Found this at Believe. Act. Achieve – dcr Blogs dot Com » Blog Archive » Congress Wants You to Spend Less Time with Your Kids.
So, essentially, it will be okay to let your kid listen to a portable MP3 player. It’ll be okay to sit your kids in front of the television all day long. It’ll be okay to let them play with video games. It’ll be okay to let them play with mass-market toys. All those things will be produced by manufacturers who produce the items in such mass quantities that the cost of testing will be largely marginal and simply passed on to the consumer.
But, the smaller market items, the crafting supplies, the different things around which you, as the parent, may spend time doing with your children, those things may be effectively banned.
Earlier, I asked you why it was for kids under the age of 13. Are you beginning to see why? When kids start hitting their teen years, they naturally want to spend less and less time with their parents.
But, during those younger years, kids often enjoy playing games or doing crafts with their parents. It can help build lasting memories that they’ll remember into adulthood and want to repeat with their own children.
But, now, building those memories during the pre-teen years will become harder for parents, as the things that will certainly remain available, such as television and DVDs, are things that tend to keep families apart rather than bring them together. Many parents don’t agree with the values that are expressed in mass-market products, like some children’s books as an example, but, after the CPSIA, the smaller market products, the products that may be more in alignment with their values, may not be available anymore, simply because the cost of testing will be too high for small businesses to bear.
Is that the real intent of Congress here? To drive families apart? To effectively ban, without directly banning, those activities, such as rubber stamping, scrapbooking, crafting, etc., that bring young families together? To effectively ban, while perhaps skirting First Amendment issues, small market media that may give children “dangerous” ideas?
It is definitely something to think about…
Go read the whole thing. Eye opening.