Seems to be quite the hot topic with a lot of parents. To leash, or not to leash. Fuck’s sake, some kids I see running wild could also use a matching mussel, perhaps Hello Kitty will bring out a range for Christmas this year. One can only hope.
In all seriousness, I am not a fan of the leash. I don’t even really like to tether the dog, but have no choice as she isn’t quite as up on the English language as our 4 year old human.
After reading some rant today on Facebook about a child of a leash I got to thinking about the lighter side of child abuse. One of the posts was carrying on about some old lady pulling a kid along like it was a resentful pug unwilling to take a bath. Disgusting to say the least. Another post started raving on about how we have not needed leashes for children in the past, so why all of a sudden do we need them now.
Hold that thought….. Have you ever asked yourself the question: What is the origin of the
child leash?……
If not then never mind, I did all the work for you. Turns out there is actually some kind of circa 1990 style HTML homage to the history of restraining your toddlers. From what I have determined, this whole leash business started early in the 17th century, perhaps late 16th century. (Although this website makes note of telling us they have found no evidence in the 16th century yet).
Take a look at this baby. It is a painting of a young Louis XV with a child leash on. I highly doubt the leash is of any consequence that young Louis pictured here would turn out to be
known as Louis the Beloved, but perhaps being restricted to a one meter radius around his caregiver fostered a sense of empathy.
Hell, good enough for the French, good enough for… ummm…. Just don’t bind your child folks, it isn’t a dog.
Oh yeah, after almost a year without so much as a whisper on the blog, I am back. 🙂
The UnsimpleLife 
I used a dog collar as a belt for my 3 year old son with a retractable dog leash at Disney World in 2003 and got some strange looks from a lot of people. My son has ADD and would bolt off in a heartbeat if he saw something that he liked. The idea came to me because I had a dog that would bolt like that if he saw another dog. A man stopped me while we were walking through Disney World and asked me how I came up with the idea and I told him I figured if it would work to keep my dog from running off uncontrollably that it would work for my son. The next year I saw kid leashes being sold online and in some stores and they were becoming popular. I used to think that that guy or someone else that was at Disney World that day stole my idea and marketed it to make money. I may have got some nasty looks and comments from other people. All I know is that it helped me to keep up with my son and keep him from getting into trouble or getting hurt at Disney World and at the airports as we traveled. My son was fast at everything, he was riding his bike without training wheels at age 5 and at 6 was riding his bike and impressing much older kids and people at the Extreme Park in Louisville Kentucky. At age 8 he became the face on posters to sell Career Day pictures at his school. He quit school at 16 and got his GED at 17 and then started working and supporting himself and at 20 he is thinking about going to college and getting a degree in Engineering so I don’t think I did to bad of a job raising him.
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Finally he is back. Leash and all. If we tie you down do you promise not to leave us hanging again?
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I make no promises, but I’m here to stay lol…
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Is that not a girl in the painting with a leash on, and not Louis XV ? Before the early 20th century, light blue was the colour of girls; not pink.
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Good point. Everything I checked said that was him. I will dig a little deeper and get back to you mate.
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No worries 🙂
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Welcome back! I was never a fan of child leashes, tethers, or whatever the fad of the moment called them, and I never used them, although my younger daughter had a disturbing habit of leaving stores when she was a bored toddler. One of my sisters-in-law did because she had 3, very close in age, her husband was away in the military & one of her children also had a habit of wandering away when she was trying to pay for something in the shops 🙂
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Hello and welcome back!
Interesting post this. Child leashes, hm. Some kids should definitely be tethered.
But then it’s all in the wording isn’t it.
I remember ‘Toddler Reins’, a leather harness in ether blue or pink (with boysy or girly motifs) and lead attachments. Excellent idea for keeping the young ones close and safe. Then of course came the arm bands and curly ‘leads’ in a multitude of colours for every occasion. With dogs, you have the extending lead for those of us a little uncertain of our ‘recall’ technique so that the family mutt can explore without running away.
When I was tiny, apparently a neighbour tied her child to the drainpipe when she played outside. Everyone was up in arms about her mother’s cruelty until she explained that the ribbon (not a rope) only reached up to the front gate, stopping just short so as the child couldn’t open it, but could see everything going by.
Thus in my childhood, it was a matter of safety. Child Safety of the most paramount importance.
For abusers, child or otherwise, it’s a means of power, control, restraint and helplessness.
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