The Car Seat: And Then There's Reality

Recently a carpooling situation has been introduced into our daily routine, which relieves us, in theory, of multiple trips back and forth to Sydney's pre-school.  My husband brings Sydney, her schoolmate, and Lauren (by default) to the school, and then her schoolmate's mother brings Sydney and her son back to her house, where I will pick her up on my way home.  This arrangement works well, in theory. 

But in order to accomplish this, a rotating saga of carseats must occur.  A third carseat must somehow be inserted between the first two car seats of the car, since  Children Can Be Seriously Hurt Or Injured by the Passenger Side AirBag!! Children are ALWAYS Safer in the BackSeat!! 

It is nearly impossible to put this third car seat into the car without going through major bodily contortions, and it is completely impossible to do it within fifteen minutes.     Add to that the other two car seats were recently removed from the car because Sydney and her sister went somewhere with Grandma the other day, and we can all be pretty much assured that something, somewhere, is going to be buckled in either haphazardly or possibly not all.  The end result is three most likely "improperly" installed car seats and a possy of parents who are now exceedingly late to their destinations. 

The LATCH system?  Well one car has it and one car does not, and anyone who thinks this finger pinching system is easier than the seatbelt contortion is high on drugs anyway... but when you're dealing with multiple people trying to install carseats in multiple different cars you don't add multiple different ways to install them.  So we only use the seatbelts.  Which means there's this large metal object dangling from all three car seats, ready to smash someone on the head in the event of an accident, and also a whole group of child car seat safety experts shaking their heads in disbelief.

A recent study shows that most car seats are installed incorrectly.  The study tries to fault lack of awareness, but that's not it at all.  I'm perfectly aware that our hurried installation of merry-go-round car seats are likely lacking in some way.  Sometimes I discover they're not installed at all, due to a miscommunication from Party A with Party B.  It's a lack of time and resources, also a very real lack of safety features in the car itself.  Here's the thing, corporate America, I shouldn't have to buy separate pieces of equipment to keep my children safe in your car.  Your car should be made safe for my children.  My 1 1/2 year old should not have to ride backwards with her feet scrunched up against the ill-fitting back seat for another three years because we can't be bothered to make a back car seat which can comfortably and safely accomodate her.   And I should be able to fit three children into the back seat without spending half an hour installing car seats badly or, alternatively, buying 16 car seats and a minivan.

You know, sure, on paper, we should all slow down, relax, make sure that all our t's are crossed and our i's dotted before setting out on any adventure.  We should all brush our teeth daily, eat a good breakfast, exercise for fifteen minutes, sleep 8 hours a night, get a little me time in there somewhere and make sure our children's car seats are installed properly by stopping by our local police station and having them double check our installation (which in our situation would be several times a day).  Yeah, doesn't that seem properly reasonable?  Except we all slept late, we're out of milk, I can't find one of my running shoes, I stayed up late last night doing laundry, I'm not sure when I last had a free moment and all three car seats are outside on the driveway soaking in the morning dew.  Oh, and our friendly local police only work part time.  Also, we're already half an hour late and the car needs gas.  What do you think is going to happen?