ot; how did our mothers survive without toilet locks?

http://luvsexytrstno1.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-did-our-mothe rs-survive-without.html

Seriously.  child proofing in my house is ever evolving and I have to wonder how our mothers did it without all of the locks and covers, etc we have today.

No child proofing my house when the kids were younger. we shut the bathroom door to keep the kids out and if they got into something they were not supposed to we spanked their hands and told them NO NO! I realize that isn't what most people do these days but it worked for my kids, besides we didn't have the money to spend on all those new finagled gadgets..lol.. I know at the daycare we had to use a lot of them.. and most are a pain! I had trouble opening the drawers because of those silly latches.. I did us the harness for both my kids but for my daughter (now 18) it was the older "dog" type. and I got a lot of flack from people! but it kept her safe. My son had a Micky mouse harness that was cute but still people gave me flack for it.. I simply told them to mind their own business. My son is now 15 so see how times and attitudes have changed in just a few years. I wish you best of luck in dealing with all your gadgets!

I'm only 25 and my son just turned 3, and I have to say that I tend to be more of any "old school" parent. My son always get's his hand spatted or flat out gets his butt spanked if he gets into something he knows he sholdn't get into and thankfully i've never really had a problem with it. I did purchase a few of the gadgets just to be on the safe side but most of them I ended up tossing in a couple weeks. Our house now dosn't have any "saftey" gadgets, which is fine for my kiddo, but isn't great when my friends bring their kids over. It seems like most parents from my generation would rather protect thire children by using all these expensive gizmos which only lock the children (and the parents) away from the dangers, rather than teach them to stay away from things that might be dangerous to them. To each his own and there is not one way that's the "right way" but for me...spanking is more effective than gadgets.

We went to the expense and trouble of installing all kinds of gadgets to keep our toddler out of the cabinets.  One day I managed to jam the locking mechanism on one of the lower cabinet doors.  I pulled and pushed and pounded till I was ready to scream.  My 2 1/2 yr old son was watching from the sidelines.  He calmly walked over, stuck his finger in it somehow and the lock sprung open!!  He just walked off like this was something he did every day (which he apparently did)!  We just had to laugh.  He is now almost 15 and to this day we still go to him whenever we can't get something to work right!