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I recently received an email from my mother concerning a lady who let her preschool aged child play with a product designed to remove crayon and scuff marks from base boards. In the course of her complaining, she indicated that the child knew enough to keep the product from his younger sibling, but that she didn’t see anything wrong with allowing him to use it to fulfill its purpose. I guess because it saved her from crawling around on the floor to do it.

My immediate thought was that just because a product has Magic in its name doesn’t mean that that’s how it works. If it’s strong enough to remove these kinds of things from baseboards, there must be some kind of chemical reaction involved, and if the child knew enough to keep the product from his younger sibling, and the mother thinks the point is important enough to mention, then she must have known that the product wasn’t totally safe for younger children to handle. However, she allowed her son to handle it, and he got chemical burns on his face.

She takes him to the emergency room, and the nurse says something to the effect that people should sue the company for these kinds of injuries. Why? Is it the company’s fault that she allowed her child to play with the product? Where does common sense come into play? How can her negligence in both allowing her son to play with it, and not supervising him while he was be blamed on the company?

My mother’s reply to this was that I was rude, and had no idea how to be a parent? Ok, it’s a fair point, if irrelevant to the idea. My daughter was raised by my ex-wife while I was otherwise detained. However, I watch a pair of children on a regular basis, and neither of them has been injured under my care. No trips to the ER and no severe chemical burns, or electrocutions, despite the fact that I have power cords all over my living room for my various guitar accessories. I also have a rather large collection of knives, and no cuts or accidental deaths because of the children playing with them. If I deem a product or item to be dangerous, the kids aren’t allowed to touch it. Period.

It’s pretty simple to understand, really. In this day and age, people are quite ready to blame somebody else for their shortcomings. It doesn’t matter that it may be their fault, if they can blame it on somebody else. I compared filing a lawsuit against the company in question here to filing a suit against automobile manufacturers for having an accident because you went to sleep behind the wheel while the cruise control was activated, and I feel that, in this case, that is a fair comparison. She was negligent, but it’s not her fault. Who’s fault is it then?

At some point, people need to start taking responsibility for their actions. I have never had a problem with owning my mistakes - why is it so hard for some people to do the same thing? When do we start making people take responsibility for their actions or lack thereof? Is it really, for example, the gaming industry’s fault if a parent allows Mortal Kombat to be the baby sitter, and then the kid tries some of the moves out on his younger brother? Is violence on TV really the reason our society is so skewed, or is it because parents don’t care what their children are doing until they do something wrong and then they want to act surprised.

I really think that parents need to have a wake up call. If you’re not paying attention to what your children are doing, how can you say “They’d never do something like that”? How can you know? Anyway, the point here is that it’s time to pay attention. It’s time to realize that not all products that can be harmful need to have glaring warning labels to alert you to that. Does anybody really need to be told that you don’t drink gasoline, so you shouldn’t leave it where a two year old can get a hold of it? We all know a two year old child's thought process runs “will it fit in my mouth and will it taste good”. When do we let common sense and paying attention to what our children are doing rule the day instead of filing a lawsuit every time something doesn’t go our way?

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