New safety laws for kid stuff
 

LA Times story

So the prices will go up on new clothes, you won't be able to buy clothes at second hand shops, but Thomas trains might be spared. Hey, thanks China.

Thanks for the tidbit -- I sent it on to my SIL.

Oh goodness. Wrap the kids in bubblewrap and keep them in the house.

I'm pretty sure we survived much worse.

Yeah, and look how well we turned out.

It built character, man.

Toolin' around on the moped with no helmet. Riding my bike into the next town. Riding in the back of my dad's pick-up truck. Swimming in the quarry. Things kids probably can't do today...but they were some good times.

The thing is, that kid who died eating a lead charm? He was 12. Survival of the fittest and all.

(I have no idea how old that kid was...I was kidding.)

Wow. No second hand kids' clothes? I mean, obviously, someone somewhere will sell some.....what they gonna do, police garage sales? But still...that's a kick in teeth to any family on a tight income with fast growing kids.

You know, thinking about it, it's a wonder any of us made it to adulthood given how dangerous the world is and how imminent the peril around every corner, or indeed lurking in an innocent looking thrift shop.

[eta] It must be truly, incomprehensively awful to lose a child, or see your child injured, but unless there's been a gross dereliction of duty or ill intent, it's usually a personal tragedy not a public one. It really pisses me off, when that personal tragedy is used to drive or shore up public policy. I mean, if you buy a toy bear and its has a bloody big metal spike inside it, you've a case for pushing for better quality checks and standards on kid's toys. But a child of 12 removes something from his trainer and chokes on it? Really?

We buy everything at thrift stores, including most of my work clothes.

The one big thing I remember (I'm sure there were others that aren't surfacing as readily) was the jungle gym on the school playground. It had to be twelve feet tall or so. And the playground was sand. Nice, hard, unyielding, injury-causing sand. None of this soft, kid-friendly mulch. Lawsuit city.

Sand? Sand?!

I'm sure that was nice for you sissies. Our playground equipment was located over blacktop.

We had gravel.

And we never swallowed anything that came off of our shoes.

Cars are dangerous. We ride in those all the time.

Exactly!

Once mom found this, we weren't allowed to go to the other one...the gravel was so much SAFER!

I was talking to Mum today about witches' hats. A really exciting playground staple until they were banned for being dangerous. She had no idea what I meant until I described it verbally and sketched it out in the air with my hands. Then she remembered them, but only from her own childhood, not that they were banned during mine.

Here is one in a foreign place.
My apologies, you can't embed - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F9_lZbjTsIM
Here is another from the fifties, the standard UK hat is in the background from 0.05


It's a conical device balacing on a central pole with a plank seat surround. Looks great. Looks harmless and safe with an ickle babba on it. Rises and dips slowly and serenely.

Now, imagine it is not quite so well balanced. Imagine you are a skinny child, standing on the seat (you were actually supposed to sit on the ones I grew up with, the seats were low) and there are other heavier, more boisterous children spinning the ride, and weighting it down in peculiar ways, so that you are plunged down one second and then lifted wide-eyed into what feels like the sky the next.

Yes, I loved it. I sincerely mourn its passing.

But I do appreciate that some children were probably hurt on it/ by it. My tough old parents, born during the war/ the war's aftermath would have accepted a playground injury. But the world moves on from that. Although perhaps not for foreigners :)

I haven't seen a playground merry-go-round since I was a kid. Even full sized swings are very hard to find. I know of only 2 full sized swing sets in my county, and they are old.

just remember one thing: short sleeves :: short career

I used to love the Witch's Hat! But...they were probably the exception to prove the rule on unnecessary caution.

And I am sure they lifted that roundabout from Queen's Park in Bolton! It's frakking identical.

Heehee. that's what I was thinking!

Nothing with lead based dye or paint is acceptable for sale here.

We still have plenty of thrift shops.

Oh sure, we outlawed lead based dye and paint too, but China still sent it to us. So now you have to get an independent approved lab to verify there is no lead in your products. That is what is effectively stopping the sale of anything but products made by large manufacturers with deep pockets.

We have that issue here, but there's a consumer watchdog set up to catch the people who import these types of things before or very shortly after they hit the shops.

I'm sure there's plenty that still get through, but they're mostly sold at what you might call flea markets etc where there's less likelihood the government will find out where their product comes from.

Fortunately these are the places that are patrolled the most. Some of these products are incredibly dangerous, especially for children. Take the case of bindi beads as an example.

Our neighborhood was built about ten years ago, and the local playground has a merry-go-round. Mr. Clod actually injured himself with it (he tripped while running alongside it.) I don't know what you mean by a full-size swing set, but in this same park the pole that the swings hang from is at least ten feet off the ground. But the ground is covered with that sissy mulch... :)

We have those merry go round type swings here. My boys love them...and the younger kids usually think it's great when Aden and Mav make them go faster and faster.

This is what I consider to be full sized. Most of the swings around here are for toddlers and have chains that are maybe 3 feet long.

typical swing set around here:

Yeah, you just live in pansy-ville. :) We've got lots of dangerous stuff still available. A plastic rock-climbing wall that goes straight up, slides from about ten feet up, a huge rolling log that you are supposed to climb up and run on like the outside of a hamster wheel...

Play pumps! One great idea and worth the risk!
Kid power turns the wheel, fresh water for all. :)

http://www.playpumps.org/site/c.hqLN...ewsletter2.asp

Our local park had a metal carousel thingy, say ten years ago. About 7 or 8 it was taken out and replaced with something newer and more safety conscious. (To be fair, the old one was old and due for replacement.)

There were also some bouncy riding animal on heavy springs sticking out of the ground that disappeared about the same time. The swings, however, are still there.

My school had one of those spinning things when I was a kid. Rattle snakes lived under it, and the hand bars were wrapped in razor wire. There was a 10 foot deep circular pit around the perimeter with rusted iron spikes and eight inches of human excrement in the bottom.

Because of the rattle snakes, they powered it with a giant electric motor that would sometimes run out of control and spin it at a high rate of speed, flinging fingerless kids into the cinderblock wall until it looked like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Nobody ever complained.

That's actually not a bad design . .. the pit of human excrement would be regularly, and automatically, refilled by the kids who had the shit scared out of them.

I'm appalled. I hope clothing gets exempt. I have recently become very involved with the thrift store that benefits the public schools here. We know that many families rely on us (especially for kids' clothes) because we sell good condition clothing at affordable prices. All the other thrift stores in town put their prices up when the demand increased about a year ago.

wait a minute...who will benefit most if families on low budgets can no longer buy second hand clothes? Where is the next cheapest place to find clothes?.....

WALMART.

it's a conspiracy.....

We did have an advantage in that not everything in our lives came from China.

One of the guys at work was bitching today, he tried to buy pajamas for his grandsons for Christmas and couldn't find any that were flame resistant.:(

Do they live inside a pyre? Where do they live where flames are just shooting everywhere?

just messin'

Was he looking for some specific label that named them as flame-resisitant? Unless they're younger than 9 months, all children's pajamas are required by law to either be flame-resistant or "snug-fitting."

He said all he could find is pajamas that had big warning labels that they were flammable. I don't know if he was looking for a particular design or pattern.

New career: Illegal dumpster diver.

I'm going places folks! Straight to the top! Of your trash cans...

When my kids were little we couldn't get sleepers that were not chemically treated to be fire retardant. We had to put them in "play" clothes at night to avoid the chemicals.

We got a sleeper recently for my son and forgot to wash it before letting him sleep in it. He was covered in a rash in the morning.

we washed it and gave him a week or two before reintroducing it to him, and he was fine sleeping in it.

Those chemicals are nasty.

Why don't they just make the clothing out of brick, or astronaut suits, or hazmat hats?

IMHO "flame retardant" is not nearly as important as "natural fibers." You want something that will catch on fire and burn (and can be put out quickly), not something that will melt on the kid's skin.

but fleece is so soft!

And makes such cool static flashes under the blankets.

I can't understand what you're talking about unless somebody photoshops the thing you're describing.

Baby Gap sells 100% cotton untreated pj's. You have to buy them a few sizes bigger than normal (and they only go to size 5) because they are supposed to be skin tight (so they don't have to be fire proof). Some Gap kids stuff is ok, some Gymbo stuff, found some at Children's Place this year... everything else feels too gross. I just tell my kids not to smoke in bed.

We make ours smoke on the porch, filthy habit.

We import cotton PJs from the UK :)

Well that's just fine, but how do you know they'll listen? Some children, I've heard, do the exact opposite of what the parents want, just to test them!

Yeah, so?

lol

Books are "children's products" too. Looks like its a smart time to hit resale shops and stock up on deadly books, toys, and clothing....

We are a middle-class, single income family who will be financially ruined if unable to purchase used children's clothing, toys, and books. We may be able to avoid total financial devastation... by not buying anything for our children ever again. There's no way this law is enforceable.

My brother and mom and I were talking about how my brother and I used to play with mercury, snagged from the HS chem lab. Also, once we wanted to see how high the thermometer would go so we put a pan of water on the stove; the thermometer melted. So we just poured the mercury-laden water down the drain.

We also played with, I think manganese strips? Somehow we would make them burn or spark or something. Also snagged from chem lab. Mom said they used to play with pennies in mercury.

Nowadays you'd have hazmat hell. But none of it hurt any...(keels over dead.):dead3:

Probably magnesium? You can buy magnesium firestarters at camping stores.

Ahhh, yes...that was it!

Chem lab was completely unguarded...anyone taking chem could go into the chemical room. I bet it's not like that now. [\oldlady]

It's already being fixed:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,6917858.story

And even if the law still passes without the amendment, they're not intending to make it stick:

"the most dangerous products." Like Marvin's Marvelous Mercury Milkshake Maker, Fart-n-Flame, and Plastic Bag Playhouse.

Don't forget "Bag O' Broken Glass."

Irwin Mainway is in trouble...

Naptime Noose

*Wicked grin* My secondary school was a little rough around the edges, and our Chem teacher was a burned out cynic who hated teaching and would have gone back into industry in a heartbeat, but was too near retirement for anyone to take him on. He'd be sporadically interested in teaching us and then he'd bugger off leaving us with 'projects' to do. The labtechs were always leaving cupboards unlocked. We got up to all sorts of shit. Remember those big, heavy glass jars with rubber sealed plungey (not the technical name) lids? There were two of these with sulphuric acid in them. They rolled down the corridor in a particularly satisfying way....all rumble and slosh.

What's that grey putty stuff that explodes on contact with water? Chem teacher took us and the entire school supply round back to the 'nature reserve' and demonstrated its explosive properties by bombing frogs.

I wasn't actually present when Lab 2 (prefab) went up. But I don't think anybody was truly surprised.

This all sounds like another way to avoid cracking down on China for the hazardous crap they send here. Let's clean up after them now, and suffer again for their exploitation of our demands.

I can't believe they turned us into a nation of hazardous waste. And now we have to do a quarantine of everything sold.....They need to come here and test every questionable item they sent packing...

We should really do it. Test it all, load up the poisons, and send it in aircrafts back, dumping it in their cities.

Do you really think it was us that recently poisoned the beads with drugs? Why should I clean up after China?

$80B of t-bills a month is why