pet peeve #68787A: Parents who "leash" their children

[WindRavenX]

So I'm working a temp job at a county fair this week, and whenever I have a break and observe the crowd, I always see something that never fails to royally piss me off: "parents" who have mfing LEASHES for their children.
Honestly people, are we REALLY at that level where we have degraded children to the level of dogs?
/rant

[Maddy McCall]

1. I hate it too. I never did it to my kid, and he was a little busy body

when he was a toddler. I can't stand it, either.

[WindRavenX]

2. I'm very sympathetic for busy kids...but leashes are NOT the answer

It's just degrading and flat-out inhumane, IMO.

[hlthe2b]

36. Some parents do it in SUBSTITUTION of "good parenting;" Others

do it to SUPPLEMENT "good parenting" for a time with the highly independent, unruly, exuberant, or otherwise challenging child-- as that added precaution against the unthinkable loss of the child.

The problem is that we, the public can not differentiate. That is why I don't make any judgements on this score.

[Pithlet]

44. I totally agree.

Sometimes it is a matter of safety. One of the things I've learned when I became a parent is that no matter how hard you try, there are so many people who judge how you parent, often harshly. When you see people with their children out in public, you are only getting a quick glimpse of the picture. Unless it is obvious physical or emotional abuse, I mentally give them the benefit of the doubt and move on.

I don't have a leash, but believe me, there have been times when it was very appealing. Sometimes, safety is a bigger concern than what other people think of your parenting skills.

[burythehatchet]

3. Do you have kids?

Have you ever gotten separated from a toddler in a busy mall? There is no feeling that is as mortifying as not knowing where a young child is.

btw, I've never used one. I think they are tacky. But I would not judge anyone using one because I know the feeling.

[Maddy McCall]

5. Wherever you take your kids, watching should be priority...

even above shopping. If watching them can't be priority, leave them at home.

I am a parent. I've seen kids with leashes on. They look sad and embarassed.

[WindRavenX]

6. No I do not have kids

But I often baby sit, and have worked at a daycare where I have to watch many children in public places, like the park or zoo where there are many children and people. Leashes are still not appropriate. Use strollers if you have a child that cannot sit still, not leashes.

[alphafemale]

17. ...sozzah...choke chain maybe good too? How 'bout electric shock collars

That'd learn'm. :eyes:

Please.

If you have a toddler you pay attention.

You don't cell phone.
You don't gossip.
You don't droll over bargins.

You parent.
You're vigilent and watch, and at times you think you'll go mad because of the crazy nightmares in your head...of what could happen.

But you don't put a leash on a human.

Not ever.

[WindRavenX]

18. rock on!

alphafemale :yourock:

[burythehatchet]

22. Thanks alphafemale!

Are there other parenting tips that you might share with me? You seem quite learned in that area.

:)

[alphafemale]

40. Enjoy it!

:hi:

And when things are especially nuts take a deep breath and realize that 99.99% of time things are going to be ok.

And find a really good hiding place for any "ahem" adult items.

Otherwise the little one will be sure to bring it into full living-room display when in-laws or preacher type is visiting.

[girl gone mad]

24. That;s easy to say..

but you can lose sight of a hyperactive child within seconds. What if you're a single mom with two hyperactive children and you need to buy groceries? What if one of your kids has food allergies which require you to take your eyes off of them for a few seconds to read a label? Kids can get away from you that quickly.

Leashes seem tacky. I think something akin to an electronic leash might be appropriate, though. Not as a substitute for good parenting, of course. Just as a kind of safety net.

[alphafemale]

42. Parenting is tough.

My son developed wander-lust as soon as he could walk.

(For some strange reason nearly every generation in my family, that I know of, has had a kid with this trait.)

Leashes are just a bad idea I think.

Even two year olds have a highly devoping sense of self to be quite insulted by such an exercise.

[Zomby Woof]

4. are they getting a good rate?

I mean, when I was a kid, there was nothing wrong with parents leasing their children! $10.00 an hour, plus meals, was the going rate!

I just don't understand your rant. Leasing children is just fine, and it helps the parents earn extra money so they can buy the latest designer clothes for Madison or Britanee!

OH! You said "leashing"! Never mind.

[northstar]

7. LOL

n/t

[tedoll78]

8. Oh boy..

I'll probably get flamed as a child-hating monster for this, but I love the idea of leashing children when they can't behave.. or for when they'd probably get in the way.

Even better.. I love the idea of parents actually parenting. Teaching children to be courteous of others seems almost gone now. Instead, we get dancing/flailing wildly/standing still in the middle of a grocery store aisle with no consideration for those trying to get in and out quickly, cutting people off in foot traffic, getting underfoot; it's just plain rude of the parents to not control their child by some means. If a leash or harness or basket confinement is that means, so be it. :shrug:

[Maddy McCall]

9. So how will they learn to behave when school time rolls around?

Can't leash them to their desks. Confining them to a leash is a temporary solution to a problem that needs a permanent solution--parents should teach their children to behave in public...leashing doesn't do that...it just contains them for a little while.

[tedoll78]

13. Bingo.

Like I said.. actual parenting is required.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

10. lol, you don't have kids do you?

I agree, but I'm a selfish childless bastard. Muzzle 'em up!

[tedoll78]

14. Not yet.

And the thing is, I like kids. I wouldn't mind having one or two some day. It's the lack of parenting and teaching of courtesy that really pisses me off. Grocery stores and the like should not resemble 'Double Dare' obstacle courses made of scattered children.

[WindRavenX]

12. as I have seen it, leashing is used as a substitute for parenting

Instead of controlling their children and attending to them, they chose to leash them and forget about them.
It's not about discipline- it's about ignoring them, from what I've seen.
It's humiliating.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

15. I haven't seen any 12 year olds on leashes or anything

All the kids I've seen are about 2 or so. The kids that pull their skirts over their heads in public. I don't think they're old enough to be humiliated.

I agree though it is a substitute for parenting, but I don't think that sans leash the parents would parent anyway.

[burythehatchet]

23. can you not see that you are doing something that

is typically abhorrent to progressives? You dividing the issue into black and white. Is there not perhaps a point or two on the spectrum between monsterous parenting and careful parenting?

[JVS]

11. As long as the leash doesn't trip me, I'm cool with it

[elperromagico]

16. Agreed. Free-range children are "in" this year.

;)

[onebigbadwulf]

19. Is it better than unleashed children?

Running around, screaming, bothering people, and getting kidnapped? I dunno.

[WindRavenX]

20. there are MANY alternatives

As I have said before, strollers are an excellent alternative- especially if the child/children are being fusy.

[NewHampshireDem]

25. So, to *strap* a child into a stroller is okay, but to let them walk ...

on a leash is not?

Listen, there are places that are just not as child-friendly as they could be, even though they are intended for children. Zoos, aquariums, fairs ...

It's easy to judge when your not the one with the 2 year old who is crying/screaming/wriggling because they want to assert their independence and walk. Sometimes my son does not want to be carried, even on my shoulders or in his backpack, and refuses to *safely* sit in the stroller.

Now, if we are someplace where he can walk AND hold my hand, and there are not so many people around, and there is no place he can harm himself, then he walks. And let me tell you, that is about 99.9% of the time.

But if I think my son is going to be safer in his *harness* (not a leash, thank you very much), then he goes in his harness.

Check your assumptions.

[searchingforlight]

27. You are right on

I never did it but not because I was against it. I feel that child safety is the most important thing a parent has to be aware of.

I have a friend, whom I consider a good mother, whose child got on the wrong airplane at a very busy airport because she turned her back for just a minute.

Children are very quick and even the best and most attentive parent can lose a child in the blink of an eye. I raised three normal, healthy boys who are good husbands, fathers and contributing members of society. I am sure that I lost each of them once or twice for just a minute. It was a safer time and I was lucky.

(I have never seen a child with a collar around their neck but I have seen harnesses. I have never known or heard of a child who had a phobia because they were "leashed". I have heard of children who have been affected for life because they were lost.)

[put out]

32. And you are also right on.

I had to comment on the "strap" a child into a stroller. HaHaHa. Have you ever seen a red-faced, shrieking, crying child doing a back-bend in a stroller? Or a parent carrying a child when the child is delivering kicks to the abdomen, kidneys, and groin? Because when they want down, they WANT DOWN. Reasonable discussion about crowd safety and stranger safety and escalator safety is not possible with a two-year-old when the kid WANTS DOWN.

And, you do put them down with their chubby little legs already running in mid-air. When they hit the ground, the child is motoring and it does not matter whether you are watching them or talking to them or cautioning them. Maurice Greene would hang his head and cry, they way a determined child can move.

I didn't use a harness because I didn't have one. I, too, looked down my nose at people I saw using one with their little children. That is, until I had a little child. I changed my mind. Or, rather, the little child changed my mind about the issue of child harnesses. They are O.K. in my book.

[Pithlet]

45. Some people think strollers are cruel

It really is a no-win situation when it comes to being judged as a parent. I think those who are equating a harness with child abuse are being way too judgmental. A stroller is actually more confining than a harness. Other than looking more like something one would use with a dog, what is the difference?

[AmyDeLune]

21. My sister-in-law

came up with what appeared to me to be the "happy medium". She put the "collar" of the leash around her own wrist and let my then 2 year old niece hold the "handle" end. My niece was very happy to "keep mommy from getting lost."

[Skittles]

26. I dunno

sometimes I think perhaps that parent has a good reason for leashing the little rascal.

[Karenina]

29. Used one.

Till I got the little monster TRAINED to stick close. He had to get a bit older before he understood it was NOT a game. Make NO apologies. Anybody with the chutzpah to chide me got a verbal ass-kicking. ;-)
The PANIC of losing sight of one's toddler cannot be imagined by anyone who hasn't experienced it. When you're out and about with two of them doing their thing in tandem...

[REP]

28. Why?

I'm 40, and I was on a leash as a toddler. It didn't warp me, and it kept me from dashing away from my parents, as small children often do.

Would you rather see out-of-control children running around, causing a hazard to themselves and others? Would you rather see one on a leash or dead because it ran into traffic before its parent could catch it?

[no_hypocrisy]

30. In the 1920's my grandmother tied my father as a toddler to a tree with

a length of rope like a dog. Guess that explains some of his pathos . . .

[wickerwoman]

31. It still happens.

I remember reading a story a few years ago about migrant fruit pickers. Many of the mothers tie their children to a tree while they work. The kids play together and the mothers have their hands free. I don't think they're monsters (although the lack of adequate child care is a bit monsterous). What's worse, tying a kid to a tree for a few hours a day or letting him starve because you can't pay for work and child care?

[greatauntoftriplets]

33. The triplets' mother considered using a harness.

Watching three toddlers in the supermarket, shopping mall, etc., requires excellent reflexes, especially on those occasions when no second adult is there to help with "crowd control".

Fortunately it never proved necessary, because the triplets (now 3 1/2) have long stuck with each other and dislike having their mother out of their sight.

[hlthe2b]

34. I used to think this too.....

Until Adam Walsh was abducted in a Sears store just a few feet away from his Mother, followed in recent years by scores of other child abductions. I think a leash is a last resort in most cases, and most children could probably be kept close without resorting to this means. However, when in the kind of incredible crowd mentioned (state fair, crowded shopping mall at Christmas, etc.) with scores of strangers, both good and bad, and especially for the harried parent with more than one highly independent and exuberant child to keep up with, I withold judgement. Better to offend some strangers with a leash on ones' toddler child, than to risk losing him/her to a child molester. And we must face it, not all children are equally amenable to "traditional good parenting" as some have described-- especially at a very early age.

My Mom was very trusting with my sister and I, allowing us to shop on our own and meet up with her at a designated place--even when we were still quite young (e.g., about 7 or 8. I believe we were both fairly mature for our ages and my Mom was a good (and strict in the traditional sense)parent. That was so many years ago and such a different time and place... If she were making that asseessment now, I can not imagine she would ever take that risk.

(On edit, I'm not suggesting my Mother would have leashed us at 7 or 8 years of age nor would any parent of a child that I can imagine. Just to be clear, I'm witholding any judgement towards a parent who does so with a very young child, especially when faced with the challenge of multiple independent, exuberant or hyperactive toddlers. )


Now I'll really insult some parents when I make a comparison to dogs. Some dogs really don't NEED a leash because they are so well trained OR by nature so attached to their owner) that they would never stray, while by others by nature are easily distractable and would be gone in a heartbeat with the first interesting diversion. So too, with young children. Each situation is different based on the individual pesonality involved. And, yes, I see many similarities in young children and young dogs or nonhuman primates in their susceptibility to distraction, need to explore and develop limited independence from "Mom" or owner, as the case may be. At some point BOTH seem to develop acute deafness to the calls of their Parent (or owner as the case may be).

[Nikia]

35. My mother bought one for my half sister

For some reason, she was a more unruly child than my sister and I who were always well behaved children (really). Until she was 2, she generally sat in a stroller when we went out even if she was screaming. Then she was able to escape. My mother bought one of those leashes even though she considered it degrading. My little half sister knew leashes were for dogs since we had a dog. She did find the experience of being leashed humiliating. Come to think of it, we probably contributed to that idea. My mother only used it a couple times. After that, she brought it along and threatened to use it if my half sister got unruly. That usually got her to behave.
Now that I write about it. It all seems rather cruel. "If you don't behave, we're going to have to leash you like a dog."
She was traumatized, but that's not the only reason. Now though, she is doing well in sports, school, and extra curricular activities as she starts the eighth grade. She founded a preteen and teen support group (Not for children who were on leashes, but from divorced and/or dysfunctional families).

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[kodi]

37. ever been kidnapped?

I was, during a custody dispute between my parents, my dad kidnapped me from my mom on the boardwalk in atlantic city. it was thought that i had fallen off a pier into the atlantic ocean. the ocean was dragged next day until a man came toward upon reading about it in the local paper and identified my father as the man who took me.

a leash or harness would have stopped that.

[amazona]

38. yeah, but think of the potential boon to the economy

In 20 or 30 years those kiddies will be forking boocoo bucks over to the
dominatrix ladies in leather.

[Ratty]

39. I was leashed as a kid

And I turned out fine. I do have one vivid memory of that time. That was my secretly working to undo the leash, getting out of it, then running like a banshee down the street with my frantic mother chasing after me. I remember not particularly hating the leash, it's just that I considered getting free of it an exciting challenge. The leash stretched from the front porch to the edge of the sidewalk. I really don't see the harm in it. It gave my mom peace of mind and kept me from darting into the street. If I had kids I'd leash 'em too. And just dare any big nose neighborhood busybody to make something of it.

[Guy Fawkes]

41. While I did make a copy-cat thread...

this is something that bothers me. The last time I was at the fair, I saw someone litteraly abusing their child. They had him on a leash and they were dragging him, while the leash choked him. Luckly, I was not the only person who went for help, and before I could get the policeman, the child had been taken from the (drunk) couple.

[gollygee]

43. I don't have one, but I sure understand it

The purpose of them is to allow children to continue to walk around, which they like to do, and to keep them safe. It is simply a safety device. It doesn't harm a child in the slightest.

I saw a little boy at the airport on one who was pretending to be a dog! He thought it was funny. And I'll tell you, I wish I had one at the airport. It was so busy I was truly afraid we'd get separated.

It's one of those things you don't understand unless and until you have an active toddler.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. How much experience do you have with two-year-olds?

I've never had kids, but I had plenty of little cousins, and at the age of two or so, they would suddenly just get it into their heads to run off at top speed in a straight line. They would move incredibly fast, and with no real-world knowledge of what's dangerous: oncoming traffic, hot barbecue grills, swimming pools, crabby dogs... They were surprisingly hard to catch, too.

The period during which parents might be tempted to use a leash is very short and lasts only until the kid becomes unable to understand the concept of "you might get hurt."

I doubt that the child, who is, after all, pre-verbal and has little real-world knowledge, is thinking, "Oh, my God, I'm being leashed like a dog." What's going through the kid's head is probably more like:"Want to take off like a streak. Can't."

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

47. I hope you never have a kid like mine was then

she was a RUNNER. From the time those feet coordinated with her chubby legs, she would just BOLT.

Now a younger toddler, you can catch. But a two or three year old? Ay-yi-yi. And I had more than a handful of HEART-STOPPING moments when she would just run in a FLASH and be gone in a huge crowd. Do you know what that feels like? Can you know? Imagine your guts suddenly wadded up and dropped down into your upper legs and your heart refusing to beat.

That being said, we never leashed her. Why? I really don't know, I honestly don't think I KNEW about child leashes. I notice they are mostly used in BIG crowded areas. IF we had used one, we would have only used it in those situations. In the grocery store, I could grab her. Not so much at the state fair or a mall right before Christmas.

Runners are kids who scare the shit out of their parents until they are old enough to stop doing that (around four). It's runners they leash.

I won't stand in judgement of it. Strollers are much the same, but the kid isn't even allowed to walk. And my daughter spent many a time screaming and fighting and red-faced trying like hell to get out of that stroller.

[Ilsa]

48. My child was very impulsive and very fast.

ANd he still is. There was a brief time that we kept a leash handy for certain outings for his own safety. Fortunately, we didn't have to use it too much.

My son literally couldn't understand us; it's like he is from a foreign country. We stayed away from many venues as much as possible, but frankly, he deserves to take trips out also, so we took extra measures for safety.

Please don't judge other families. You don't know what they might be dealing with medically with some children with developmental and behavioral problems, things that are wrong that you can't see.

[Carolina]

49. it's not necessarily about bad parenting

I have a good child, now grown, but when he was a toddler and we lived in DC, a famous and tragic kidnapping occurred; you DC, VA, MD older DUers may remember the case. A beautiful little girl named Melissa Brannon, age 5 at the time, was adducted from a Christmas Party when she was out of her mother's site for seconds. Her body was never found! That terrified me, and in response/fear, my mother-in-law actually sent me a harness and leash designed for little tikes. Sure enough when we were in crowded places like stores, I used it. I still held his hand or put him in the shopping cart but had the extra tether connected just in case. A parent with a toddler knows that you CAN be a good parent and STILL lose site of your child. And in those "lost site" moments, the fear and dread are unbelievable. I guess, also, too many years of forensic work made me a tad paranoid. To this day, I give him safety dos and dont's, but twenty year olds, like toddlers, feel the need to explore the world and can be oblivious to danger.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

50. Single mother raised me

and there was no way she could constantly keep track of me when I was a kid. SHe could only push one cart and no strollers. And kids are wily, she told me that I would disappear within seconds if I could. If I could have been harnessed back then I probably would have. I retract my statement that it's a substitute for good parenting, and I apologize to all parents out there. I'm 20! I forgot how bad I was back then.. :)

[democracyindanger]

51. I was a leashed child

Flight to Japan with my grandmother when I was 5. I turned out alright.

At least that's what the voices tell me.

[DemBones DemBones]

52. Count me as another who was "leashed" as a child.

I've never known anyone who thinks it was bad for them, anymore than I've known anyone who complained that their parents used safety gates or wouldn't allow them to play with matches.

I never used a leash as a parent because I never saw the need to. But if I'd had a set of twins. . . or two very close in age. . . or one hyperactive little escape artist.

My mother used to give people quite a lecture if they made a comment to her about leashing her kids, beginning with "better a leashed child than a dead child."

It's a safety measure. If you haven't encountered a child that you felt ought to be on a leash, you just haven't encountered enough children.

This thread reminds me of the child psychologist who started out with six theories about child rearing but no children. He wound up with six children and no theories.

[Race4Peace]

53. please delete