Car seat safety isn’t a gray area: Why one mom’s story went viral

For most parenting tasks, there’s more than one way to get things done. This is important to remember if you’re parenting with a partner who has a totally different laundry system than you do or packs the diaper bag in a way that makes no sense to you. It’s not the end of the world if the onesies are hung instead of folded or if the bottles are in the wrong pocket. We have to give our partners room to do things their way, too.

But when it comes to buckling our kids in their car seats, there really is only one way—the safe way—and one mama is thankful that she reminded her partner of that just in time.

Related: A parent’s guide to car seat safety: Tips, rules & product picks

One mom’s car seat safety lesson

Rebecca Tafaro Boyer is a new mom and nurse at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. On her first day back at work after maternity leave she asked her husband to send her hourly updates on how her 3-month-old son, William, was doing on his first day without her.

When her husband texted her a photo of William in his car seat, Tafaro Boyer knew she had to let her husband know that there’s really only one way to buckle a baby in. “My ‘nagging wife’ reply was to correct William’s position in the car seat—the straps were too loose and the chest clip was way too low. And because I know my husband, I’m sure that he laughed at me and rolled his eyes before tightening the car seat and fixing the chest clip,” she wrote in a now-viral Facebook post about the experience.

Just 15 minutes after her husband fixed the straps, he and little William were in a collision.

According to Tafaro Boyer, an unlicensed, uninsured driver pulled into oncoming traffic attempting to make an illegal left turn, and although her husband slammed on the brakes at nearly 50 miles an hour, he just didn’t have enough time to stop and hit the other car.

“My precious little bundle of joy was so well restrained in his car seat, THAT HE DIDN’T EVEN WAKE UP. Even with the impact of the two cars, William only received a minor jolt – so insignificant that he was able to continue on with his nap,” Tafaro Boyer wrote.

Her husband was injured, but baby William was snug in his Britax B Safe 35 car seat. Had the straps been left as they were, it could have been a different story.

“I am so thankful that my husband took the extra one minute that was necessary to put William in his car seat safely,” she Tafaro Boyer explained. “I truly believe that the reason my family is at home sitting on the couch with a pair of crutches instead of down at the hospital is because of my annoying nagging mom voice.”

Fellow moms ran to the comments of Tafaro Boyer’s post tagging their partners and leaving notes like, “This is why I nag.”

It’s not nagging if it’s a safety issue.

Sometimes our child’s caregivers just don’t know that something isn’t safe. We’ve got to tell them when they’re doing something we know could hurt our child. That’s a text worth sending. The ones about the way your significant other folds the towels incorrectly? Those are the texts you might want to keep to yourself.

This story was originally published on August 01, 2018. It has been updated.