This made me realize that my parents having me on a leash as a toddler may be why I have a leash kink as an adult. 🤔

When an animal is old and dying, you're expected to euthanize it. When a human is old and dying, you're expected to keep them alive as long as possible

Not really. I wish more parents would use kid leashes. They clip onto a harness, not a collar. In fact the old saying about kids being "tied to their mother's apron strings" is literally this, to keep the little monsters from running off and getting hurt or lost.

No it's not?

They make leashes specifically for toddlers. They're pretty common.

I remember seeing someone make an argument for leashes, and it stuck with me. Forgive me that I don't remember the source, so this is paraphrasing at best.

First, you must throw out all of your thoughts and mental associations with the leash. You must consider this scenario on its own. It has nothing to do with pets, or anything like that. This is about parenting, and only parenting.

You might see a leash as degrading. And to an adult, or an older child, that would certainly be the case. But these are typically only used on small children who have not yet developed that concept. IOW, the child does not mind the leash, aside from wanting to go where the leash won't allow.

You might think that the child's curiosity is being limited. Kids need to run and be free! But if there were no leash, that wouldn't be the case. Instead of a leash, a hyper-vigilant parent would be enforcing similar boundaries. In fact, most parents would be enforcing stricter boundaries- if you need to make sure Junior doesn't run away, you might not let them walk anywhere. The simplest form is requiring them to hold your hand, which is like an even shorter leash.

Since they can't just run away, you can even use a long leash. That allows them to run and explore and jump around, and have significantly greater freedoms, all because the string keeps them near enough. They might still fall and get hurt, but that's part of growing up. And yes, at a certain point, they will need to learn impulse control to stay nearby without a leash. This doesn't mean a leash is bad, only that it's not for every circumstance and needs to be retired at some point.

Now, after all of the above, can you articulate why a leash is always bad? Keeping in mind the child doesn't mind.

I was on a leash as a kid in the early '80s 😂 I forgot all about it until I saw this post. It was just when we were out shopping or something, it wasn't like I was tethered to a post in the back garden. But honestly, a leash on young toddlers just seems like a good idea to me, especially if you have 2 or more kids and you're all out together. Lots of tragedies could have been avoided if little Willy and his new superpower of self-determined locomotion wasn't able to suddenly take a sharp 45° turn and sprint headlong into oncoming traffic. Abductions would be a lot harder to pull off, too. Thinking of James Bulger, specifically 😔

I also think it's way nicer/less "abusive" than placing the kid in a buggy/stroller and wheeling their grumpy asses around like yer bell-ringing fella from Breaking Bad. They have zero freedom in that case, whereas on a leash they can at least walk around a bit and expend some of that crazy fizzy energy.

This is mostly copied from my reply to another comment:

Parents get tired. In fact, most parents have chronic levels of sleep deprivation which impairs things like concentration, reflexes, ability to pay attention, etc. Then you have parents who might be working multiple jobs, be dealing with health issues that affect sleep, etc. A leash would make that job to keep kids safe much easier.

No leash equals a non-abusive, even though not every situation can allow a parent to keep 100% focus on the child, but using a leash the parent suddenly becomes abusive?

Should a parent not give the kid a helmet when learning to ride a bike then also? Does using a helmet mean the parent is abusive?

I just don't understand this. I cannot fathom that someone would criticize a thing that objectively and provably make life in the world safer for children. It's just another tool to help kids get to grow up.

There are countless stories of children just walking away in the 3 to 5 seconds a parent looks away where the child falls off a height, falls into water (not every parent can swim, and not all waters are swimable), gets picked up by a stranger in a crowd, etc. Situations that a leash would 100% have saved the child's life.

And when these people are confronted on why it's abusive or "embarrassing for the child", they don't have an answer.

They might say something out of left field like "children aren't dogs!", to which I say "yes, you're right. Children aren't dogs. Very good! Now about the leash, why is it abusive?"

That depends. If its a choke chain then either group is abusive. One morning I witnessed some asshole who had a steel cable around a two or three year old kids neck as a choke chain. Later I found out the kid was autistic. This was found out after they kid was taken from his parents and was tested.

Been a long time, but back in the 90s/early 00s, I saw tons of parents with their kids on leashes at amusement parks... It always made me lol at the absurdity, but it was relatively prominent.