Only in the US

I want to protect Alexis. I want to make sure she is safe. But I think Americans are so overly safety conscious sometimes. Americans think nothing bad should ever happen to them and the government should make sure they never get hurt, so I shouldn't be so surprised that some mothers are spastic over the toys their kids play with.

I was reading on the net and found tons of moms lamenting the chemical levels in kids toys. Once again, I don't feed Alexis lead or bromine and I do want to protect her, but give me a break! If we don't want our kids to come into contact with harmful chemicals we better check the contaminants in bubble wrap first, then wrap them up in it and hide them in a closet. Our kids will come into contact with "harmful" chemicals; it's inevitable. You and I come into contact with them everyday. I read about one mother who only let her baby play with a mirror, a Sophie giraffe and two wooden toys because she was terrified of plastic. Poor kid!

Two facts hit me as I was reading these mothers' comments: 1) I grew up in a time where toys were hardly tested for chemical levels. I am not a mutant with three eyes and misshapen limbs. I have a good job and I am intelligent. I do not have overwhelming health problems. 2) People in China (where I lived for two years) have hardly any/no checks on their toys for kids. They are not stupid idiots. They are not mutants. They are healthy people...So, conclusion: exposure to chemicals doesn't always cause problems in people. If so, all of us poor kids who grew up in the 70s to 80s should be in dire straits right now.

I think it's important to have safety standards. But I also think it is important not to be obsessive over these kinds of things. We're a nation that can worry ourselves to death and pass on this penchant for worrying to our kids. There are many issues that I often say "Only in the US" to. I guess what I really mean is "only in developed countries." In developed countries, where you have an overabundance of the essentials for life, you have the time to spend on worrying over the small things like chemicals in toys, being super thin and the organics of every meal. In underdeveloped countries, where you try just to scrape by with food through the day, these things are the least of your worries.

When I taught preschool there were so many health standards we had to meet. Some made sense, but some were so out there. For example, we had to have a separate cubby hole for each student that he put his coat in because the students coats were never to touch. Um, when they go and play on the playground, in their coats, they touch each other as they play. You also had to wash your hands so much in preschool that I was always sporting chapped hands. Only in the US would we worry so much that we would make up rules like this. I kind of wonder how many Americans walk around in terror about the diseases that their kids might catch. Are we developing a mind of OCD?

The good news is I know lots of relaxed parents. I wonder what the percentage is of parents that are overly worried about their kids and parents that are laid back. I wonder if any study has ever been done on this, that is, how the way parents worry affects their kids. What are we teaching our kids to worry about? It's food for thought.

To close out, for those who think my daughter is doomed to chew on lead and suck on the nearest kid with a cold, I do disinfect her toys once a week and keep her away from coughers. It's not that I am anti-safety, but I'm not going to sit around and worry about it either.