Consider Yourself Warned - S - Safety (Part 1)

There's so much to say about children's safety.



OK, I lied. There's only one thing to say - there's no such thing as safety. NOTHING is safe in the hands of a child.

Toy manufacturers will try to convince you that their products are safe, but they lie like snakes (no morals, these toy makers, but what do you expect from the people who unleashed Singing Barney on the world?).

That said, while there's no "safe" and "unsafe," there is less dangerous and more dangerous. It's a spectrum, stretching from fuzzy teddy bears on the one end to arsenic-drenched knives that are somehow also on fire on the other.

Avoid the false comfort of the left side of that spectrum. If your child does not succeed in biting off part of the teddy bear and choking on it, they will learn from it to be unafraid of real bears, and will eventually attempt to confront one. Repeat after me: nothing is safe.

Here is a typical toy marketed to parents:

Plastic with no sharp edges, eye-burningly colorful, and "educational" because it has some numbers and letters on it or some such crap. This toy is so ridiculously safe that you couldn't hurt yourself on it if you tried. If a single child is hurt by this toy, there will be a mass recall of all 200,000 units ever sold.

Here's what that toy looks like in the hands of your three-year-old:

So when you have kids, go ahead and cover over any exposed wires and lock away your knives (especially if they're on fire). But don't expect not to be hearing *CRASH* *BANG* *WAAAAHHHHH* several dozen times a day anyway.

(Oh, and I lied about lying - there must be more to say about safety if this is only Part 1. Although really, the general idea remains the same throughout.)