child safety

I must admit, I've made a little fun of the over proliferation of child
safety restraints and laws in the US -- I can still remember sliding
around the backseat of our old yellow Buick when I was a kid and the lap
belts were too big to hold me down. And yet I managed to escape serious
head injuries. However, I'm hit by the amount of negligence/accidental
injuries suffered by children here -- hot porridge burns down their
front, crush injuries from putting their fingers in the maize pounder,
broken arms from picking fruit from trees. Obviously children are
expected to grow up faster here -- marriage in the teens, working the
fields when 7-8 years old -- but there's also some room for the
regulations which keep kids safe. On the other hand, it's nice the
freedom that kids have to be kids here as well. I'm sure there's
probably a middle ground somewhere.