Sell outs

I was sleepy when I read the pitch in my inbox.

A civil liberties group had announced it would oppose efforts to dismiss a case it brought against the Consumer Product Safety Commission, its former commissioner, and the Department of Health and Human Services for daring to educate retailers about the dangers to infants posed by weighted baby blankets.

It was looking for journalists to take an interest and talk with their attorneys.

In its case against the government agencies, The New Civil Liberties Alliance contends that the agencies have made “unproven, unlawful attacks on weighted infant sleep products, (specifically in respect to their client’s wearable sleep blanket that contains weighted beans) because the agency had not conducted enough research to pursue rulemaking about the specific products it was warning against.

Does it matter that in June of 2023, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said in a letter to the CPSC that the weighted products should NEVER be used on babies? Or that years of study about sleep safety for infants have generally concluded that infants should not be put to bed with blankets, pillows, or stuffed toys because suffocation from these items is a known and provable danger to children under the age of one?

No. Because this lawsuit isn’t about the safety of products or the protection of infants. It's a result of jettisoning regulations and consumer protections. It’s about the liberties of an individual – in this particular case, the freedom of an entrepreneurial mom to sell their million-dollar idea to as many people as possible with the help of a retailer like Target.

It's about keeping the government from using any agency or expertise to make any recommendations whatsoever.

Because your pediatrician telling you to do something you are free to ignore is one thing, but government regulatory agencies taking the warnings to heart and altering the marketplace to the potential for harm is somehow a bridge too far? 

It takes time to gather data about dangerous products, many of which remain on store shelves for years while data about their harms accumulate, "new" and "improved" dangerous items come to market every day.

For instance, inclined infant sleepers with a pitch of more than 10 degrees from horizontal have been banned in the United States, but only after more than 100 infant deaths linked to their use during the course of 13 years.

The sale of weighted blankets for use on infants is a relatively new and worrisome phenomenon, but experts' understanding of their dangers is built on experience with similar products. This case, if it prevails, will conclude that agencies can't make. Each new product will be a lawsuit that reinvents the wheel.

For instance, doctors know that standard blankets and bedding can be deadly to sleeping infants. Given an infant's physiology, the risks posed by weighted bedding are a predictable likelihood.   

Each new blanket is a new court case waiting to happen thanks to the 2024 Supreme Court decision to end the Chevron Deference Doctrine, which allowed courts to defer to the expertise of regulatory agencies.

We can’t stop harm.

We don't know if we can limit dangerous guns, stop concealed carry of weapons, or curtail the creation of ghost guns. And yet we are contemplating the legalization of silencers and bumpstocks.

We can't even slow it down.

All we'll be able to do is conduct our own "research" from a new wave of dubious information.

And if these lawsuits prevail, we may find the true experts unable to warn others about the dangers. 

It feels like our eyes should be wide open now.

Holding hearts

 I was working methodically through a list of heartbreaking tasks, and I felt frantic. 

Our beloved dog, who has spent the last 14 years as a gentle, loving presence in our home, was ready to leave us. And though we have gone through all the necessary steps, we were not prepared to let her go.

There had been suspicion. The gut feeling that something wasn’t right. There was something more than the aches and pains of old age. But it wasn’t until the vet called with the results that I saw the signs in sharp focus. 

Arrangements, as they say, had to be made. 

So I set the wheels in motion. As I headed off with one child to an orientation, my husband went to retrieve the other. We would meet again at the start of the weekend for one last full day. 

Afterward, the schedule would be unwavering. 

The dog would only be alone for a couple of hours, if that … there would be visitors checking in on her to say goodbye.

There was so much to do and so little time. When I returned home after dark, I couldn't see the pile of dirt my husband had excavated, but I knew exactly where it was just as surely as I knew I would forget once the hole was refilled, leveled off, and the grass allowed to grow back.

So I started to calculate. I tried to pick two points to anchor my vantage point ... as if I could ever internalize the coordinates. 

I tried another tack. 

If I stand with my back to this telephone pole … and walk seven paces diagonally toward the edge of the building straight ahead  … I find my feet at the edge of the abyss.

Of course, the hole isn’t endless. If I were to measure, my guess is the tape would read about four feet in all directions. When I allow myself to look down, I can see how carefully my husband has carved each edge.  

With the work done, I return to the house. Despite her discomfort, the dog had spent the night on patrol; at regular intervals, I heard her nails gently clicking out of our room, into the hallway where she would visit the children's rooms. She'd lie with them for a while before returning to us. 

For the rest of that day we binge-watched numbing TV while she softly snored. 

She wasn’t eating much anymore, but she gladly accepted bowl after bowl of chipped ice. She puts herself to bed at 9:30 and starts her patrol when we all turn in an hour later. 

It occurs to me that we may be stressing her out … what with all eyes and hands on her. I know I’m stressing myself out trying to find which of my seventeen makeup brushes matches the uncanny velvety softness of her ears. 

Time moves so much faster in the morning. The birds are singing. There is a breeze. I don’t want to be indoors. When the vet arrives, we are on the porch … the five of us. 

The dog is excited to see a new friend. She pulls herself to standing so she can check out the medical bag. She accepts treats. It doesn’t seem rushed, but only minutes pass between each step-by-carefully-explained-step, leading her quietly and gently away from us. 

When it’s over, I feel relief wash over me. I know grief will still visit on strange occasions: When she doesn’t come to greet us; when I can’t finish a snack and instinctively call out for her to collect the leftovers; or when I’ve vacuumed up the last of her hair from the floors.

She is at rest.

I don’t have to pace … I can plant a flowering bush … I can find the pink brush and pet the very top of its curve as gently as possible. She will be there.

Training Day

The sun hadn’t even breached the horizon as I pulled away from the house. It was five a.m. and we were heading to the Big Apple for a two-day orientation that would introduce my son to his new life as a university freshman come fall. 

I had the bright idea to take the train: Park and ride style. 

It seemed logical to acquaint the last one to leave the nest with the beauty and convenience of mass transit, which is why his surprise at the notion we would forgo the convenience of driving, fighting traffic, and vying for parking when we could let the train bring us there in one straight shot.

Logistically speaking, I was also banking on the idea that if he had the experience, he could be home in two hours using just two trains and his phone to summon us for a short commute from the station.

 Not that I had ever made that journey on my own. 

Wherever I visited the city that never sleeps, I have always followed someone else’s lead, marveling the whole way at how we managed to decipher which train went uptown and which went downtown. My friends would joke that my understanding of time and space would dissipate as if the work of an incantation and fairy dust as soon as the subway doors slid shut.

The walls of the station and its tunnels melted into a blur. There I’d be, stone sober but feeling the swimmy unsteadiness of being drunk as we rumbled on down the line. I squinted out of the grubby, scuffed windows, unable to read the station signs.

It always seemed like a miracle when my guide would rise out of their seat or shift their weight if we were strap hanging and announce, “This is us.”

“How did they know?” I would marvel, unable to decipher the words that filtered into the train car from the PA system, and obstinately unaware of the line map that lit up as each stop approached. 

I’m older now, if only a modicum wiser. It also helps that the phone in my pocket takes away most of the guesswork. 

It also helps that my advancing age seems to make me invisible.

This time, when I emerge from the underground and stand at the edge of the landing to gather my bearings before deciding which way the building numbers ascend, left or right … people don’t seem to mind … they just pass by as if I weren’t there.

Not that I don’t have plenty of opportunity to mortify my kid by gumming up the works:

In case we are keeping score, I should note the following: I couldn’t find the train reservation on my phone while the conductor waited to jam a green fare check card above our seats. Luckily, the boy remembered I had sent him the link and is not all thumbs as he searched his phone to retrieve it. 

Now, I almost redeemed myself when I managed to get us out of Penn Station and to the subway we needed, but in my chivalry of swiping the boy through the full-height turnstile turned into his chagrin when my second swipe didn’t allow me access.

 I might have swiped the equivalent of eight or ten rides to no avail before I noticed a set of jumpable turnstiles just over yonder. 

Of course, I swiped one more time, and by magic, the metal gave way and allowed me entrance. But the fun didn’t end … I got stuck not once but TWICE trying to get on the #2 train going downtown. I credit the kid for not running for the next car and pretending not to know me.

That would happen soon enough. They would whisk him off with others in his college cohort, and I would join the parents, who would be coached on how to support our kids without making a nuisance of ourselves. That it will be ok if they make mistakes.

As I listen to all the reassuring words and constructive tips, I think there might be hope for me yet. I text the kid to see how he’s faring, and that maybe he should lead the way home after the program concludes the next day. 

He sends me a shrug emoji and tells me his phone is nearly dead. He didn’t bring the charger.

I can’t help but laugh. I guess I’ll see him when he figures it out. 

The Graduates

 She feels so small when I hug her goodbye. 

It surprises me because she usually fills whatever room she inhabits with an outsized personality. I forget that her physical form is quite petite.

I’m not the hugging type, but with the kids, I embrace this hypocrisy. Usually holding on a few beats too long …for them … as we part.

These days, we greet each other this way, too.

“Enough, Mom! I’ll be here all week.”

My daughter came home from college (she attends practically year-round) to watch her brother graduate from high school. And to razz him about his friends, and his hair, and his clothes, despite the fact that she readily admits each and every article of his is on point.

In no small part, the result of his acquiescence to her guidance.

She loves him. She doesn’t want him to bear the burden of bad style if she can help it.  He loves her right back. So he lets her dress him up, unlike when they were kids. 

It was a quick week packed to the gills with activities: There were rehearsals, dinners, and other formalities that culminated in a strangely wonderful, if not rain-soaked, commencement. As we huddled together atop folding chairs and under two leaky umbrellas we had only brought, thankfully, because of a deeply held superstition that their mere presence in our possession would protect us from an uncertain deluge.

There was also a family gathering, bitter and sweet, that was happening simultaneously. We did that, too, no matter how groggy we would be from the road, we were up for that trip. ... And another trip to the train. Pick up. And to the airport. Drop off. It would go on like this until we head home again in the wee hours of the night.

The car is lively. The kids trade playing DJ with their Spotify lists as if it were the 80s and they had just assembled a most excellent mixtape … just for me. They converse about their lives and their plans for the summer. They sing along with the radio and razz each other during intermissions by belting out songs they once loved that have since lost their luster and esteem.  

I drink it in. I'm not sure how long this bubbly nectar will continue to flow. The banter is easy now, but one ill-timed statement could tank it. Sending us all into an uncomfortable silence and then into our own personal entertainment hubs, which will be silent only to me, the driver.

But that’s always the challenge, isn’t it? Conversation? So many loaded subjects that can dislodge the balance. 

I take care, especially while I’m driving, not to steer directly into any of them. Not even when my daughter reminded me to speed up, or pass this car, or watch out for that truck …

I smile and oblige. Listen more than talk. Keep my eyes and my mind on the road. 

The student becomes the professor.

When the ride is over, she exits the car. We help her gather her things and balance them on her still-small frame so she doesn’t topple over as she schleps them away. She stops for a hug. She is still small despite all the baggage she’s now dragging around.

It’s a group hug now, and it’s lasting too long. 

“Enough, Mom! I’ll be back in August.”