u/paradoxicalstripping

My son just turned 3. We flipped him front-facing in my husband’s car a few months ago for space reasons, but he is still rear-facing in my car because it’s bigger and has more room. I was anxious about turning my son front-facing and delayed it long after my husband wanted to. He knew I was really anxious about this. He handled the front-facing installation and has always handled all car seat installation for us, as I am not physically strong enough to get the thing tight enough.

Today I happened to glance at the rear-facing car seat in my car, saw a part that is used only for front-facing installation, and realized I had never actually seen that part connected in my husband’s car. I checked the car seat manual against the car seat in my husband’s car and the installation is wrong. The straps for the seat are not threaded through the correct holes and the back of the car seat is not anchored to the top of the backseat of the car. The car seat is connected to the car at the base and stable, it doesn’t jiggle if you shake it, but the install is wrong.

I asked my husband about this and showed him the manual, and he was like, “oh, huh.” I was really suprised by that reaction and asked him if he looked at the manual when front-facing the car seat. He said he hadn’t. Like it was nothing. He said he basically just did what made sense to him based on what he did when he installed the seat rear-facing.

I thought there was one (1) kid thing I could completely outsource to my husband and not worry about. Isn’t it nice, I thought, that I don’t have to worry about screwing around with the kids’ car seats? That I can just let my husband take care of it and trust that it’s done correctly? This and certain things involving our investments are (were) literally the only things I do not play a managerial role in around the house. My husband is an equal parent in terms of actually rendering childcare, cleaning, errands, cooking, etc., 100%. But I have to be the manager for everything. For example, our son has had some behavioral issues lately. My husband will implement parenting practices aimed at resolving them and do a great job of it, but I have to do the research to figure out what those practices are, be the one who takes the initiative to reach out to his doctor, handle all communications with the doctor, fill out the survey, do the follow-up with the doctor, and then basically present my husband with action items he can just implement. I really liked that there was ONE thing I didn’t have to manage.

Turns out he has to be explicitly told that when you’re installing a car seat, you need to look at the instructions and follow them.

This has hurt my trust in him so badly because this is just so stupid. It’s a thing you use to keep the kids from fucking DYING in a car accident. How do you not understand it’s safety tested as installed according to manufacturer instructions and is a lot less likely to protect the kids when it’s improperly installed? What else doesn’t he get? My son has been in improperly installed car seats in two cars (my husband also did this in my mom’s car) for months because of this. I told my husband I wouldn’t be as upset if he had simply done it wrong, but admitting to not even looking at the instructions when installing a car seat like it’s nothing is fucking crazy. His initial response to all of this was to act exasperated and treat me like I was being unreasonable.

My son just turned 3. We flipped him front-facing in my husband’s car a few months ago for space reasons, but he is still rear-facing in my car because it’s bigger and has more room. I was anxious about turning my son front-facing and delayed it long after my husband wanted to. He knew I was really anxious about this. He handled the front-facing installation and has always handled all car seat installation for us, as I am not physically strong enough to get the thing tight enough.

Today I happened to glance at the rear-facing car seat in my car, saw a part that is used only for front-facing installation, and realized I had never actually seen that part connected in my husband’s car. I checked the car seat manual against the car seat in my husband’s car and the installation is wrong. The straps for the seat are not threaded through the correct holes and the back of the car seat is not anchored to the top of the backseat of the car. The car seat is connected to the car at the base and stable, it doesn’t jiggle if you shake it, but the install is wrong.

I asked my husband about this and showed him the manual, and he was like, “oh, huh.” I was really suprised by that reaction and asked him if he looked at the manual when front-facing the car seat. He said he hadn’t. Like it was nothing. He said he basically just did what made sense to him based on what he did when he installed the seat rear-facing.

I thought there was one (1) kid thing I could completely outsource to my husband and not worry about. Isn’t it nice, I thought, that I don’t have to worry about screwing around with the kids’ car seats? That I can just let my husband take care of it and trust that it’s done correctly? This and certain things involving our investments are (were) literally the only things I do not play a managerial role in around the house. My husband is an equal parent in terms of actually rendering childcare, cleaning, errands, cooking, etc., 100%. But I have to be the manager for everything. For example, our son has had some behavioral issues lately. My husband will implement parenting practices aimed at resolving them and do a great job of it, but I have to do the research to figure out what those practices are, be the one who takes the initiative to reach out to his doctor, handle all communications with the doctor, fill out the survey, do the follow-up with the doctor, and then basically present my husband with action items he can just implement. I really liked that there was ONE thing I didn’t have to manage.

Turns out he has to be explicitly told that when you’re installing a car seat, you need to look at the instructions and follow them.

This has hurt my trust in him so badly because this is just so stupid. It’s a thing you use to keep the kids from fucking DYING in a car accident. How do you not understand it’s safety tested as installed according to manufacturer instructions and is a lot less likely to protect the kids when it’s improperly installed? What else doesn’t he get? My son has been in improperly installed car seats in two cars (my husband also did this in my mom’s car) for months because of this. I told my husband I wouldn’t be as upset if he had simply done it wrong, but admitting to not even looking at the instructions when installing a car seat like it’s nothing is fucking crazy. His initial response to all of this was to act exasperated and treat me like I was being unreasonable.