It’s that time of year again. Time for the media to shit their pants over 2000’s RECALLED TOYS! These always irk me. Some of them I understand. With one of the Scooters, the handles come off, etc. But some of them are just plain stupid. This is a little bit of old news, but the Pokemon balls from Burger King that were recalled about a year ago because kids kept suffocating themselves with the ball halves. C’mon. Where the hell are the parents? And doesn’t a kid have enough sense to think, “Breathing is getting pretty hard with this ball half over my face. I should take it off.” What do they do, fall on them or something? I would really like to know, because it boggles the mind how some of these toys kill children! Or with some of these toys, they are too dangerous for young kids anyway, and are often labled so on the box (labled ages 10 +, yes, but it’s not labled "This toy could KILL a child under 10), yet parents buy them, the kids get hurt, and the toy companies recall them before they could get sued.
Well, the Burger King recall issue can be easily explained. Family with two kids- one 5 and one 18mos. 5 year old gets toy from BK and leaves the plastic half on the floor. Mom uses the bathroom and is distracted for a minute. 18 month old puts ball half in mouth (which is what they do with absolutely everything they see- boom- straight into the mouth). Ball gets stuck over mouth and nose, forming a seal that the toddler cannot break (that’s why they were recalled- their size and shape was perfect for this happening). Mom comes out of the bathroom and toddler is unconcious/dead.
Not very hard to believe, and parents cannot be expected to have an eye on thier kids at every moment. Bathroom trips, ringing phones, and other kids prevent that from happening. The parent has a reasonable expectation that the toy they have in their house will not harm their kids. In the case of the Pokemon ball, the piece was too big to choke on, so it didn’t appear to be a threat. The first case cited on the Burger King page says the ball half was in a 4 month olds crib. It’s entirely possible that a sibling or other kid in childcare tossed it in there, not realizing it was potentially dangerous.
I do agree about parents buying toys that aren’t age appropriate, but I don’t remember ever seeing an item recalled for that reason. Any for instances?
I don’t know if I have much to add about recalled toys, but this does bring up the age appropriate issue for me. I have a 10, 8, and 3 year old, along with a 10 month old baby. I have to make sure that all of the toys I buy for the older ones are appropriate for a 10 month old as well, because these toys WILL wind up on the floor at some point, despite my best efforts to the contrary. As much as I’d love to keep my eye on the baby every waking moment, occasionally I have to do the dishes, clean the house, cook, answer the door or telephone, or take a potty break. Sometimes I’m even distracted by another child. Yeah, I know. Hard to believe. A child can choke to death in less time than it takes me to pee. Sometimes I think that my oldest could get to voting age before I’m done taking my 3 year old to the bathroom.
I think that recalls are often done on toys that are advertised for one age range, then it’s discovered that the toy breaks into smaller pieces than intended, and the age range would then have to be re-defined.
By the way, it’s unlikely that my 10 month old would have the sense to pull something out of her mouth if she can’t breath. She hasn’t yet made the connection between her mouth and breathing ability. It’s especially hard if something is so firmly lodged in her mouth that pulling it out is difficult. I understand that it’s common for babies to put things in their mouths.
In addition to what Lola said, the actual problem with the BK toy piece is that it formed a SEAL over the childs mouth and nose, making it nearly impossible for the child to pull off. (Like you can do on purpose with a soda bottle- you can suck some of the air out and get your tongue stuck inside the opening, forming a temporary seal)
It’s not like they would stick it on their face, then not have the sense to pull it off when they couldn’t breathe. They would get it actually stuck on their face, and suffocate. Big difference there.
Zette
PS- that Onion piece was priceless- very funny stuff!
Also, little kids panic. When my son got his finger pinched, he freaked out and started pulling–anything to get his finger free, even though pulling made it hurt worse.
Maybe, just maybe, he’s some kind of goddamn half-wit who deserves to die by the next dangerous toy that comes along, but hey, we love him. And I tend to cut 18-month olds a little slack. Call me nuts.
Some of the recalls are absolutely ridiculous though. Take the sleeping bags they recalled because of flammability issues:
“See what happens when we place an oxyacetylene blow torch next to this Barney sleeping bag! As you can see, it catches on fire.”
And just what, pray tell, is a child doing with an oxyacetylene blow torch? I understand the concern about safety, but they should test the things in real-world conditions–i.e., a space heater instead of a blow torch.
Do you actually have an example of this? Something being tested under extreme conditions, then banned because it’s deemed dangerous? I imagine it happens from time to time, but the info given thus far in this thread is that manufacturers are made to ban toys, etc because of unreasonable testing/criteria. What are some legitimate,(as in, able to be proven) examples of this that we can examine?
Or are people talking out their asses as usual? (My guess)
Man, take up a real cause. What the hell do you care if Barney sleeping bags or Pokemon balls (I love that toy name) are recalled? I don’t get the issue here. Talk about bitching to hear yourself bitch.
There was actually a story about this on NPR’s Morning Edition this morning. One of the individuals interviewed mentioned the fact that the Burger King/Pokemon incident was the biggest toy recall in history, yet similar items had been part of various toys for years. I do think that sometimes these things get out of hand, and the media takes off runnig with it. Hell, in my day we had tonka trucks that were made out heavy ass metal, and if you bent up one of the corners you’d have yourself a edge sharper than any ginsu knife, yet amazingly enough, millions of children survived the horrowing tragedy of Tonka lacerations. There was a story on CNN a few weeks ago about the number of accidents involving these razor scooter, and I just thought “It’s a good thing that bicycles aren’t a ‘new’ or ‘hot’ gift this year…imagine the expose they could run on how dangerous those things are!!!”
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m for safer toys as much as any parent, but the media does tend to exaggerate these issues.
Parent of a 10, a 13, and a 16 here who thinks that the OP is right on target. The media blows these things up and people get hysterical. Also, I think the Baby Boomer Generation (mine, alas) tends to be awfully paranoid about safety. We want unconditional guarantees, dammit, we want total 100% safety, and we want it right now, no matter how much annoying federal legislation is required.
These people have what I call the “Duh List”, a list of toys with small parts that any parent with the brains God gave a hamster would know are dangerous for the under-3 set. But nooooo, we have to have press releases and congressional hearings and warning labels out the wazoo.
Yes, I do appreciate the occasional warnings of the occasional truly dangerous toy. Case in point, the scooter handlebar thing. We immediately went and checked ours, it’s not the same brand, so that’s fine. We’re happy to be told, but now get out of our face about it already!
And yes, I did also appreciate being told about the Pokemon ball thing. But by far the vast majority of these “warnings” involve toys and objects that a little common sense would tell you are dangerous. Do we really need federal legislation mandating a warning label on a Powderpuff Girls Rubber Stamp kit, telling us, “don’t let the baby play with this”?
The funniest SNL fake commercial I have ever seen is the one with the red rubber ball, where the whole 60-second ad consists of safety disclaimers.
This isn’t about toys, but it is a safety test that I thought was a little extreme. Dateline NBC (yeah, the exploding gas tank people, so maybe it should be taken with a grain of salt anyway) did an expose awhile back on those halogyn floor lamps. We’d just bought one and thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, so I watched the piece with interest. But they demonstrated the fire risk (IIRC) by first placing a piece of cloth over the lamp, then spraying it with hairspray. Guess what, it caught fire! But what are the odds of me climbing up a stepladder with a towel and Aquanet to style my hair over a six-foot-high lamp? Maybe, if the hair dryer broke… no, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t even then. Show me what happens when you set it next to the drapes or when the dog knocks it over on the shag carpeting! Maybe they showed more, but I was disgusted and lost interest. We’ve owned 2 of these lamps and have operated them without incident (I did knock one over once and bent the hell out of it, but nothing caught fire).
