UGH…. What the…. Not another recall!

As if parenthood isn’t difficult enough, we have to constantly hear about products that are being recalled because they aren’t safe. I’ve been lucky and have only had 2 items recalled, that I know of! One most recently is the Bob Revolution single and duallie stroller. The defect isn’t major, in my opinion, and no one was hurt, but the company saw a potential risk and decided to alert the public.

In my opinion, some of these recalls are due to the fact that parents aren’t watching their children, which makes me very sad for the parents, child and company that has to spend thousands and even millions to pull or repair a product. My position on all these recalls is that it is still my job to keep my children safe, but it would also be nice to have companies make sure there aren’t any chemicals or defects in that toy or child’s product that may hurt them. I’m not jumping on the band-wagon that hot coffee needs to be marked “hot”, if you know what I mean.

In BOB’s defense, the fix is minimal and I do not feel any less about the BOB stroller, in fact, I know that they are looking out for me and my child and it makes me feel better that I’ve purchased their strollers. Besides, I absolutely love the strollers and would probably be very upset if I had to give them up.

With so many recalls almost daily, how do you keep track of what products are on the recall list and how do you know when one that you own has been recalled?

The U.S. Consumer Product and Safety Commission lists all the products that have been, and are being recalled. What a pain to have to check the website weekly to see if something you own has been recalled… well, you don’t have too. You just visit  http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prerel.html, scroll to the bottom of the page and pick the category you want to receive e-mail notifications on. I signed up for:

• Child products
• Toys
• Household products

Now you just have to open those e-mail to see if the product you own are on the recall. It’s also nice because they will include a link to a picture of the product.

Here is to keeping our children safe!

~Sue