thing, but I'd be surprised if a majority of parents are still putting their kids in them even by age 10, let alone 12.
Re: Car Seats as Contraception
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Wouldn't the real cause of the depressed birthrates be the requirement to own a car in order to have children?" Yes. The one-time setup costs for "properly" raising kids are probably around $30k. All the kids stuff is extra expensive (in the west) and for the kids seats you need a large car (in the west) and there's social stigma against kids sharing a room (in the west), so you also need a larger apartment.
Kid stuff is free if your time is worth nothing. There’s always another child outgrowing their car seats and toys and clothes and cribs and games.
Can confirm, the "stuff" costs basically nothing in the scheme of things and nearly all of it can be had used. A bunch of it's also not really all that necessary. Clothes and toys can all be had for very little, without even that much time investment, folks are drowning in this stuff and lots of it just gets thrown away.
The real money goes to:
1) Healthcare (in the US).
2) Childcare or foregone wages.
3) School/housing location (same thing; either tuition, or spending 20+% more for the same amount & quality of house in a nicer school district [and the ongoing cost of servicing the extra mortgage on that]; you can skip this, but if you can at all afford it, you'll not feel like it's optional)
4) Space. Larger housing and larger cars. You can skip this kind of (larger car is less-optional if you have more than three kids) but at significant cost to QOL.
Re: Car Seats as Contraception
#140I thought this was going to be about a car being uncomfortable to have sex in. Such a car would make for a great product to sell to parents of teenagers, so you can lend them the car but at least make it difficult to fornicate without consent of the king.
I figured the same thing, was expecting a lament about the demise of the glorious bench seat.