Drop-side cribs kill 46 kids over the past 10 years and they ban them (millions upon millions of them), while the CDC reports that 77 children aged 1-3 died between 2000 and 2007 from accidental firearm discharges and every American is still allowed to own a gun... Why not put the onus on the companies that manufacture the sub-par rails and guides to provide quality parts, perhaps by getting rid of the cheap plastic and go back to good old fashioned metal? And where does a parent's responsibility end? We had a guide break on our crib (right around the time of the recall, and after 3 kids had already outgrown it) because I leaned on it with most of my weight while trying to get Rebekah out of the back corner. What did we do about it? Took the side with the broken rail off, used the crib as a toddler bed and ordered a replacement part for when the next baby came along... There are so many things wrong with this new "initiative" that I'm not even sure where to start...
- We have recently been considering our impact on our world and have begun following The Story of Stuff and I can't help but think that somewhere, somebody is more worried about how they can force people to buy new cribs instead of buying them from garage sales, hanging on to them for generations, or passing them on to other new parents
- I also am forced to think about how widely the same poor quality plastics that created the broken guide dilemma are used in other consumer products and how much of a backlash it would cause if they forced crib manufacturers to use a higher-quality (read as more expensive) replacement, both in terms of increased manufacturing costs and in terms of consumers realizing that there are options to the cheap plastics that have become pervasive in consumer goods...
- Wondering about the intelligence of forcing new parents (who already may be struggling to make ends meet) to go buy a brand new crib because they can't get a used one any more...
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