Grandparents Vs. Car Seats

 I have long been of the opinion that not every innovation that is thrust upon us represents progress. No where is this more true than in the area of cutting edge children’s safety protocols. Pam and I just got back in town after spending several days taking care of our little grandson. While there our experience with several of these new safety innovations brought to mind that wonderful old Ella Fitzgerald song, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.

First of all there’s the question of car seats.

The business of securing a small child securely in a two ton vehicle as it barrels down the highway at 70 mph is an obviously important task. But the current level of complexity associated with these devices cannot in any cogent way be considered an improvement over the car seats of 30 years ago. For one thing, the human species has not yet evolved the third hand necessary to properly secure a child into the sixteen-point Rube-Goldberg system of engineering on display in current models. 

When I was a young father, the car seats we had were state of the art for that era which meant there was a big V-shaped harness that draped over the child after he had been placed in the seat. There was one big hook on the end of this V-shaped strap that clicked neatly into a metal clip close to the child’s crotch. Once secured the straps fell perfectly down from the kid’s shoulders, across his chest, to said crotch. The entire securing process—assuming the child wasn’t in full meltdown mode because I refused to buy her ice cream—took all of 15 seconds start to finish. 

What Pam and I encountered this weekend was the equivalent of asking a parent (or grandparent in this case) to perform advanced algebra without a calculator, while it was 95 degrees out with 100% humidity and also while your grandchild had the croup. The new regime consists of 6 different straps that must be secured to each other. Unfortunately all six of these straps happen to be located exactly where you just placed your wiggly grandchild after sitting him in the car seat. Job one is to fish all six straps out from behind a sitting child who has no insensitive to help in any way. Once all six are successfully yanked out from his nether regions you can begin the complicated system of attaching all six straps to the multi-point hooks to be found not in or around the crotch area but instead at the child’s belly button. Unfortunately getting all six to meet at this agreed upon location at the same time is next to impossible. When we were experiencing this dilemma I had just started the car and turned the air conditioner on full blast which had the effect of lowering the temperature in the back seat approximately 5 degrees …from 95 to 90…while Pam was reaching exasperation Level DefCom 5. “Its so tight!! I can’t get them to snap into place!! Even if I do, the poor child won’t be able to breathe! This is ridiculous!!!”

I unhooked my seat belt—for no discernible reason because I had no expertise to bring to bear on such a project—but I thought maybe the unclicking sound might demonstrate a heightened level of concern on my part for what she was going through back there. I should point out that during this exasperating ordeal our grandson was as good as gold, although he would have been within his rights to have been throwing the mother of all tantrums. Finally Pam remembered that there was a special button hidden in the seat under the cloth lining which when reached with that third hand I mentioned earlier lived up to its official name in the owners manual of this seat-o-pain—-the magic button. She dug around blindly under the padding of the seat, finally secured the button just about the time that the blood flow was being cut off from her hand and just like that the entire apparatus loosened, allowing her to make the 6 point click. I should point out that instead of 15 seconds, this procedure took ten minutes—if you don’t count the three years it took off of our lives.

Now…it’s true that if we had gotten in an accident, our entire car might have been demolished but that kid, in that seat was going nowhere, my friends. Of course, good luck to the policeman, or fireman responsible for removing him from the car. Would they know how to find the magic button??

Of course, I could also tell you about the lengths parents are being asked to go to secure their little ones in their high chairs—which I feel compelled to add are not hurdling down the highway at 70 mph. But that discussion will have to wait for another day.

Suffice it to say that while the Olympian distortions required to manhandle these safety features might be perfectly suited to young parents with their nimble, arthritis-free joints, it plays hell with us grandparents! But, we’re doing the best we can…and waiting for that third hand.