Bad Parent: To Hell with Babyproofing
I'm not securing any cabinets.
by Erin Blakeley
March 6, 2008
Yet, among the other mothers in my group, panic was setting in. Brows furrowed, they volleyed questions to the moderator. Should they banish their household cleaners to the garage? Cover the hardwoods with composite foam flooring? Replace the blinds with curtains?
The trend toward overzealous babyproofing isn't isolated to the parents I know; it's everywhere. At the hardware store, there is an entire aisle dedicated to babyproofing products. The array of plastic fixtures you can buy to secure your home is mind-blowing: magnetic cabinet locks, folding door latches, faucet covers, outlet covers, oven knob locks, cord wind-ups, bolts to secure your furniture to the walls, lockboxes for your cleaning products and medications, tubes for your wires, fences, gates, and — of course — furniture corner covers.
The message seems to be that childhood is a time of profound danger, and that the only way to confront that danger is by adopting an all-consuming, hyper-vigilant style of parenting — and by spending lots of money. In fact, if you don't trust yourself to seek out and identify all the death-defying hazards in your home, you can spend hundreds of dollars hiring a company to come to your apartment or house and babyproof it for you.
I suppose if you are already replacing your plastic bottles with glass ones, forcing your doctor to agree to a revised vaccine schedule and regularly checking the state sex offender registry, then breaking out the power tools and tearing up your cabinets is just another day's parenting.
Overzealous babyproofing is one more example of overparenting gone mad.
But for those of us who resist the idea that responsible childrearing means driving yourself crazy, it is one more example of overparenting gone mad.
Nevertheless, my husband and I thought about it. We could put safety bars on our windows and latches on our cabinets, we reasoned. We could scrub our floors each morning and nail the furniture to the walls. And while we were at it, we could go back to being the kind of people who physically attach themselves to their child's stroller.
So instead, we waited, as tummy time turned into tripod sitting, and batting toys turned into holding them. Crawling and climbing came next, followed by opening and shutting, dumping and spilling. Through all those phases, we have discovered that our son isn't Evel Knievel; he's just a kid who's curious about his world. And at no point have we felt that he is such a danger to himself that we have to build him a padded room.
©2008 Erin Blakeley and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Erin Blakeley is a freelance writer and journalist whose work has appeared in the Star Ledger, NYC24, and Tiempo, among other publications. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and son.
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