Apples, oranges

I'm going to say something that will probably sound harsh and heartless and also unpopular. It's the IKEA recall. The piece of furniture being recalled was made from 2002-2016, so it's likely there are loads of the dressers out there. One death is too many. I get that, I believe that and it's horrible that 6 children have died. That being said...

What happened to parenting? I remember being concerned about things falling over when my kids were small. Kids climb, they use furniture to pull themselves up, they run into things. You make accommodations for stuff like that, like securing the furniture to the wall (we did). Heck, I can't tell you how many Christmas trees we've secured to walls, just so cats wouldn't bring them down! And televisions in those days were HUGE and weighed about 500 pounds. If that was sitting too close to the front of whatever it was perched on, danger! This recall seems (to me) to be blaming IKEA for something that could have been prevented. This is what's in my head: the recall of the glorious (heh) Ford Pinto because of the gas tank exploding. The consumer really couldn't control that, so yes, Ford should have been held accountable. I just think the IKEA situation is an apple to the Pinto orange.

I honestly don't want to blame the parents. I just think that maybe more common sense is needed and attention needs to be refocused. When I was doing the parenting, we didn't have the distraction of a handy little computer/camera that we carried everywhere. Easier to pay attention when you aren't getting updates about a friend's bar crawl or liking a post so that cancer is cured. Some really crappy things have happened to kids lately and the ones I'm thinking of all seem to have that "was parent paying attention?" question hanging over them.


I may not have articulated this well and if not, I apologize. It makes sense in my head.
This is my opinion, only.