Cultural values and parenting

[drwex]

This AM I had a moment of cultural parenting paralysis. It went sort of like this:

Driving L to school I find myself at a stoplight behind a recent-model SUV occupied by Driver, Adult Passenger, and Child Passenger. It's immediately obvious that Child Passenger is both young and not in any kind of restraint or seat. She's bouncing around, including leaning over and hugging Driver.

(For those of you who are not yourselves parents I need to note that this is a Major Bozo No-No. Driving with your kid not in a proper seat can get you a ticket in most states and in some places even more serious charges of child endangerment if the police and the DA are feeling cranky. But I've no idea what the MA law is on the topic, so let's just call it a serious safety concern.)

To my consternation, Parent pulls into the same parking lot as I'm heading for and it's immediately clear that Child is a classmate of L's. I don't know her, or her mother, but we have at least some tenuous connection.

I really wanted to say something - I consider having an active child bouncing around the back seat of a car to be dangerous for the child, the other occupants of the car, and probably others nearby. But I didn't, in part because I really resent people trying to tell me how to parent my children so I try not to tell other people. Everyone makes choices, and lord knows there are people around me who make parenting choices that raise more than a few eyebrows.

To complicate things further, the family is clearly one of the not-of-this-culture set that make up the majority of the class. I believe they've come from a country where the legal system has a very different view on child and automobile safety. What they did is probably perfectly normal for them - hell, my own mother doesn't understand my peculiar fetish with child safety while driving. When I was a child I bounced around the backs of cars in more or less exactly the same way this girl was bouncing around.

So my critique, if any, would come from a particularly privileged class and time position. I'm a white guy who is highly educated and can not only afford high tech safety equipment for my children I can read and understand the complex statistics that are used to justify regulations on such things. I come from a culture where children are rare (few per family) and each child is given a proportionately higher share of attention. Our culture has peculiar views of what privileges children should be given and at what stages of life, as well as what restrictions need to be placed on them. Other cultures don't necessarily share any of these things.

So I say nothing, and drive myself to distraction with self-analysis. Ain't being a geek grand.

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

would "hey, you might want to be careful. sometimes cops get twitchy about kids being unrestrained in a car. just as a heads up." just work?

[drwex]

Probably not. "cops get twitchy" is a bit of culture-specific jargon that I don't think she'd get. Her English is fine, but clearly not a native language - she communicates primarily with her daughter in what I'm guessing is Hindi. I'd have to explain what "twitchy" means, for starters.

I'm also afraid of being P-A about this. I don't really care if the cops are twitchy; I'm just concerned about the injuries an unrestrained child can sustain in even a minor traffic accident.

[tisana.livejournal.com]

You're being overly picky about wording. You can explain the concept without using that word. Me, I wasn't actually aware that you could get a ticket for it, only that it was frowned upon. You could explain to her that she could get in trouble with cops if they saw an unrestrained child in her car.

So what if that's not your primary concern?
It might be hers, and that's what you're appealing to.
Addressing your primary concern--that of bad parenting--is a bit...well, obnoxious. I don't disagree with you, mind...it's just such a personal thing to have someone correct you about.

[mizarchivist]

Pretty much exactly what I was going to say

[papertigers.livejournal.com]

I don't really care if the cops are twitchy; I'm just concerned about the injuries an unrestrained child can sustain in even a minor traffic accident.

if warning her about potential trouble with the police gets the child into the carseat, you've addressed your primary concern regardless, without risking offending her or increases the chances of her resisting your advice because of resentment of perceived criticism. it's not being passive-aggressive, it's being tactful and using effective communication, which is as much about what she hears as it is about what you say.

[dpolicar]

I think, in your state of mind, I would have been unable resist the urge to go at it passive-aggressively. As in "Boy, your daughter sure does seem to enjoy being in the car. Between the price of the tickets for having an unsecured child and the increased chance that he'll be injured in an accident, I just can't bring myself to do it... so riding is much more boring for L, I'm sure."

So, congratulations on your self-restraint!

[goddessfarmer.livejournal.com]

In a similar situation, because I know I'm an asshole about these things already, I would have spoken up with something to the effect of "hey, do you know that it's illegal to not use seatbelts for all people in a car, and children have to have special ones for their size? Your kid could easily get killed if some jerk slammed into you." I might not mention DES, or if the lady was a jerk back to me, I might. Someone who can afford an SUV can afford a child-seat.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Ouch, yeah, it's really tricky to handle situations like that. Sometimes when I desperately want to say something but can't think of any vaguely tactful way of doing so, I'll try making it into a question -- something like "Say, is her carseat broken or something? I noticed she didn't seem to be belted in or anything.... do you need a loaner for a while? I could ask around and see if anyone has a spare they could lend out for a few days."

If they don't take me up on it or don't seem to think it's a big deal, I have to be willing to drop it. But even so it sends the message that it's important to keep the kids safe and that other people notice when they don't.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

As you touched upon, it's not just parenting, it's defining a culture. Not only is there nothing wrong with stepping up and saying, "In our {culture/community/society} that's unacceptable behavior", doing so is pretty much required to hold a {culture/community/society} together. The consequences of their behavior extend beyond themselves; the car they swerve into could be yours.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

This. Just say "I'm not sure if you're aware, but there are laws about having all passengers under 18 buckled up, and if they're less than 60 pounds, they have to be in a special seat, in the backseat only."

As a parent, you should know the law, as a carseat you might think is legal isn't. I believe the law is "all passengers in the frontseat always, all passengers under 18 always, and under 60 lbs. in the backseat."

I've done a lot of baby shopping (and shopping research) lately (for friends and family, my & tony's siblings spawned 3 in the past 6 months, friends have popped out 5 more this year), so this is what I recall...it may not be perfectly right, but it's much closer than "uh....."

[n2mlq.livejournal.com]

This is one that gets my goat, and I've used the direct asshole approach of, you kids need to be in a car seat, it's not safe and it's not legal. Of course, I'm also not a shrinking violet on things I consider important.

I grew up in the car bed era, my oldest nieces were in very early carseat, and last weekend, I made some retailer very happy buying a new pair of extra big Britax seats for the twins since they've outgrown the ones they were in.

And yes, I have also called DFYS (what we had in NJ) on someone who routinely let their kids jump around. The final end of that was the kids were taken from the family that was only a public manifestation of how bad things were in that group.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

I would approach someone at the school and have them deal with it from a position of authority as opposed to random butting in. They can easily point out the laws and their expectations for their students.

[mrw42.livejournal.com]

I doubt I'd do anything differently than you did... I'd _want_ to say something, but then I'd run my own analysis (remarkably similar to yours) and decide that I'd rather live in a world where people make their own choices about things like this, even if some of them make choices I don't agree with.

[c1.livejournal.com]

So for the record, in MA, a child under the age of 8 is required to be in a car seat. Period.
MGL Chapter 90, section 7AA (http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/90-7aa.htm) basically bridges the gap between infant-type car seats and grown-up seatbelts with "young kid" booster seat/restraint requirements. Deval Patrick signed it into law 11 April, 2008, and it went into effect this past July.
Short form is that until the child reaches height and age benchmarks, the kid needs to be in a booster seat. Regardless of who you are, you need to have your seatbelt on-- adults and kiddos.
Please, next time, speak up. Tell them you have a friend who's an EMT, who will provide all kinds of professional anecdotal evidence that kiddos do much better when securely belted during a crash than when they're jumping around the passenger compartment. Seriously, I've got your back on this.