Good Morning Gloucester

While I like to keep my husband on a short leash….I’ve never put one of my children on a leash.   First of all, I’m kidding, I don’t keep my husband on a short leash.  He may disagree with that statement however… so maybe I should change it to “I don’t mean to keep my husband on a short leash”.  At any rate, that isn’t the point here.  The point is that I’ve never put my kids on a leash.  So, I am wondering who has?  Or who thinks it is okay? Or who thinks it is abominable?  Or who sees pros and cons?

Today I saw, what I am guessing to have been, a mother and a grandmother walking (literally) a toddler down the sidewalk…on a leash.  I am not trying to cast judgement.  I do not claim to be a perfect parent.  For example….. there was the time that I let Thatcher lay in bed with my husband and forgot to transfer him to his own bed.  I went into the bedroom later to find my husband sound asleep and 2 year-old Thatcher WIDE EYED with the sheets pulled up to his nose watching, none other than, the Gladiator on the TV.  Excellently appropriate movie for a toddler.  And then there was the time that my husband bought air freshener that looked alarmingly like the can of Pan Nonstick Spray and I used it to make the boys some grilled cheese sandwiches.  I didn’t even realize that I had done so until my husband asked, “Why is the air freshener in the Lazy Susan?” a couple of days later.  And, just today, as I was trying desperately to choose one hanging plant and a few perennials….and all the boys wanted to do was play bumper cars with the garden carts….and Wolf Hill was closing in 5 minutes…I absolutely said some words of encouragement for better behavior that I am now, in hindsight, not proud of.  Nor, for the record, were they effective.

Soooooo, I digress.  I am by no means perfect, but the kid on a leash thing is something that I haven’t quite wrapped my head around.  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel (or look I guess) more than a bit wrong to me.  I am all about Safety First…I really am.  So, if you have a runner and you really think that your child is going to dart into traffic with no advanced warning….then maybe a leash is the way to go?  Likewise, if you are in an incredibly busy place…like, say, Disney World or the Running of the Bulls in Pamploma (in which case, I suppose, whether or not to use a leash would probably not be the parental decision that would be in question), I guess I can see the merit. We, as parents, have always opted for strollers or simple hand-holding.  That having been said, we did once suffer through a horrifically long 2 or 3 minutes of not being able to find Finn at the New England Aquarium.  While I guess, if I had to pick sides, I would call myself anti-leash, a leash would have prevented that from happening.  So, I ask you honestly, what are your thoughts?