I know that you enjoy the gleeful laugh from my son when you heave him over your shoulder, toss him in the air or flip him upside down. Your actions are, however, a mothers worst nightmare. No words can explain the absolute horror and morbid visions that a mother gets when her kid is flipped head down near asphalt, concrete or desert landscaping. WHY DO YOU DO THIS?! Can’t you tickle the kid a bit or play the “got your nose” trick with him instead? Do you realize how easily his loose-fitting pants could allow him to slip right out of your grasp and headfirst into asphalt. Do you understand that I do not feel that I am overreacting in the least and any comment from you intimating otherwise only serves to make me want to kick you in the head?
This is my childs fragile head, neck and other assorted body parts here. DO NOT THROW HIM AROUND FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT. It’s not funny, it’s not cute, and it could cause ALOT more harm than you seem to realize. Repeat after me. I am NOT superman. I do NOT possess super-human strength. I do NOT need to risk my nephew/grandson’s well being to prove how strong and fun I can be.
I DONT CARE IF HE’S HAVING FUN! He’s a kid and he doesn’t understand the ramifications of falling headfirst onto the concrete.
God, that drives me fucking batshit. STOPPIT STOPPIT STOPPIT!
Sorry… I’ll put him down…and please don’t think my quizzical look at your frenzied demand is because I think you’re a smothering, neurotic, over protective mother who’s going to insist sitting in the back seat on his first date. Furtherest thing from my mind. Honest!
We had some neighbours who did this with their young child, he must have been around 9 months at the time. One day at a gathering the dad tossed the kid up in the air but missed him on the way down, much to horror of all onlookers. He actually got distracted by someone while the kid was in mid air and totally forgot to catch him. Unbelievable.
My husband used to toss my daughter across the room into a beanbag. Admittedly she loved it and always came back for more, but being a mother I understand your anxiety.
AGGH! Did the kid shatter into a million pieces?!
A mothers mind is never more morbid than when contemplating the many zillion ways that their child may damage him or herself. blech
huffhuff I AM NOT NEUROTIC! WHERE IS TIMMY’S HELMET?! AAHH!!
deep breath
But seriously. What makes you think you’re gonna catch the kid with perfect accuracy each time? Kids are like jello and can move around and avoid a safe landing almost at will.
Well, I can understand the no throwing around concrete thing, but ummmm, all my uncles, my dad, my grandpas and folks in our family did the kid toss since I can remember.
As long as you’re not doing a cheerleader height basket toss, I don’t see it as a huge problem.
We usually made them pretty small tosses, where the child stays between the hands of the tosser and just moves a few inches up and back. If they’re doing some high acrobatics I can see your concern.
Heh. I guess I might be one of those loony mothers, but I gotta be me.
Whenever someone starts roughhousing with my kid at a family get-together, I bear it as long as I can with gritted teeth, (approximately one minute and thirty seconds), then I come along and say, “Okay, son, I need you to come help me insert some kind of believable excuse here.”
I just can’t handle the stress of having someone use my kid as a toy.
I gotta go with **Dung Beetle ** and the OP on this one. I’m not a mother or a father but I would have no problem stating in no uncertain terms that it is not OK to toss a child about like a rag doll. A mother’s concern overrides an appeal to tradition, in my book.
I’d have to agree too. First off… they warn about shaking them around too much. A little too sharply can cause some pretty bad damage no matter how much in fun it was. Second, if I saw someone doing that to my son I’d freak. Of course he’s not even a year old so no one is inclined to do that… yet.
I’m always afraid when I’m walking around the mall that if I carry him, I’ll drop him and he’ll crack open his head. I haven’t yet, and I hold him carefully but I can’t help getting that image in the back of my head.
Er… as an offender of this sort (Well, I never throw the child. I don’t really have the reflexes for me to believe I can do that.) I’d like to say, in my own defense, I never hold the child upside down by expecting her clothing to keep her in my grasp. I grip the leg, or feet. That is a more secure hold than the one you seem to think I’m using.
Mind you. I’d be pointing this out AFTER I’d put the child down - you’re the mommy and I know the way the world works.
I’m really not trying to dismiss your fears, but does age matter? I have to say I loved being tossed up in the air by my father when I was little (like 3, 4) - he was 6’5’’ so I felt really high up (I was, I suppose ). I loved riding on his shoulders, getting swung between two adults, or holding onto him as he swung me in circles.
I think all mom’s worry, but I think they probably worry unnecessarily. Kids are fairly resilient.
My parents used to hold my hands, and then do that “swing the kid ahead every other step” thingie. Both my mom, when I was small, and I, when my kids were small used to play “horsie horsie go to town” with our little ones. This is where you sit the kid on your knee, hold his hands (so that your hands are like his reins) and then bounce your knee like all get out, as if they’re on a pony. And then there were the “be a pony mommy, be a PONY” years, when they’d ride you around while you tried to “buck them off”.
Years after my kids were too big to play “Horsie go to town” I started seeing “shaken baby syndrome” ads. I was absolutely horrified, even AFTER the fact, thinking 'oh my gosh, if horsie horsie wasn’t SHAKING them, I don’t know what is". But as both of my kids tested as gifted in school, I’m pretty sure it didn’t damage them too badly :D. And then, I was even more relieved to find out what they actually meant by shaken baby syndrome. I’m pretty sure they don’t mean normal playing and roughhousing, in my humble opinion, kids are tough enough to handle that.
What makes you think “perfect accuracy” is what’s required to toss a kid around with a reasonable safety margin? I’m surprised you even allow anyone to pick your child up, what with the grave danger of dropping them due to imperfect grip.
Life is a series of calculated risks, lady. Your son is going to decide to ride a skateboard despite the risk of injury because it’s fun. You decide to step in the slippery shower without having a death grip on a safety bar because life would just be pure tedium if you only ever did things that were perfectly safe. Your male relatives are doing the exact same thing (which, incidentally, is for your son’s entertainment, not theirs) – weighing risk against fun. The only dispute seems to be in just how risky this is, and frankly, if you can’t stomach this, you’re not ready for the day his better judgement convinces him to ride his bike way too fast down a bumpy dirt hill with a sharp turn at the bottom right in front of a rusty barbed-wire fence.
Like my aunt said to my visiting stepmother who worried that my little brother would fall off his skateboard if she let him outside: “don’t worry… we have hospitals.”
It’s my job to keep my kid safe; it’s his job to take unnecessary risks.
I know my male relatives are well-meaning and I don’t think my kid will likely come to any harm while playing with them. The main reason I put a stop to the festivities is because the sound of my kid’s shrieks puts a knot in my gut. I’m sure the boy gets plenty of male bonding/wrasslin’/whatever when I’m not around.
