Fine, that’s just what came to mind about “blank safety”. The example I’m actually talking about is “driving into things because you’re not looking where you’re going”.
You make it sound like being upset about this behavior is whiny and unreasonable because this person, this time, crashed into something harmless instead of, say, someone else’s precious singing child. Is that a ridiculous “butbutbut” to you? What would you say is a safe speed to run over children? Or is that really an impossible, irrelevant scenario in your mind?
I say saying “there’s nothing to be upset about because no one got hurt” is missing the big picture and irresponsible. Feel free to disagree.
I maintain it is not worth an internet outrage. As long as nobody gets hurt, it is a small-scale incident to laugh at (and in the other cases often too; see Darwin Awards).
People are getting upset so often about so little things that the big things go unnoticed. Put warnings on everything and the important ones won’t stick out enough to spot. Same goes for getting upset.
To elaborate a bit, the particular attitude of ‘dangerous driving is no big deal’ pisses me off in general.
If you kill a person by being careless or stupid with a gun, it’s a crime you have to answer for. If you kill them by being careless or stupid with a car, it’s an accident, fate, bad luck, poor dear, shit happens.
What i love about this conversation is that Xeni has stated the thing is probably a hoax, has been going around the web for years, and still everyone is all, “Damn that mom is the worst” or “Driving - dangerous business, natch.” We are just hungry piranha, waiting to jump on any little scrap.
The number of people harmed in that particular video (or even the possibility of the whole thing being a fake to begin with) doesn’t change that, does it?
If you read my back and forth with Shaddack above you’ll see that at least the two of us have been discussing our views of the theme of possibly harmful stupid shenanigans in general, not obsessing over This One Mom’s Weird Trick.
I get it, just think it’s funny the things that will kick off a vigorous discussion regardless of the actual content.
God, when I became a mom it was terrifying to me how many times I was reaching behind me to grab something that my kid dropped on the floor or otherwise was doing all sorts of unsafe maneuvers while driving. Of course, I wasn’t shooting actual video footage while driving - pretty sure that I was doing my best to keep hands on the wheel and car on the road. I think that’s why it doesn’t full pass the whiff test, though on the stupid meter it’s not even at the top of the meter of stupid stuff people do.
I dunno, piloting a 1.5 Ton piece of metal going tens of miles per hour, but not paying attention to where it’s going seems pretty stupid. Nearly as stupid as pointing a gun at something you don’t want to kill or destroy.
I’ve driven my nephews around quite a bit when they were car seat bound, and if they dropped something from their car seat, too f’ing bad, sucks to be them. They can get their cat-hair encrusted suckers, plastic army men and inflatable baseball bats back when I don’t have to worry about not smashing into living things and killing them, myself or my nephews. They can cry about their dropped toys, candy and game devices all they want.
Thing is: they learned pretty quickly that they can’t bait me into playing catch in the car with them. They also figured out not to drop stuff they want to play with.
Maybe if I were their parent, I would have done the same as you. But since they’re the spawn of my brother, I love them, but am not enslaved to their arbitrary demands.
With a 3, 4, even a 2 year old you might be able to say, “Suck it up kid” but when they are 3, 4 months and the pacifier drops the choice is either listen to the kid scream for the entire remainder of the trip or pick up the damn pacy. I think a lot parents get used to making those kind of choices.
I think it is very, very hard for nonparents to relate to the incredible degree of sleep deprivation that parents of small children operate under. People joke about it, but it is years before you get a proper night’s sleep. You end up feeling like all day long you are juggling knives because you know your decision making is totally compromised. So, yeah, I did a lot of stupid things when my kiddo was a baby. I did feel very grateful for my mini-van which had a lot of things that made it safer for me to drive and made it safer for everyone else around me. But I am so glad those days are behind me now.
Pre-children, my wife and I occasionally heard the woman in the next apartment shrieking “Why won’t you go to sleep?!!” We would turn up the TV a bit and laugh. “Um, maybe because you’re shouting at the top of your lungs?”
Now, having gone through that phase, I feel terrible and ashamed that we didn’t invite her to watch some TV at our place, while one of us dealt with things for a while.
Yup. I am so much more kind and helpful to parents of young children now.
My first child was one of those impossible babies who never slept, hated everything that would calm a normal baby, and was very loudly colicky. I went to a party and the cousin of the host took one look at me and the baby and offered to take her for a while. The host let me know that she trusted this person with her own kids, so I agreed. They went out for a walk and came back 45 minutes later. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I had that break and realized that I felt a little bit sane for the first time since the birth.
There’s a reason that sleep deprivation is considered an unforgivable form of torture.
