'Kids need to be in rear-facing car seats until they're 8': Parents share the most insane fear mongering they've seen in a mom group

Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor

Jun 3, 2024 1:00 PM EDT

If there's one thing moms on the internet love to do, it's scare the living daylights out of other moms. It makes sense that not everything about being safe with babies and children comes naturally, but some people can't stop telling other parents that their kid is demonstrably unsafe without any evidence that that's even close to the truth. The most famous example is women in the suburbs who think that they and their children are at high risk of being trafficked. I've seen the movie Split, and I know that it's not impossible to be kidnapped in a parking lot, but it feels highly unlikely for your kids to be snatched up in broad daylight surrounded by other people and CTV cameras during the 20 seconds you're putting your shopping cart away. One mom asked other parents to share the most fear-mongering things they've seen in mom groups, and some of them are extremely silly.