Did I really just read this???

http://totallythebomb.com/can-we-please-stop-with-the-car-seat-shaming
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Wow

Hmm well I can kinda understand. Sometimes people do shame and judge and when a YouTube video has 20 people jumping down the persons throat about improper car seat usage it makes them think of car seat natzi's. On the other hand if you know the person I think they should not get hurt if it PM them about their car seat usage.

Which reminds me I have a positive story to share:
I had professional pictures taken a few months back and became Facebook friends with the photographer. She posted a picture of her 4 year old daughter in an Alpha Omega Elite and I messaged her saying

"Hey X. I noticed your picture of your DD in the car seat and I thought I'd mention that I'm a total car seat nerd, hope one day to be a certified child passenger safety technician, but anyways just wanted to mention that seat is outgrown by height fairly early, so you should check to make sure she hasn't outgrown it by height. Make sure her shoulders are below the top straps. And please don't use it as a booster ever because it makes an unsafe booster as rated by iihs.org. I hope you enjoy your road trip!"

She replied back to me a day later and told me they checked the manufacture date of it and it was from 2004, so they pitched it and sent me a picture of the girl in a brand new Graco Nautilus.

So don't be afraid to speak up! You can make a difference one child at a time! Not everyone is going to take it personally if you mention car seat usage.

Not only can I understand, I agree with nearly everything she writes. And I am a CPST, and I am an active advocate, but the culture of shaming parents in this way is pervasive and horrible.

It's hard to parent, and hard to get everything 'right'. Even harder is there is such a wide continuum of 'right'.

I have no problem educating parents. (And I have to say, my track record is pretty damn good.) But I take great care in my approach, and I meet parents where they are. So many so-called 'advocates' out there in social media land are doing us a grave disservice by being so 'in your face' about every little (sometimes nonsensical) thing.

If you haven't read the blog post I did for carseatblog, here ya go. It sums up my feelings on the subject:

http://carseatblog.com/34623/guest-blog-cps-zealot/

I am reminded of this post by Amy from AlphaMom: http://alphamom.com/parenting/baby/...s-you-might-not-know-about-keeping-kids-safe/

In the introduction she describes an incident on a blog that she had written that caused, in her opinion, a lot of backlash.

Back when I had more time on my hands, I did a little internet sleuthing and found her original post and the comments. I was surprised to see that it was nothing like what I had expected, given her description. The comments all seemed relatively cordial and informative. Comparing her description with the original post taught me 3 important lessons:

1. Your tone can be very much misinterpreted when the sole purpose of a comment is advice, correction, or critique. No matter what it is, you will come off as more snooty and mean-spirited than you intend when you are making a comment that questions someone's decisions. I found the comments to be largely helpful and well-informed, but clearly the blogger did not interpret them that way. Even when looking back on the situation from a more informed perspective, she still describes herself as feeling attacked.

2. Unless someone specifically requests input, it will be interpreted as "unsolicited." In the original blog, Amy asks a lighthearted rhetorical question to the effect of, "how do you suggest I keep him from slouching? Put a book on his head? Poke him with a poking stick?" When reading that, the answer that comes to most of our minds would be "If you have to ask, it means your three-year-old is not ready for a booster." But when people explained to her that her son isn't ready for a booster she clearly didn't see herself as having solicited this input, despite having asked the question.

3. There are others watching and they will be quick to defend the original poster, since they are likely to be previously-affiliated (Facebook friends, blog subscribers, YouTube followers, etc) with that person. Something I found particularly surprising was how frequently her readers jumped to her defense -- making claims to the effect of "of course she knows what she's doing" and "she's already explained that it is a hybrid seat with a harness" (even though it wasn't, and she hadn't said it was -- just that it converted from highback to backless). The more that people feel compelled to defend someone that they care about, the less likely they are to listen to what is being said.

So those are my thoughts. I really try to avoid giving car seat advice in a public format (except on here, of course). A personal message goes a lot farther.






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Nedra, I also found the original post quickly and completely agree that what the author interpreted as people jumping down her throat was nothing of the sort. (If anyone else wants to read it, I can't link from here, but going to the author's personal blog, which is linked at the bottom of the post Nedra linked, and searching "booster" will get you there pretty quickly.) Fact is, no matter how gentle one is when giving car seat advice, there will always be those who interpret it as an attack on their parenting. On the other hand, there are also many stories of parents who took advice in the spirit in which it was intended and quite possibly saved a life as a result.

I am not a big fan of the article because it makes light of car seat safety while being unclear as to whether or not the "mom bashing" really was advice that went too far, or if the blog author really thinks that ANY advice is too much.

On the other hand, certainly we've all seen cases where moms get jumped on for asking for help or making relatively minor car seat mistakes on social media. Which, quite honestly, is why I much prefer the format of a forum like this one for car seat advice as opposed to facebook. It's far too easy for the format of FB discussions to result in people hearing over and over again what they're doing wrong, and for having no good way to distinguish good advice from bad.

ETA: also totally love CTPDMom's blog entry that she linked above. Read it if you haven't already!

Personally unless people ask, Leave them alone. All it does is come off judgy and make them feel lousy and defensive..

I have left a pamphlet on a car but I never address parents. I am not a CPST but even if I was, I would let it be.

The thing that's driving me nuts lately is advocates nitpicking otherwise really good information. Like, there can be a fantastic interview or article about...whatever. Keeping kids rear-facing, installing tightly, etc. But god forbid there's ONE tiny problem with something the person has said or there's a slightly low chest clip, or some other minor issue, and people jump all over that. Not only does it completely ignore all the good stuff, it scares people away from sharing information lest they get one little thing wrong.

As for this particular article, I hate the term "car seat shaming" because I think it minimizes other, more significant shaming that occurs. But I agree with the point. Nagging and criticizing people turns them off to our message.

I rarely offer unsolicited advice. On the very rare occasions that I do, it's with people I know will be receptive and I do it in a private manner. I'll sometimes post publicly if it's, say, an advertisement for a company or something, but even then I'm polite about it.

I do agree that if a correction is in order it's best done through a personal message. Pointing something out in the comments section of a social media forum is probably way less likely to be well received.

But being that I'm nosy, I went back and read the article and comments. Unless some were deleted I really didn't think any of them seemed pretty gentle. The nasty comments actually were the ones coming from the other side of the argument.