What do you think about when purchasing a new car for your family? We make decisions on our car purchases today based on the safety rating in hopes that we can keep our family as safe as possible. As I’m comparing features and reading all of the improvements made each year, I, like many adults, wonder how I survived my childhood.
How did we survive?
Have you ever seen photos of yourself in a car seat? If your parents used a car seat at all it was very, very, different from what is available today. Today’s seats wrap around a child like a cocoon in an accident. I’m not sure the car seats of the seventies and eighties even served a purpose of protection as much as they were to keep us from crawling all over the car.
I remember as a child sitting in the third row seat of a station wagon. Now, the third row seats in a station wagon were much different from the third row seats in cars today. Back then, the rear seat was rear facing and we thought it was the best thing ever! We would wave at all of the car behind us. Make silly faces at the driver and hope they would make them back. My mom would get so mad when we would make the truckers blow their horns (scare her half to death!)
If my dad was driving things we really exciting! Seven kids in a single cab, short bed, truck. Any guesses as to where we were riding? That’s right! In the back! It didn’t matter if we were on back-roads, in town, or on the interstate, if we had somewhere to be everyone was climbing in!
Then the fight was on!
Immediately after climbing into the bed of the truck everyone would gravitate to the fender wells to fight over who was going to get the “prime seating.” It was much like a game of musical chairs, I can still remember how much my bottom hurt after being slammed off the fender and onto the floor by one of my siblings. Ouch!
I’m pretty thankful my kids don’t have to go through any of that today. Sure, we laugh about it now, but really, it was quite dangerous. I’m just thankful we survived!
How Did You Survive Your Childhood
without Safety Ratings & Seat Belts?
Tell us in the comments below.