DIY Kidseat Controversy!
The other day I posted a very short “Spotted in the Wild” post where I highlighted a DIY bike seat that I think is pretty cool.
This post was linked to by the wonderful, enormous, blog from the wonderful wonderful magazine, Craft. We love Craftzine in the Oil family. It’s an honor to be featured on their blog. It has been nice to gain the readers and all, but I am pretty distressed by the comments the post has received so far. Especially on the Craftblog site.
I’m also a little confused because readers of that site are not only attacking the DIY child seat as unsafe, but are also criticizing Craftblog for sharing my appreciation for DIY Dad’s creation and calling for them (and me, I guess) to remove the post. Many commenters seem concerned that more impressionable readers than themselves will somehow accidentally recreate the seat and somehow accidentally put their children in them and then bad things will happen and the only way to stop that from happening is to remove these offensive images from the web right now!
Somehow, the safety of others has become everyone’s concern. Mutual concern is not a bad thing, but something changes when the message is “You’re doing it wrong!” rather than, “I wouldn’t do it that way.” It’s all very condescending and, unfortunately pretty familiar for many pedal parents. Actually, condescension wrapped in insincere concern is pretty familiar for non-pedalling parents and non-parenting pedalers, too.
Biking and parenting are two areas where some strangers seem to feel perfectly justified telling others that they are doing it wrong. I really don’t like that.
I say as much in the comments but it’s worth repeating here: parents of small children and transportation cyclists are both very risk-aware types of people. I will give all Pedal Parents the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have thought through the strategies they’ve developed to transport their families without a car. If those strategies are very different from my own or others that I’ve seen, like going ahead and making your own seat when you don’t like the ones you’ve found for sale, I’ll take a picture and throw it up on this here blog.
Here at Riding on Roadways, I’d like to celebrate Pedal Parenting in all it’s forms. Debate is great, not everything needs to be rah-rah cheerleadered, but the choices of others, if they do not affect us, need not be our concern.
That’s what I think. How about you? Comment below!
It happens everywhere. It just happened to me this past week as part of planning a 30th high school reunion. You’d think 40-something people could converse calmly, but no — rude, judgmental language and hateful tone instead. I’m still bugged by it (obviously) even though it’s all resolved now. Why *can’t* we all just get along? You’re never going to meet anyone as interesting as someone who has a point of view comes from a place you didn’t think of.
Oh this happened to me with my Milk Crate kids Seat (http://youaintgotjack.blogspot.com/p/my-diy-milk-crate-bike-seat.html) – absolute hell to deal with being told what a lousy parent I am….obviously far safer to strap my child in a vehicle going 70 mph.
[...] posted a response to what I read in the comments here and at the Craftblog, where this piece was reposted. Cheg it [...]
[...] sucks, right? It relates to some stuff we’ve been talking about here, the whole, You’re Doing It Wrong belittling posture that many strangers [...]
Ugh. I’ve been towing the kids in the trailer for 3 years, and only get weird looks. I upgraded to an extra cycle edge runner with a front seat for the baby, (heaven!! I’m in love!!) and suddenly people yell at me. Today a woman waved me over to stop and then told me I was doing a terrible thing, crossing the bridge. (The only way to anywhere except a feed store from my house involves crossing a bridge. Not my favorite part, but I feel I have developed an effective strategy.) just sucks, really. Do they think they know/ care more about my children than I do?