Life is all about taking risks…

I don’t have kids, so this is a purely objective observation.

Disregarding my earlier posts, what is the benefit to risk ratio of this little adventure?

I suspect the kid gains nothing, but is subjected to at least some degree of risk.

So I’m going to put this in my “low risk, but completely unnecessary” category.

Take the kid to see the waves crashing into the beach at the bottom and all the birds flying around, surely that’s far more entertaining/enlightening for the kid and less risk?

What do I know though, I do pretty much every extreme sport there is and my body is a mess as a result of my incompetence and the occasional unavoidable accident, yet I still continue 🙂

What do I know though, I do pretty much every extreme sport there is and my body is a mess as a result of my incompetence and the occasional unavoidable accident, yet I still continue

we all/most do similar pf, it’s just that she’s dragging a toddler along

aye, that’s sort of what I was getting at Dave, despite the fact that we mitigate the risks we expose ourselves to as far as possible, something invariably goes wrong from time to time.

There’s a 99% chance that no harm will ever come to that kid as a result of her mum climbing, probably more chance of her getting hit by a car, but (despite the fact I do believe it’s low risk) I don’t know if I could live with myself if anything happened to my child after an accident whilst I was participating in a sport with inherent risks. I think that’s the key thing isn’t it? SHE is climbing, the kid gains nothing and has no choice.

I really hope that if/when I have kids that I’ll be walking up my favourite munros in decent weather with junior strapped to my back, taking in the wonders of the great outdoors, but I doubt I’ll be climbing with them to be honest (i’m not the most elegant climber, and my ice skills make even the most crazed axe murderer look controlled at times 🙂 )

having given it further though, I think the climbing may be an unnecessary part of the “I want my kid to be part of everything” lifestyle she wants to enjoy. Just can’t seem to see what purpose/benefit it offers to either her or the kid.

A few random thoughts, Daily Mail kneejerking aside.

It’s hard to tell from the picture how severe the climb is. It could be a short slab which is about as technical as your average stepladder, or a long difficult slog. I’m inclined to think it’s the former, especially as it’s reported that she uses that route for coaching, so the overall ‘risk’ is perhaps not as high as might first appear.

If it’s risky enough for her to be wearing a lid, then it’s risky enough that the kid should have one. Kids’ skulls are made out of blancmange, so I’d say that they should’ve erred on the side of caution here. The chances of falling debris is probably as close to nil as makes no odds, but if she does have an ‘off’ she could easily spin with her back to the face.

If there is a risk of falling rock / gear, then her belayer is at at least as much risk as they are. Again, if it merits her wearing a lid then he should have one too. It looks like he’s using some sort of traditional belay device rather than something auto-locking like a Gri-Gri, in which case if he gets brained then the system becomes free-running. That’s probably the greatest risk of the lot, TBH.

Is the kid’s harness rated for anything other than strolling through the park? Again, it’s not clear from the pictures, and a top-rope fall is unlikely to be extreme unless there’s a mechanical failure, but nontheless there’s a slight chance that it could be shock-loaded in a way that it wasn’t designed to cope with and thus could fail. Pretty unlikely though.

Summary; perhaps a little irresponsible, but probably not as much as first appears.

Molgrips
But many people do the world over without any issues.

Does not equal
no kid ever gets badly hurt in a third world country by being strapped to a parent who has an accident?

So what was your post about? You were implying riding with your kids on your body was inherently safe, because many people (apparently) do it without having an accident. Is that what you meant?

Simply what I said molgrips. It was a response to the the poster above me. Highlighting that the absolutism of his position had no bearing in any reasonable assessment of risk

Peterfile – will you put your children in a car?

I don’t know if I could live with myself if anything happened to my child after an accident whilst I was participating in a sport activity with inherent risks

will you put your children in a car?

Yes, Sergeant Howie

Just some hippy new age mum by the looks of it, thinking it’s cool for her kid to be a free agent or whatever.

Irresponsible.

The scary thing to me is the weight of her kid on her back makes it quite likely that if she did slip and hang on the rope she would invert in her harness. Then either the kid falls out or she can’t get the right way up again.

TBH I’m not for or against it in principle, I’m a bit confused as to why you’d do it though – kid won’t care or be interested, it’s not got a benefit that I can see. Ho hum.

Doesn’t look like a tough route, in fact looks like the sort of route we used to take newbies up as you can bearly do any harm especially when top-roped. Ah well.

It’s great that she’s taking her kid around so much. A good mum.

Maybe she needs the risks explained in detail. The thought of inversion doesn’t bear thinking about.

She could have gone for the ” SURPRISE ” option 🙂

I think the climbing may be an unnecessary part of the “I want my kid to be part of everything” lifestyle she wants to enjoy.

This really. I applaud her not wanting to wrap the kid in cotton wool and involve her in what mum and dad (or whatever) are doing, but I reckon this is taking it a bit too far- especially as Mum seems to think it’s dangerous enough that she needs to wear a helmet. I can’t really see what anybody’s getting out of it, other than maybe the Mum making some sort of point and using the kid as a prop.

Does anyone remember the man who ‘forced’ his son (5 years old?) to walk along Crib Goch whilst being roped together?

Does anyone remember the man who ‘forced’ his son (5 years old?) to walk along Crib Goch whilst being roped together?

No – got a link? Interesting thought – I’d be tempted to “force” mine, but I don’t think he’d enjoy it much. In what sense exactly are we talking “force”?

aracer – had a quick G but couldn’t find it, will keep trying!

This entire thread is us assessing the risks.

How many of the complainers have used pushchairs to ferry their kids around? And been responsible for pushing the poor little sods into the traffic when trying to cross the road??? 😆

Yeah, but it’s OK because he had a helmet on.

makes it quite likely that if she did slip and hang on the rope she would invert in her harness.

I very much doubt that, TBH.

I’ve got a similar sling, and I would say that when they turn upside down, the baby doesn’t fall out.

I wouldn’t climb with it on, but then I suck at climbing. I imagine once you are good, there are some climbs which are 100% that you can go up no problems.

I imagine the kid enjoys it – our 20 month old loves being high up, and things like going down hills at 20mph in the bike trailer and jumping both wheels off the ground over speed bumps.

I’ve got a photo of mine at 13 months that some of you might disapprove of, but which was perfectly safe. Hang on.

I think she has ruined her career now!
What parent would trust her with their child after this 🙄

She seems to be one of those mums who wants her child to go everywhere with her because it makes her stand out, makes people look at her and gets attention for it.
If she went on her own, no child, she wouldn’t get any attention.

It’s like those women who carry around small dogs in their handbags.

Rose at 13 months.

Minimal risk (I was jolly careful, and it was a lot less technical than most places I’ve unicycled!), she enjoyed it, it’s a funny picture, everyone wins. I have to admit I went about 5 metres and only did it the once. I don’t think I’d do it anywhere else or try anything more hard until she is old enough to understand how to do a dismount from shoulders in an emergency!

It looks unsafe to a lot of people, but I am a lot better at unicycling than a lot of people. I’ve done 1000 commuting miles on roads without any unintended dismounts, let alone falls. I’m also pretty good at graceful unplanned dismounts from the mountain unicycling. Riding a 24″ freestyle unicycle on a flat surface for 5 metres is way less risky than crossing a road.

I still wouldn’t choose to climb with a baby in a sling, but I do think as basically a non climber, I’m totally unqualified to risk assess what good climbers do with their babies.

She seems to be one of those mums who wants her child to go everywhere with her because it makes her stand out, makes people look at her and gets attention for it.

To be fair, she might just like doing outdoors stuff, and think it is nice to enjoy it with her baby. Many of us on here are like that, it’s just that we don’t feel it is sensible for us to do crazy climbing things.

Or maybe even a set up picture to make a point?

You have to look at who is benefitting from it though.
Kids that age would have more fun running round the playground, rather than sitting on their mums back, looking at rocks. it is boring.

when you have children, you have to adapt, and sometimes separate your own activities, from family time activities.

I am a lot better at unicycling than a lot of people

I got told I would never reach a level of skill where I’d be allowed to ride a uni with one of our kids on my shoulders 🙁

I LOVE THREE CLIFFS!!!

All I can see is a woman crawling along the floor with a child on her back, what’s the problem? It’s the bloke in the background doing a horse-piss I’d be worried about.

30 years ago no-one would have batted an eyelid at this.

If I were a parent (oh wait, I am…) anyone telling me how I should bring up my kids can flip off.

Interfering do-gooders, imposing your precious little principles on others like they’re some kind of divine untouchable commandments.

How superior you must all feel, what with being perfect in every way and everything.

Butt out, go and finish insulating your own delicate little darling kiddies against the world with cotton wool and bubble wrap.

^^ totally missing the point

^^ Believes there’s a point to all this 😉

Oh fercrissakes, you want to go and see how kids in developing countries live on a day to day basis. Yeah, the helmet thing is a bit discordant – if that’s a word – but I used to climb a lot and on low, well-used UK crags I never once had anything land on my head. The closest I came was pottering about at the base of Dow when someone dropped a krab that landed a few feet away from me and would have hurt.

Wonder how much the sanctimonious prigs at the Mail paid her for the image it apparently pinched from her blog…

No one has ‘interfered’, no one has ‘imposed’ anything, no one suggests that kids should be insulated. No one is claiming to be perfect, but if you think that maybe it reflects a little on you.

Some of use have an opinion based on our knowledge of shit that can happen on easy climbs, what kids do in backpacks etc.

You have an opinion too. It’s different. Keep your soggy knickers on.

EDIT: BWD – I’ve had gaggia classic sized rocks miss me by a few feet. just sayin’ like.

30 years ago no-one would have batted an eyelid at this.

If I were a parent (oh wait, I am…) anyone telling me how I should bring up my kids can flip off.

Interfering do-gooders, imposing your precious little principles on others like they’re some kind of divine untouchable commandments.

How superior you must all feel, what with being perfect in every way and everything.

Butt out, go and finish insulating your own delicate little darling kiddies against the world with cotton wool and bubble wrap.

I guess you left the wee winkie smilie thing off the end.

Basic parenting skills would question why you were prepared to expose your child to a danger that you weren’t prepare to accept for yourself- why does the mother wear the helmet.
Irrespective of the real or perceived risks, I’d be thinking ‘whoah, why am I the one putting on the helmet here?’

30 years ago I think more people would have been concerned by the photo than they are today- even getting on for 40 years ago pretty substantial attention was paid to safety issues in outdoor education.

Nobody’s getting sanctimonious here, but joao3v16 there’s shitloads of people telling you all the time what you can and can’t do with your child, and many of them you’ll have to listen to, like it or not.

Just a point about the whole “mother in helmet, so should the toddler” thing:

It occurs to me that we’re looking at one photo from the day and criticising based on that.

It is quite possible that the mother doesn’t feel she needs a helmet on that climb. She might just still have it on from an earlier climb. Or perhaps just wanted to keep her hair out of her eyes.

We can’t see the climb, it might just be a little wall – certainly someone is able to get a close up photo of her from directly above.

Tell you what though: I reckon the Daily **** Mail and the like have caused significant more damage to kids’ safety and health over the past few years with things like their deeply misguided and dangerous anti-MMR campaigns than any number of parents pottering about without putting full PPE on their kids.

It is quite possible that the mother doesn’t feel she needs a helmet on that climb. She might just still have it on from an earlier climb.

This is what I thought too. Maybe the kid asked to go climbing with mummy after seeing her up on the rock, my lad would have done that. So you pick him/her up and choose an easy scramble you’ve done fifty times, top-roped, no loose rocks etc, someone snaps a picture, you think nothing of it. Her biggest mistake was uploading the damn thing to the internet… 🙄

EDIT: BWD – I’ve had gaggia classic sized rocks miss me by a few feet. just sayin’ like.

Gaggia Classic, the new unit of rock measurement… One day all rock-fall will be measured in high-end domestic appliances. ‘Yeah, did you see that boulder – proper Smeg fridge size?’ ‘You reckon? I thought it was more of a Siemens washer-drier. Or maybe a Bosch dishwasher.’

And talking of domestic appliance… coffee 🙂

I think the mother needs knee protection in this pic

^ Ha!

First thing i thought on looking at that picture was “i’m not sure whether i’d rather have the mother catching or throwing”. I’m such a sexist 😳