Or I could just give him a stick to play with …

Another day, another toy of ours on a recall list. First up: a rattle from Habermaass that is A. wooden and B. made in Germany, so apparently geographically profiling your toys doesn’t work either. Second: a rattle from Manhattan Toy that was made in China, so, uh, maybe it does. Ironically the problem is the same in both – parts can break off, causing a choking hazard.

This comes after the recall on the lead-encased bib we brought back to the store and the recall on the Bumbo chair, because some kids discovered a chair without a safety belt is not incredibly difficult to wriggle out of. (To be fair, you're not supposed to use the chair on a raised surface. But the packaging used to be less than clear on that fact.)

So I’m supposed to, what, obsessively scan recall lists and burn my eyes out poring over every single parenting magazine on the market to make sure my kid’s toys won’t kill him? Because this information doesn’t get regular widespread exposure unless there were deaths involved. Frankly I’d rather find out about a potentially fatal object before it becomes fatal, not after.

Tempting to blame the media but I don’t think that’s the full story here. I think these recalls are considered more or less routine. Rattle is a choking hazard, stroller might collapse on you, teddy bear has a ticking bomb inside, oopsie! Call the company for a refund. Because when you discover you’ve been sold a shoddy product, don’t you want to ask the maker of that product for a different product? I’m sure there’s no way it will also be shoddy!

I think people have come to expect this sort of thing. For the life of me I can’t understand why. These aren’t display items. They aren’t collectibles. They aren’t sitting in a curio cabinet somewhere. We’re taking them out of the package and giving them to our kids. Under the apparently mistaken impression that someone, somewhere, did something resembling quality control before dropping the things on store shelves. Recalls happening at all is obnoxious; that they happen all the time is disgraceful.

My kid, of course, is fond of both of those rattles. Fortunately he hasn’t noticed their mysterious disappearance.

This crib'll kill you

Not even remotely being flip. I don't understand how companies can willingly, openly sell products that have caused a child's death. Corporate greed, apathy, blah blah blah, come up with your own lame excuse. There is no excuse. A sleeping child should not be at risk of dying because, oh, they moved the wrong way. That is so appalling on so many levels that there almost aren't words for it.

I speak, of course, of those Simplicity 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 convertible bassinets that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has tried -- and failed -- to get recalled after a six-month-old girl in Kansas was strangled in one last week. According to the Associated Press, a four-month-old girl in Missouri also died in one last September. The commission can't get them recalled because SFCA Inc., which took over Simplicity in April after a previous recall of 1 million cribs (and other babies dying) put it out of business, refuses to go along with this recall. See, they didn't make and sell the product, so they can't be held responsible for it, even though they're clearly happy to profit from it by leaving it on the shelves. The Washington Post explains that since SFCA only bought Simplicity's assets, not the full company, it avoids that company's liabilities. Which, I guess, is a perfectly legal way to be a weasel. (Read the Post article here.)

So what's happening is, the commission told six major retailers -- that would be Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Kmart, Big Lots, Target and J.C. Penney -- to pull the cribs from their shelves. And if you buy it somewhere else? Then what?

Above you can see the commission's lovely demonstration of how a child could die in these things. I flat out don't understand 1. why anyone would think this sort of design would be safe, and 2. why companies wouldn't try harder to keep this sort of danger off the shelves in the first place. Why oh why is any old crap acceptable to market to parents? Are children really considered this disposable in this society? "Ah well, what's one or two kids"? 

Do SFCA employees use these cribs for their own kids? Or do they know better?