Could the fevered climate of concern about children’s safety be reaching its limits? Maybe.
This month the Maclaren stroller company issued a massive “recall” of every stroller sold in the United States since 1999 because of reports that 14 children had, over the years amputated fingers when they caught them in the hinges of the stroller.
Of course no one likes the thought of separating kiddie-digits from their owners but warnings about the dangers of the stroller pushed at the limits of credulity.
A few days before the story broke, the Park Slope Parents Yahoo!Group I help to run began receiving messages about the impending recall that sent me and my fellow moderators scrambling to the urban legend web site, Snopes.com to see if it was for real. The messages we received, which originated from the “Baby Bargains Blog”, the counterpart to an annual guide to baby gear, exhorted parents to “Stop using all Maclaren strollers RIGHT NOW—yes, every model made since 1999”.
Stop using the stroller? IMMEDIATELY? It seemed plausible, then again it was rather like receiving a message telling us to stop using car doors or party balloons or drinking straws, all of which have the potential to inflict serious injury under certain circumstances. And then of course, these dangerous hinges had been in use for more than a decade. We scoured the web, half expecting to find it listed, along with “Help Find Little Ashley Flores and other mainstays of the Internet rumour mill. But ‘lo, it turned out to be true and Maclaren’s press release 24 hours later, did actually instruct parents to stop using the stroller until they could install the free hinge shield.
A seemed like a major safety panic was on the cards. The New York Times coverage was typical. They dispatched a young, (young-looking, at least) reporter Andrew Keh to my neighborhood where he managed to find a woman in the Starbucks who had stopped using the stroller until the hinge cover arrived and claimed “nobody I know is using it. Nobody wants to be that person.” She also put the menace of the stroller on a par with Swine Flu. Only a few parents, who did not wish to be identified for fear for being labeled “bad parents” said they thought it was all a bit over the top. The headline of the story read “Stroller Recall Stirs Unease in Park Slope” and seemed to confirm that most parents were more than a little rattled. But were they? Passing dozens of Maclaren strollers in the days that followed the recall, I wasn’t so sure.
I decided to conduct my own unscientific poll of people from our parenting list to find out just how just worried Maclaren users really are. Answer? Not so much.
Of the 51 parents who answered my survey, only one had stopped using the stroller entirely. Most had ordered the hinge shield but were continuing to use the stroller and just under half weren’t going to bother ordering the shield at all. Some, like this woman explained, “The only reason I ordered the covers or whatever they are (I’m not completely sure.) is to maybe pass on the stroller when we’ve outgrown it. ”
Some were annoyed by the press coverage.
One observed “I have not seen a shortage in Maclaren use at all on the slope. Just because we’re American and live in Park Slope doesn’t mean we’re nuts.”
Another said she “Can’t wait for someone to write a reasonable piece about this. Not that it’s newsworthy, really, to begin with, but still. The Times had that dumbass shark-bait piece, and then the blogs had this whole thing scolding PS parents for not reacting ENOUGH. Pleeeeease!”
The main thing that struck me about the responses was the sheer reasonableness of them along with some healthy skepticism about hysterical nature of the recall.
“if the company knows it product has/can cause injury, then it should let people know about it. Who would have thought our little one could lose their fingers? I also own a toybox that could amputate a little finger if jumped on when the fingers are inside, but it is nice and does the job…..hope all my kids make it to adult hood with all of their fingers!”
and,
“My daughters finger actually got caught in the MacLaren when it was being unfolded a few years ago. It was scary, but her finger was fine. Since then, we’ve just been more careful. I equate it to fingers near a car door or drawer or anything. I will eventually order the fix so I can pass the stroller along when I’m done with it, but I’m so not worried about this even after we had a close call.”
Or
“I think the concern about this is directly related to how many time you open/close your stroller. We almost never collapse it, except for a rare car ride, so I wasn’t as worried as I might be if I had a younger child or folded/unfolded the stroller more often. I still ordered the stupid shield!”
and,
“I am going to put on the shield when we receive it, now that I know about the risks. BUT I’ve never had my kid involved in collapsing the stroller anyway. (Out of curiosity, couldn’t the work of the “shield” also be accomplished with duct tape?)”
My favorite comment came from a woman who told me,
“The irony was, on the day of the announcement of the recall, my husband put away the Maclaren until we could get the replacement piece. Instead, he got out the Baby Trend jogging stroller to take our 2 yr old out, then proceeded to seriously jam his thumb in the folding mechanism as he was opening it. He suffered two long, deep lacerations that required stitches, scary bruising and swelling, and almost 2 weeks later, still some nerve damage. It just shows, accidents happen!”
Accidents do happen and it may be that somewhere in the world someone is terribly worried about MacLaren strollers but there’s not much sign of it where I am.
How did the New York Times (and others) get it so wrong? Why was Maclaren’s recall so over heated? Why weren’t the strollers recalled in the UK? Why no panic? Have we finally reached the limits of these sorts of scares? What do you think?