Stupid Safety

We recently spent some time at the lake and took a boat ride with Rory. I took some pictures and posted them on my regular blog. There was a picture of Rory on the boat without a life jacket (there were life jackets on the boat, but we don't typically wear them on rides. Its a pontoon boat, for petes sake). My MIL harped on my husband about why didn't Rory have a life jacket on?! They, too, have a pontoon and kids have to wear a life jacket on any boat ride. That's fine. Their boat, their rules. I totally agree that every child and person should have a life jacket on the boat, but seriously its not like a pontoon is going to go too fast and flip over or something. Yes, a rare tragic event could happen and another boat could crash into it but that would typically be VERY rare.

Anyhow... why does this bother me? Why does it irritate me (and Max) that she even had the balls to question why we didn't make him wear a life jacket? Well, let me explain a recent situation that just irks the hell out of me and then you tell me if she even had the right to mutter a word about OUR parental safety...

Recently Rory went with my inlaws out of town. They went to see fireworks with my SIL and her family and they ended up being cancelled because of a storm. There were a lot of people at the park and a lot of traffic and it was pouring down rain. Everyone piled into my inlaws van and my BIL ran through the storm to get to the other vehicle (sil and bil's van). Well, since there was so much traffic and the vehicles were so far away from eachother they figured it'd take forever to meet up.

So what did they do? They put my niece in the carseat that Rory rode in, and my other two nieces on the floor of the van and my SIL buckled my son in on her lap. My 2 year old son, riding on the freeway on her lap in an adult belt. Why even buckle him up because if they were in an accident I can guarantee the adult belt would kill him regardless. Why the hell wouldn't you use the cell phone and if needed, drive to a nearby place in the park to meet rather than drive 15 miles with my kid in an adult belt? And, why did my niece get the carseat when her mother was there to give permission for the other 2 kids to not be buckled and they didn't have permission to drive with Rory out of a carseat?

If you knew me in person you'd know how anal I am about carseats and my kids. I rarely allow him to ride in anyone else's carseats unless I've checked how it is installed and checked that the harness is adjusted correctly for my son. I don't assume and leave it up to others to make sure my son is buckled in correctly.

I was happy when Max told me that when MIL harped on him about the life vest that he said to her "Oh, and this is coming from the grandma who drove her grandkids around not in carseats?"

'Nuff said.