Protecting Your Children From Fire May Be Bad

The Wife is a philosophy professor. Her Dad is a more down-to-earth kind of guy. Of my wife's chosen career, he once said "Philosophy?! The cave men figured out all the philosophy we'll ever need: Fire good. No fire bad."

Turns out it's actually a little more complicated than that.

According to the Internet (actually, the National Fire Protection Association) in 2002 (the year with the lowest incidents ever recorded, mind you), children started almost 14,000 "structure fires" resulting in 210 deaths, 1,250 injuries, and $339 million in property damage ("that's coming out of your allowance!").

On the other side of the equation, companies have been dousing everything from clothing to couches to electronics with chemical fire retardants called PBDEs. The white coat activists at the Environmental Working Group conducted a study of 19 US families showing that in 19 of them, concentrations of the PBDEs were three times higher in the children and toddlers than in the mothers. The EWG had conducted an earlier study in 2003 and found that concentrations of PBDEs in US mothers' breast milk were 75 times higher than in breast milk from European mothers (the compounds are under much higher regulation in Europe). Although the studies are small, they are enough to cause great amounts of worry.

What's so bad about PBDEs? Apparently, when given to mice, they cause hyperactivity (and nobody wants hyperactive mice). The EWG recommends that until Congress enacts tough new regulations, children should really stay off the couch and stop using Daddy's computer.

With the NFPA's warnings in mind, I recently cautioned Cinderella not to play with matches. The conversation went exactly like this:

Cinderella: Daddy I need some matches.

Me: You shouldn't play with matches dear.

Cinderella: I'm not going to play with them! I need them to start a fire.