Oh how we love him, young Master Tables…

xkcd strikes again…

Wil Wheaton, yes, that Wil Wheaton, posted a great piece about his recent experience camping.

Long story short? Wil takes family camping. Discovers that the campground has Wifi. Watches kid glued to a PS2, rather than playing with the gaggle of other kids all around him. Laments. Wonders. Writes.

One thing he mentioned that strikes a chord with me – parents that have the DVD player going in the car for taking junior to the mall, the supermarket, church, or whatever. Can’t your kid spend 10 minutes apart from animated fantasyland? Mine can. Heck, our minivan has a DVD player in it. We’ve never turned it on in front of the kids. In fact, I’ve only ever turned it on once to test it. Why get it? The van already had it installed.

It gets worse. A couple of months back, Heather went to Target, with Alex in tow. She encountered this lady pushing her 2-ish year old kid around in the cart, complete with an elaborate rig of entertainment. The child safely seated in the cart, strapped into the shopping cart seat liner to keep the germs away (come on, what mom doesn’t have a stack of wipes the size of your head stashed away?) along with a carefully attached portable DVD player playing the Backyardigans for the kid.

Come on people, don’t you think junior can stand to spend an hour away from Pablo and Tyrone? Think back to when you were a kid, back in the days before the DVD. What did you do to occupy the time at the store? Played with a small toy? Read a book? Used your imagination? Amazing how we didn’t need portable DVD players plastered on our shopping carts.

Nice job Wil.

He was saying “Yeti yeti yeti!” when I took this picture.

This morning, Heather told me of the emails going around on her Mom’s group email list. Seems that common sense is in short supply these days. At least that’s the impression I got from the emails she read to me.

First up, Purell. It seems that Purell is now the devil. Some parent didn’t heed the warning on the package to “Keep out of reach of children”, and put it on the edge of the bathroom sink. What did her curious toddler do? Same thing any other one would — took a drink. The kid’s ok, didn’t die, but now some of the Moms are on a campaign to rid the world of Purell. Don’t get me wrong, I think Purell is far over-used in our culture. We’re building stronger germs over time because of it. However, I think it’s a wonderful thing when you need to quickly sanitize your hands and for whatever reason, washing your hands isn’t an option.

Next, Magnetix, a toy for older kids that I’ve never heard of. Seems that back in late 2005, a toddler swallowed a couple of magnets from his older brother’s Magnetix toys. The magnets wended their way through the child’s intestines, eventually attracting the attention of each other, twisting the child’s small intestines around to the point of killing the child. This tragedy, while terrible, could have been avoided by not putting the child in a position to eat the magnets in the first place. Even if the bits weren’t magnets, they’re still a choking hazard, are they not? If they’re a choking hazard, they shouldn’t be within the reach of a toddler like that either, now should they?

Parents, let’s all whip out our common sense and band together against reactionary fury over such easily avoidable problems. Here’s a set of basic rules to follow:

1. If it says “Keep out of reach of children”, then do it.
2. If it’s small enough for a toddler to choke on, keep it away from the toddler
3. If it’s probably going to hurt the child when he/she is unsupervised, find somewhere else to put it.

As parents, we need to realize that we’re the responsible ones. So, go be responsible already.