You Know - For Kids

Lawn darts. 

You've heard me mention these playthings of Satan before. Foot long plastic tails with weighted metal tips. Designed for maiming. Which is why, in October of 1970, The FDA insisted that makers of these "toys" be labeled:  "WARNING: Not a toy for use by children. May cause serious or fatal injury. Read instructions carefully. Keep out of reach of children."

Maybe now is the time I should mention that my brothers and I had easy access to our family's lawn darts, Jarts by brand, and we spent hours figuring out new and exciting ways to tempt fate. For the record, no maiming took place between the three of us. Or our dog. And somehow we managed to make all this happen without parental supervision. 

Why am I rehashing this story once again? 

Iowa.

Iowa's governor, Kim Reynolds, has mandated fifty percent classroom instruction as she pushes her state's schools to reopen. Never mind that Iowa, like so many states currently, is experiencing an uptick in new cases of COVID-19, and the national trend has shown that districts that have rushed to open to in-person instruction have had to quarantine or backtrack to keep up with the dangerous conditions they created. 

For kids. 

Only now does it occur to meWe  how unfortunate "Wham-O" is for a toy company.

As debates rage on about the relative safety for children and adults, the science continues to evade us. This is one way that lawn darts have it all over a virus. The effects of a lawn dart mishap are easily recognizable by kids and adults. With very little training. Our understanding of the coronavirus is still in the very earliest stages. While one study suggests that kids are safe from infection, another suggests that they are silent carriers and another says that children are just as likely to get sick as grownups. 

Meanwhile, the petri dish is being stirred primarily by politicians rather than scientists. Wearing a mask has become a statement rather than common sense. Social distancing sounds an awful lot like socialism. And we watch as the death toll mounts. and cases spike across the country. 

We're playing with lawn darts here.

Maybe we should just let the kids take care of it themselves.