Wednesday 30 May 2012

For The Umpteenth Time, The Safety Of Other People's Children Is Not My Concern!

After the inquest Mr and Mrs Winfield said: ‘We feel very privileged to have had our son, Arthur, for two years and nine months.
‘As the youngest, he was the centre of our family and our daughter’s best friend,’ they said in a statement.
‘We are completely lost following his sudden death.
‘Our daughter has saved us from the worst depths of despair.’
Yes, it's yet another toddler strangled by a blind cord. Very sad, but it must be one of the most common causes of accidental death, after falling in ponds and getting run over.

But no-one mourns and moves on, any more. Now, they join campaigns to raise awareness, because all the newspaper reports of the deaths aren't apparently warning enough:.
The couple have since backed a campaign by the British Blind and Shutter Association to raise awareness of the potential dangers of blinds.
They are joined by the parents of another recent victim, Emily Warner, also two, who died last year after she was strangled in a blind cord.
 But hey, you say! Why such a misanthrope? If it makes them feel better, why not let them?

Well, because of the attitude that, even if you don't have any children and don't want any children, you must still do the heavy lifting for all the potential hard-of-thinking out there:
Mr and Mrs Winfield said: ‘Looped blinds and curtain pulls can kill and severely brain damage children. They are already in thousands of houses, communal halls, doctors’ surgeries and other public buildings. Please, please make these safe using cleats or replace them.
‘Even if you do not have children, children may visit or you may sell your house to a family with children.’
If I do, it's still their responsibility to look out for their offspring. Not mine.

5 comments:

Captain Haddock said...

A tragic unnecessary death, for sure ..

" .. it's still their responsibility to look out for their offspring" ..

Particularly within the privacy of their own home ..

Can you imagine the outcry from the "Graun-reading" crowd, if the Council or Police were to instigate spot-checks in people's houses to ensure all blind-cords etc were tied up out of harm's way ?

Tatty said...

So ummmm...how would other people who don't live in their house making sure their own blinds were safe and secured have prevented their child's death ?

I have an alternative solution to this problem...have the authorities follow these people around for the rest of their lives making sure they don't do anything even slighly dangerous to anyone else's children and ban them from breeding.

After all, it's them who have proven they can't be trusted to keep a child alive.

Anonymous said...

Simple solution:

1. When said child plays with blind cord for first time tell them not to play with the blind cord.

2. When said toddler plays with blind cord for the second time, smack his/her hand and say "I told you to leave it alone now leave it alone"

3. Repeat 2 until said toddler gets the message.

QED

Macheath said...

Henry - logical and true; after all, you and I are presumably here today only because our cave-dwelling ancestors were in infancy repeatedly slapped back from fires/cliffs/poisonous plants etc.

However, the method presupposes an observant adult constantly in attendance - a rare thing in these days of working parents and a separate bedroom for every child.

Without wishing to comment on individual cases, I wonder whether the mother who described on Woman's Hour (in a piece on discrimination) how a working mother 'gives 100% of her attention to the job while she's at work' could swear that she is fully attentive to her child's behaviour when she gets home at the end of a long day.

The price of child safety, like that of Liberty, is eternal vigilance. Sadly, eternity is divine; even the most devoted parents are only human.

JuliaM said...

"Can you imagine the outcry from the "Graun-reading" crowd, if the Council or Police were to instigate spot-checks in people's houses to ensure all blind-cords etc were tied up out of harm's way ?"

Oh, I on't know. I think that would actually suit the Guardianistas right down to the ground!

"However, the method presupposes an observant adult constantly in attendance - a rare thing in these days of working parents and a separate bedroom for every child."

Good point!