I’m a new mom, and I’m a worrier, so it’s been tough. But I actually feel a lot better about my parenting after seeing these inventions from back in the day that are hazardous, poisonous, and everything in between. It makes me feel like I’m doing OK! Take a look:
1.
This vintage milk bottle that feels like both a choking hazard and a strangulation hazard. Not to mention, it was so hard to clean that it caused kids many bacterial illnesses like dysentery and typhoid.
2.
This Baby Alice Thumb Guard which was supposed to be used to deter kids from sucking their thumbs.
3.
This baby airplane carrier that I’m just not sure would hold up in turbulence.
4.
This baby carrier that looks like one move and the kiddo will topple right out onto the floor. It also looks pretty knuckle-breaking for the parents.
5.
Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, which was said to calm children and freshen their breath but, unknowing to the parents, was laced with a dangerous amount of morphine and alcohol. According to the DEA, “Some infants who consumed Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup went to sleep and never woke up.” Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was around until the 1930s.
6.
While not nearly as bad as fatal levels of morphine, these rocking horses that give my leg skin goosebumps. One wrong move and it’s painful levels of pinchy with those springs.
7.
While we’re on needlessly dangerous horse toys, this cantilevered monstrosity here that’s in the middle of the Venn diagram between “baby” and “catapult.”
8.
This 1950s car seat that literally looks like a lawn chair in the front seat. Nothing is securing it at all.
9.
This Totguard seat, which I guess is a step up from a lawn chair, but I have two fundamental problems with it. First, if there’s an accident, they just faceplant into the pad in front of them? Won’t that do some serious facial damage? Second, something about this makes my back ache just looking at it.
10.
This vintage baby gas mask which is scary and sad because of the necessity to invent it, not so much the invention itself.
11.
This out-the-window baby cage that always makes my toes curl.
12.
This baby noise machine that is literally a megaphone pointed directly at the child’s face.
13.
This baby walker. I know the use of baby walkers is debated today, but this one without any kind of security or restraint is alarming.
14.
This playpen that, aside from all of the safety issues, also looks like a giant trash can.
15.
This nursing bottle that looks hard to clean and is prone to spillage. Breast milk is hard to get and hard to make! I hate wasting it when it accidentally spills.
16.
This precariously perched bike attachment that just really feels ergonomically hazardous to me.
17.
Finally, this breast pump that looks painful for both the mother and the baby, looks hard to clean, and looks redundant.
Have you heard a WTF story from your parents about raising you that you want to share? Tell us in the comments below!
