Gramma and Gramps Left The Baby At Home
Left the dentist this morning, after a regular check-up . . . the usual “grease job and oil change,” so to speak. As I walked to the parking lot, an elderly couple drove in and I noticed they had a baby seat in the back of their car.
“Guess they left the kid at home,” I thought. “The grandchildren can take care of their infant aunt or uncle while the old folks get their dentures checked out.”
I resisted the urge to ask, “Any more due?” or, “Guess those fertility treatments held on a bit longer than you expected, eh?”
The assumption, of course, is somewhere in the picture there is a grandsomething, and the old folks carry it around frequently enough to have a baby seat in the car at all times. It's easy: slip baby in, attach buckles, and off we go – no fuss, no bother.
When we were kids, they didn’t have stuff like that. You just tossed the kids in the back seat and slammed the door quick before they got out. On special days, if they were small, they could stand in the front seat. It took us a long and painful time to figure out that kids were safer when they were tied down.
I don’t know why people didn’t realize that kids going 40mph in a car are still going 40mph when the car stops suddenly and they keep going right through the windshield. I saw a car wreck where the kids literally walked away and the mother was so relieved.
“Guess they left the kid at home,” I thought. “The grandchildren can take care of their infant aunt or uncle while the old folks get their dentures checked out.”
I resisted the urge to ask, “Any more due?” or, “Guess those fertility treatments held on a bit longer than you expected, eh?”
The assumption, of course, is somewhere in the picture there is a grandsomething, and the old folks carry it around frequently enough to have a baby seat in the car at all times. It's easy: slip baby in, attach buckles, and off we go – no fuss, no bother.
When we were kids, they didn’t have stuff like that. You just tossed the kids in the back seat and slammed the door quick before they got out. On special days, if they were small, they could stand in the front seat. It took us a long and painful time to figure out that kids were safer when they were tied down.
I don’t know why people didn’t realize that kids going 40mph in a car are still going 40mph when the car stops suddenly and they keep going right through the windshield. I saw a car wreck where the kids literally walked away and the mother was so relieved.
posted by Tom Carten at 11:47 PM
1 Comments:
Daddy used to drive from RI to Vermont---on the old highways---with Mom and three kids in the car. The treat was to ride up front with the adults, but we had to take turns.
So, at 50-ish MPH, one child would slide over to the back and another slide to the front. Somehow we all lived to tell the tale.
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