The holiday season means trips to Grandma’s house (or other family) and you’d better buckle up!

I remember when my sister and I were little and our parents tossed us in the back seat of the Mercedes completely untethered.  We’d slide back and forth across the slippery leather seat with every turn and annoy my parents with an accompanying“Whhoooooa…Whhooooaaaaaaaa…as we made lefts and rights out of the suburbs and all the way into the city.  Ah, those were the days.  Road trips to relatives and poor child safety.

My parents, like other parents of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, relied on Darwin’s theory of evolution when it came to child safety.  If God wanted us to survive, we’d survive.  If he didn’t…well…

I don’t remember ever even having a car seat and I certainly can’t recall buckling my seat belt.   Heck my parents were smoking cigarettes and half-drunk on martinis anyway.  That’s the way they did it back then.   Clearly I was one of “the fittest”. In fact, the earliest carseats didn’t even promote safety as their primary objective.  They appear to be more about “comfort” and “occupying” the tike so they would sit still and enjoy the trip.  Every parent’s primary goal.

Nowadays, we would never leave our child’s safety to evolution.  Today, we insert, strap, secure, buckle and lock our children into position.  If they can get a Cheerio to their mouth, that’s fine, but that’s about where we draw the limit on their mobility.   

Take a look at car seats throughout history from the early designs to the latest in safety technology:

1) The Kiddee Drivette:  This carseat was designed so that a child (as young as age one) could sit in the front seat next to the driver and pretend to drive.  The actual seat lifted the child up closer to the windshield so they could see over the dashboard.  I can’t tell what the driving wheel is made of, but I’m assuming there was no airbag.

2)Carseat Circa 1950’s:  While this carseat doesn’t have the steering wheel, it does provide the child with a nice up-close view of the glass windshield.  It’s arm-rests are sure to help a small child travel in comfort and while it has no safety ratings, it is “said” to “not come loose or jar out of place.” Well…that’s good enough for me!

3) The “Balcony” Car Seat:  This is my favorite.  In case the child wasn’t already close enough to the windshield, this brought them even closer.  Perfect for the toddler who just won’t sit still, your child could stand-up in the front seat for the entire trip!  What kid doesn’t want to do that!   Do you think that basket could also hold fruit?

 

4)  The Future of Child Safety:  Am I wrong, or does this remind you of those “velocity and impact” experiments our kids do in science where they have to build a protective coat for a raw egg and then drop it off the top of the school?  Only this time, our child is the egg.  I really hope mine doesn’t crack.