Recall of 6300 Shrek 3 promotional headbands.
Ok, I cannot TELL you how many felt headbands (costumes and otherwise) that I had growing up, or that my kids have had, that haven't had a wire or a piece of plastic protrude at some point that poked me or them. Is it really cause for a recall?
Following that logic, can I request a recall of all those underwire bras I've had over the years where the wire started to poke through and stabbed me in the chest? Talk about dangerous!
Seriously... we can't live in a bubble. Kids are going to get hurt. It makes me crazy that we're in such a sue-happy world that we're teaching our kids to be wimps and to not have any common sense when it comes to danger.
When we lived in Alabama, there was a park right across the street that I loved to take my kids to. It had a merry-go-round... remember those?!? Most parks around here don't have them any more, and they don't have swings, either. All because we've become so paranoid about our kids getting hurt. I can remember getting on the merry-go-round with my friends at school and having them turn it and turn it until we were going so fast that I had to hang on for dear life. It was great! And then I'd be the one turning it... running faster and faster and then jumping on when it was fast enough.
Playgrounds today are so sanitized... they're all the same. Plastic bubbles... no square corners, as little metal as possible. Some may still have chains holding up the suspension bridge, but you watch... those will be gone soon. Too hazardous for little fingers. They all have a short slide and a curvy slide... they all have a bridge of some kind... they all have a fire pole... and they all have those silly turning activity blocks (tic-tac-toe) and a steering wheel... and that's about it. You climb up, you slide down. You climb up, you slide down. Maybe spin the steering wheel on your way across the bridge, but that's all there is to it.
There is a park in Lawrenceville near a duck pond that my kids loved to go to. It had a spider web... one of those domes that is all poles and hollow on the inside so you can climb up and hang from the top. They recently renovated the park. They got rid of the spider web. At least they put in a rock climbing wall, 6 feet high, and kept the swings. So it's still a great park by local standards. But I was sad to see the spider web go, and so were the kids.
Instead of trying to protect our kids from every hurt out there, why not teach them how to keep from getting hurt when presented with dangerous settings? Teach them to be careful of sharp corners, to be careful when climbing up high, to be careful when they're hanging upside down from the monkey bars (yeah... none of those around anymore, either). But damn, people... let them have fun and be kids!
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