A Playpen does not a bad parent make

 I read an article this afternoon, written by a dad pondering why playpens no longer seem to exist (http://www.slate.com/id/2224431/?GT1=38001)  and the idea that he's run across that playpens are bad things.  Well, here's my response:

As a child of the mid 60s, I spent  part  of my life in a playpen, as did my sister.  There were no drawer locks, cabinet locks, toilet locks,baby gates, doorknob covers, or outlet plugs.  Once, apparently, I felt the need for more attention from my mom and I leaned out of the playpen and bit her on the behind as she ironed in front of me.  My sister and I had a game - she threw things out of the playpen, I threw them back in. It kept us both happy and occupied.

But I also learned to read by the age of three, I never threw things in the toilet, never electrocuted myself, the cat slept in my bed and I was never suffocated, even though as a teen, one cat would sit on my chest and bat at my nose to wake me up. I rode my bike without a helmet up through adulthood, and while I still have a scar on my knee from falling on gravel, I'm not emotionally scarred in any way by it.  I ate cat food, playdough, school paste, like most of my classmates.  I climbed trees, climbed into haylofts, petted strays and went all day without washing my hands once. I floated boats down the ditch, talked to strangers, and spent my afternoons after school and whole summers totally unstructured; going only where our imaginations took us, not some schedule of events.  My children did much the same, except they had dogs and pet rats growing up, since my spouse is allergic to cats.

My children were raised without playpens, but also without toilet locks and cabinet locks - we managed to keep and eye on them, and learned a baby gate across the kitchen helped after the youngest dumped the box of cream of wheat everywhere.  They didn't get breastfed because they were allergic to my milk, and yet, somehow, they've both turned out developmentally fine and very intelligent young adults. Tthe eldest accepted into a college program where admission is based on talent and academic success; the odds of actually making it into the program are just short of the odds of winning the Powerball.

Historically, ever since the advent of the Victorian era and the advent of large stores like Macy's, advertising for products for chidren have been aimed at putting guilt into the parents minds and hearts. It started with how store bought clothing and diapers were supposedly so much better for children, to formula being better than breastmilk (and now you get guilted and treated like a pariah if you fail to breastfeed) and so on.It's never ending, and each generation has moms who have read it all, studied it all, and think they know best, and do their darnedest to make other mothers feel like they should never have been allowed to breed.

Perhaps its time for others to stop worrying so much about how others are raising their children and concern ourselves with raising our own.  Just because X uses a playpen and you didn't is not even close to a mark of abuse.  As I used to tell tattletale students who told on the pettiest of offenses "when you have reached perfection in all things, then worry how everyone else lives."

And if your child sings "Highway to Hell" while on a trip to the grocery store, well in my opinion, it just shows that both you and your child have a varied taste in music and you encourage the child to express themselves. Good for you!