My in-laws raised seven boys on a farm in the pre-leash days. Mom helped with all the chores, washed clothes in a wringer washer in the basement and hung them on eight long clotheslines outdoors.
No strollers, no baby buggies, no playpens. Not sure about a high chair.
You don’t even want to know what she did to immobilize/keep track of all those busy kids. Her main fears were that one of them would wander into the cornfields, fall into the stock tank or pig pen, all life-threatening situations.
So it’s not just an issue of city dwellers. And I would guess tethering children is an age-old practice.
Ideally one would have one child at a time and raise him to be tractable. Then have another.
But it doesn’t work that way.
I never liked the way that a leash on a child looked and remember drawing some judgemental conclusions as a result. But I understand it a lot better now than I did when I was raising children. And I can think of a couple of times when having one would have saved us some panic and fear.
I think young parents all suffer to some degree from a sense of competition with other young parents. And we all think we know the best way.
Yep! Glad we had the foresight to make a couple of spares!
Heck, I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge that every poster on the Dope is a perfect parent, trying everything possible to deal with their unique spawn. But if you don’t share my experience that there are also a hell of a lot of parents out there who are NOT - well, we are living in very different worlds.
I’m sure no Doper would ever eschew discipline because it might impinge upon their little darling’s self actualization and self image. And no Doper would wait until their angel is ready to attend school to start trying to teach manners and behavior, and then wonder why it isn’t taking. And certainly no Doper would ever allow their kid to act in public in a manner that interferes with someone else’s reasonable enjoyment of that same public space because, well, “kids will be kids.” Surely no Doper would do any of that, but I’ve managed to encounter all of these behaviors many a time.
Heck, I readily admit I succumbed to all kinds of shortcuts and laborsaving devices myself. I remember naiively saying I would NEVER use TV as a babysitter. Yeah, that lasted a long time! And I LOVED that baby swing’s narcotic effect on my one kid.
Also - spoke about this with my wife at some length over the weekend. We are very much on the same page about this. And neither of us would have characterized all 3 of our kids as exceptionally easy in all respects. We even took our 2d to a child psych when very young, as he was so different and so much more difficult than his older sister. I still remember the psych’s assessment was, “That kid just has a negative disposition!” That was the kid with sensory integration dysfunction as well.
Not looking for a medal. Just wishing to dispel the apparent belief that my childrearing took place in some magical world of rainbows and unicorns (and trying to avoid work!)
Malls aren’t relatively safe. I can’t count how many times I have panicked because my daughter or son went out of my eyesight in a mall and I went into crazy mode yelling for them. I am sure the other mall patrons appreciated my melt downs. Losing a child in a crowded mall or store is one of the most panicky feelings ever. Anyone can go to a mall, and anyone can take your child if they wander off. My daughter is especially friendly with everyone and I could see her getting snatched for the brief minute I was looking at her brother and not her. I would rather have them on a back pack leash when walking around then worry about them darting off and having to have me yell for them.
Unfortunately, this is no longer an option for me since they are both 5 now and much too big for the stroller or leash, and when they run off it is usually together. But we have had talks, timeouts, spankings, everything I can think of to express to them the important of staying close to us when in public places and only 75% of the time does it actually sink. The rest of the time we are having to yell after them to get back to us or we are going home. Fun times.
I got lost at amusement parks and once got lost at a New York block party as a kid. Seems like I got lost a lot when we went shopping. So I know it happens, but I’m not worried about it enough to buy or fashion a leash for trips to the mall. And in actuality, yes, compared to roads around here malls absolutely are safer, which is what I meant by “relatively safe”.
I’ve never heard any hate for toddler leashes, and I can’t see why there would be any? Unless it’s for having the temerity to make a toddler walk – like a poor person! – rather than driving them everywhere? :rolleyes:
I wore one a lot when I was the appropriate age. My mom did a lot of things that screwed me up, but this was not one of them. People need to lose the “leashes are for dogs” idea, and substitute “Leashes are for creatures you love, that don’t know enough to stay out of harm without being leashed”.
When my son was a toddler I live on 5 acres by myself.
Getting anything done outside was almost impossible, one day he got on the ink berries, another day the dogs had cornered a snake and he went running to join in the fun.
Another day he got through the fence and went running buck assed naked into the country road, if a car had been coming he’d been killed.
I wanted more than anything to put him in the dog kennel (without the dogs) but was afraid one of the neighbors would call social services on me. Sounds awful to put your kid in a kennel, until you see that it was 10 feet wide by 10 feet long by 5 feet high chain link enclosure. He could have brought out his trucks and played in the dirt while I got my work down.
It would have made my life a lot easier.
I can’t remember which country singer is was, I think Loretta Lynn, said when she had to go to the well or whatever and couldn’t take her kids, she’d lift up a corner of the bed and slide their dress under the leg to hold the there until she got back.
Now she’d probably be charged with child abuse.
Play Yards and Pack N Plays are also great for child containment in places where you don’t want them running around. They are basically pens for babies, but I also think they are a great idea.
It’s only really a problem if the only things you say to your tethered child are “Sit” and “Stay”, while at the same time you dress up your dog (or cat) and talk to it like, “Ooohh, how’s my widdle snookie-wookums?”. ($1 to Matt Groening - I think it’s somewhere in Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life)
By judgmental bitches on parenting message boards, because their only purpose in life is to make themselves feel better about their own parenting by telling everyone else that they are doing it wrong. Toddler leashes = treating your child like a dog, and also they are a sign that you do not know how to properly discipline your child. (Kind of like what Dinsdale said, except Dinsdale wasn’t a dick about it.)
Perhaps you do not utilize the $1,000 urban assault strollers – double wide, natch – favored by Sanctimommies who would never, ever, gasp! Tether their child.
Google BOB revolution and tell me again how it takes up the same space as a three year old. I will laugh long and heartily.
But strapping them into a buggy and pushing them everywhere so their limbs atrophy into stumps is OK?
I was taken for walks on reins (that’s what we called them) when I was a toddler 30+ years ago, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t unusual then. My 19-month-old isn’t quite walking unaided yet, but she enjoys walking along the street supported by her little rucksack with a leash on the top. Once she is fully mobile you can bet she’ll be on the leash!
(My wife suggested we could hammer a post into the ground and let her wander in circles like a dog, but I’m fairly sure she was joking…)
Oh I wish I had thought of this when mine was a toddler, I would have also taught her to “bark” on command whenever somebody said something about the leash.
I’m totally bewildered at the implication that handholding means you’re teaching your kid how to behave, while a toddler leash means you’re doing no such thing. Why would there be a link?
We bought a leash, tried it two or three times, but Widget hated it; she preferred handholding. I’m short, so that wasn’t a problem for me, and my husband is medium height and wasn’t bothered by it either, so we ditched the leash. I’m still baffled by the idea that it would have somehow transformed us into parents who didn’t care about teaching their kid how to behave. It’s just a doohickey. It’s not inherently Good or Bad, and it doesn’t have any deeper meaning about people’s attitudes towards child-rearing. It works for some kids and some parents, based on anything from height through personality type.
I get so tired of One True Way parenting - ‘We did it THIS way, and if you do it any differently from us, it means you must be BAD PARENTS!!! Because there is a RIGHT WAY and there are WRONG WAYS!!’ Mostly the difference, whatever it is, just means that - gasp shock horror - different stuff works for different families.
I love them, but people seem to be horrified of them. My only other option is to put my son on my shoulders, which doesn’t attract the same level of horror but still gets comments.
The fact is sometimes my son refuses to hold my hand, and lets himself collapse rather than walk with me if I won’t let go. So what should I do when I don’t want him running around like a maniac or dashing into the street?
Whether the leash looks cruel or not it is for my son’s safety, he doesn’t listen to scolding at all.
My friend’s kids (four within six years) love to talk about how he strapped them in their dining chairs with belts (of course one of them was found perched on top of the china cabinet one day).
I did. It would take up more sidewalk than a three year old, yes. I was talking about me and one of my kids walking side by side, though. Pic looks like the stroller takes up about as much room (side to side) as me + kid.
How do you know these things are favored by the sanctimonious? Survey? I bet if they had a hard to control runner they’d leash the kid quick enough. The only woman I personally knew who used a kid leash had an autistic kid. She was sort of a Yuppie.
When I was a kid my mom made her own leash and tied me to the clothes line so that I can walk or run until I got tired. My son Kid Czarcasm, I put him on a leash and I didn’t care what people thought. I wanted him to be safe, because he would dart out into traffic and just ignored us when we called him and spanking didn’t make a dent in the “you shouldn’t do that”. He was later diagnosed with haveing ADHD and Aspergers. That was over 50 years for me over 20 for my son. I was not lazy nor not paying attention I was protecting him from himself.
I can’t remember my time on the leash, but my younger sister can.
She was the youngest of four, and got even less attention than we did. What she particularly liked was that Mother couldn’t get lost while she was on the leash.
I heard her discussing it with an aquaintance once. What he particularly liked was that he wasn’t always at fault while on the leash. In trouble for running out on the road? Leash doesn’t let that happen. In trouble for something else? Leash doesn’t let that happen either.
I took my daughter to the zoo and FAO Schwartz yesterday and every time her feet touched the ground she ran as fast as she could towards whatever looked most likely to kill her. I ordered a leash for her last night and it is being delivered tomorrow. Holy crap, having a toddler is both awesome and terrifying!
And I LOVED that baby swing’s narcotic effect on my one kid.