A Mother’s Leash

I always hated those too…

BUT.

Chuck E. Cheese’s, me alone with a 7 year old grandson running wild, a 1 1/2 year old granddaughter running wild, & a million (I may exaggerate there a tad) other kids? I did the leash on my granddaughter.

But I’ve never even thought of it in a store…I can always keep up with her then.

Tug’s last blog post..Sunshine & Lollipops kids

The only time a leash on a child is acceptable is when either you or the child has no hands.

I have taken three 18 month old children to a play park at the same time, a busy play park, and all you have to do is watch them. thats it.

Oh! And news flash! teach them to listen to you! If I tell a child in my care to stay with me, they damn well will!

Child leashes are the only thing me and my BFF fight over, and since we fight so nastily about them, we have now decided to just pretend they do not exist.

Every time I see a child on a leash I exclaim – right to the mother or fathers face- oh! What a sweet puppy!

I HATE those things!

Blue – as a parent, I agree. I used to take K & all her friends (who stayed at our house, she stayed at theirs, they KNEW me) all over…NEVER thought of it. But when my granddaughter was a year 1/2, didn’t know me THAT well…I erred on the side of caution – & it was a ‘backpack’ type thing with a long furry ‘leash’ attached. She’s now 2 1/2, & I haven’t used one since…she knows my voice (from phone & visits) & actually LISTENS to me – especially when she knows I’m serious!

I don’t know if you’d read my comment or were directing anywhere NEAR me…just thought I’d clarify.

Tug’s last blog post..Sunshine & Lollipops kids

Tug - Well I believe in to each’s own and obviously I don’t have a child so what do I know. I just can’t imagine needing one, why not just use a stroller? When you are in a place for them to play you kind of have to let them free to run around right? The place I was, was a small store where the only other people in there were Erik and I and the store people.

Blue - I think you’ve just become my hero :bow:

I’m not a fan & wouldn’t use one myself. I’m more hands on & interactive. The ‘child restraint’ seems more like the child is just something that you need to control & feed for the next 18 years, rather than teach & enjoy.

And, I used to feel the same way as Blue – that they were treating their child like a puppy. (And, quite honestly, right now, I’m interacting more with the actual NINE puppies that are in my kitchen, as I’m trying to type this comment, than I used to imagine a leash-type parent would interact with their child)

But, I’ve come around a bit, kind of. If the parent involved truly thinks that that’s the best thing to do for themselves & their child at the time, well… It’s better than letting them run wild or get into danger, I guess. And, I’ve found, over the years, that calling people names doesn’t really win them over to thinking that you might have a valid point. So, I’m a bit more sympathetic & hopeful that my example & a kind conversation, along with some support might make a bigger difference over time.

Both me and my little sister were leashed. Me, because I was curious and wanted to be independent from a young age. I was constantly trying to get away to go look at stuff and talk to people (or mannequins, as I was fond of doing), and it was a way for my mother to let me do my own thing and give me some freedom while still being able to keep control of me if she needed to should I have tried to do something stupid, like run off the sidewalk or after someone with an exceptionally colorful outfit. Generally, I was well behaved and the harness was just a way for her to have a foot-long arm extension, since I never struggled to get away from it and Mom never used it to prevent me from doing anything, more like just supervising me from afar – trying to supervise me vocally wouldn’t work (and still doesn’t, much to my loving husband’s dismay) due to a hearing problem.

For my sister, she was just insanely active by the time she got past the stroller age and was devious enough to work her way out of stroller straps if my mom tried to keep her in it. She used the same harness that I did and like me was able to do her own thing and so such charming things as running up to complete strangers and asking how many kids they had. It was also a safety device for her; my father had a custom length rubber-coated cable made that was used explicitly with the harness to prevent her from going overboard on our boat while still being able to walk around and feel like a big girl with her life jacket one, since she was the poster child for “I only turned around for a second!” type of accidents (this was a child who managed to dislocate her elbow while reaching for a sandwich, so you can imagine what sort of shit she could get into when she was actually trying to *do* something).

It’s not a matter of not having control over a child in most cases – no matter how well supervised/trained a child (or dog, as the comparison has been made) is, shit can and does happen no matter how vigilant a parent is.

With the stroller, though, they can’t run around. With the backback leash, she still felt she could run around, & if I was watching my grandson play a game or helping him with something, she wasn’t running away – but was still able to check out the other games right by us, thinking that she was ‘free’ so to speak. Chuck E. Cheese’s is so filled with kids, it can be tough to keep up with 2. But yeah, the store where you were? I don’t get that either.

Tug’s last blog post..Sunshine & Lollipops kids