Myths about rear facing car seats...

You don't need a rear-facing car seat. You actually probably don't need a car seat at all.

Here are the number of children that die every year in the UK:

People who say that we should all buy rear facing seats are talking about children up to the age of 4, so that's 4065 deaths a year. Now, how many of them could have been avoided if we all had rear facing seats? I wonder...

Look, another handy graphic! Look at the causes of those deaths:

This handy graph will show you the extent of the problem. 0% of babies die in road traffic accidents. Mmmkay (well most of them have rear facing seats don't they?) and 15% of 1-4 year olds that die per year do so because of 'external factors', which includes road traffic. So of the 3.5 million children in the UK (England and Wales 2011 Office of National Statistics) 4065 of them died, which is 0.116% of them.

What we're looking at is 3.5 (ish) million children, of which 85 died due to 'external circumstances'. That's 0.0024% of children. 

How many of those were road traffic related? well let's have another graphic shall we?

This many. children up to the age of 4 in one year that died in road traffic related accidents constitute  3 deaths a year. THREE. 

Even assuming that all three of those deaths could have been prevented by having a rear facing car seat (which is VERY unlikely) that means that the number of lives a year in the UK that could be saved by everyone having a rear facing car seat is 3. THREE. 

All these people are campaigning to save the lives of 0.0000857% of children under 5 in the UK:

http://www.rearfacing.co.uk/

http://incarsafetycentre.co.uk/category/extended-rear-facing/

http://www.rearfacingtoddlers.com/

https://erfmission.wordpress.com/tag/rear-facing-car-seat/

I could go on but it would take forever to list them all. This stuff comes up on my facebook feed all the time. It's quite a big thing. the campaign...not the issue.

I'm not saying that rear facing car seats aren't safer. They evidently are. (500% safer according to one blog) (I mean, if you plan on having a high speed head-on collision, definitely get one)

I'm not saying that the children whose lives were lost in car accidents aren't a terrible and tragic waste. They obviously are.

I'm just saying that caring THAT much about hassling strangers about what car seat they use, when investing in one is betting on your child being one of the 0.0000857% of children who POSSIBLY could be saved by having a rear facing car seat instead of a forward facing one is totally insane. 

So what should we worry about instead?

Almost all the top preventable causes of death in the UK are linked to low socio-economic status. 

Children die more when they are poor. 

There is worse maternal health, more premature birth, more disease, more accidents and more intentional harm in poor families than there is in rich families. 

The average price of a rear facing car seat in the UK that I could find was well over £200. maybe I was looking in the wrong places. you can get a forward facing car seat for less than £50. 

Maybe if we used that extra money to help children actually at risk, start a toy library, give a donation to a kids club, campaign to stop the closure of the Surestart centres and more extensive funding for good quality childcare, trying to fight for better wages for early years carers so that the profession can attract more competent and well-qualified staff, better provision for family support that isn't punitive, better funding for social services so that they can actually help poor families learn the skills they need to help their children, yknow, not die, instead of just scolding them for not being able to do something they've never been shown how to do (it is nuts when you think about it). 

Maybe then you could make an ACTUAL difference to the number of preventable child deaths in the UK.

Buying your own child a rear-facing child seat is fine, if that's what you want to do then go for it. But please oh please stop telling the world about it, stop telling everyone that they're putting their child at risk by not doing it, stop falling for the fear-mongering hype of ill-disguised advertising campaigns. 

Keep it to yourself, make your choices and let everyone else make theirs.

(I often sound like I'm really intolerant. I'm not, apart from of intolerance...it's the only thing I cannot stand. Like, I'm seriously not saying you should buy or not buy anything in particular, I don't care if you breast feed or wean early or feed your kid sweets all day long. I'm pro choice and pro education. I hate advertising, I hate the culture of fear it creates and I hate people being judgemental of the choices of others because they differ from one's own. Lots of what you see online that looks like it's educational is actually advertising. Look at those websites above promoting the safety of rear facing car seats...see how the people who make them advertise all over their page? They get paid for that you know. A lot of pages about rear facing are both "informative" as well as created by the people who make and sell the car seats. Just, be a bit critical when you're reading. A reliable source is one that has nothing to gain through being believed. Like me. Peace and love people, peace and love.)

Dear Sophie, shut up.

Why would you ignore the cries of someone you love?

I read a post on the Huffington Post this morning that grabbed me so hard I just had to post it.

Sophie: My husband left me alone crying until I threw up

I’m too scared to make a noise next time

He made me sit on the stairs for ages earlier too, because I was joking around.

He just shouted at me to shut up

I’ve tried to open the door. He’s holding it shut.

He came in. Didn’t look at me I tried to hug him he pushed me away and put me in bed.

He must hate me.

I’m scared.

I’m hungry.

I keep waking and calling for him. He must have left.

He left me in my own sick didn’t clean me up. He didn’t hear me be sick so didn’t help me.

I tried to tell him I needed him. I just wanted a cuddle.

Apparently I have sleep issues. That’s what they told my husband. And I need to learn.

I don’t understand why the person I love the most doesn’t want to touch or look at me…

Sophie’s Husband: My heart aches for you when I hear your cries. I don’t hate you but you can’t understand that.

I don’t want to scare you or hurt you.

Sometimes, you’re just too much for one person to take.

For months now, all day and all night, all you have done is cry and you won’t ever tell me why you’re crying. I haven’t sat down and eaten a meal, seen my friends or even managed to drink a hot cup of tea in 6 months now because I leap to attention every moment you seem like you need me. You have spent months biting me until I bleed and yet I continue to let you because people make me feel too ashamed to stop.

You can’t clean up your own vomit, you can’t wipe up your own faeces or urine. You have defecated on me more than once, you have vomited into my mouth. And I have only continued to love you.

I am only one human being. We all need to be shown love, but my relationship with you is all one-way. You take everything I have, emotionally, physically and financially and you offer nothing in return and I do not ask for it.

The only thing I ever really yearn for from the immense list of things I am denied in caring for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is a night of sleep so that I can at least function normally in the daytime.

People come and help me for the odd hour here and there, but as soon as your care is difficult or disgusting, as it so often is, you are handed back to me. I love you and am duty bound to care for you and whatever you do to me I can never stop loving you, but why am I not allowed a limit?

Whenever I complain I am told I am lucky to have a wife at all, so many people don’t have one.

I am told I am selfish for wanting 5 minutes of peace from your constant draining demands on me.

I am told I am a terrible person for reaching the end of my tether with you when I try so hard to make you happy and you, sometimes literally, throw that in my face.

When you cannot communicate to me what you want and I am always left guessing, all day and all night, is it not normal for me to reach a point where I will try anything? 

When you do try to tell me what is wrong, sometimes you don’t know yourself and whatever I try only makes you worse. More often than not I can’t even understand what you’re trying to say at all.

I cry myself to sleep too, I get sick too, no one helps me either.

I read a book, and heard from other carers that maybe I can help you learn in a way that might seem cruel to you.

Yes, perhaps to begin with I was able to be your nurse, your comfort, your chef and provider all hours of the day and night. But after months and months of relentless demands I am desperate.

I wish the world would offer me help and support.

I wish someone would give me a weekend off where I could just have some time to remember who I am.

I wish looking after you hadn’t meant that I had to give up my friends, my job, my clothes, my self-worth, my self-esteem, my self. But it did.

When I hear you cry, every fibre of my being yearns to hold you, to love you, to understand what you want and give it to you. But I can’t do it anymore.

Why do people call me evil, selfish, shameful for being a human?

Why am I judged for every decision I make about your care?

Why is this judgement always so public when I am so vulnerable?

Why does the world believe that the way that I try to cope with this life of constant guessing and giving and thankless generosity is anything to do with them?

Why is there always someone ready to pounce and tell me what I’m doing isn’t good enough?

Sophie, I mean you no harm and I love you immeasurably. I will never divorce you or ask you for anything for the rest of our lives…but please why won’t you just let me sleep?

Why do I even bother to ask, you can’t tell me.

So while I try my best, can everyone else just please f**k off?

I'll leave you with your thoughts.