A nanny supervising a baby suspended in a wire cage attached to the outside of a high tenement block window. The cages were distributed to members of the Chelsea Baby Club in London who have no gardens.
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I have no idea why this invention didn't take off. Everyone knows babies need fresh air. Worked best in sky scrapers, no doubt, where people don't even have a terrace, let alone a garden. That's perfectly safe! And babies love the sound of traffic!
I have no idea why this invention didn't take off. Everyone knows babies need fresh air. Worked best in sky scrapers, no doubt, where people don't even have a terrace, let alone a garden. That's perfectly safe! And babies love the sound of traffic!
25 comments:
and it looks like some kind of chimney pipes behind it....so yeah...exhaust from traffic, and chimney smoke/ash.....and i wonder if this led to fear of heights when the kid got older?
Oh its made of wire and its hanging out of the window.. Oh it has to be safe ( ya right) I see why this didn't last long.
That is the weirdest shit I have seen in a while. Thank God for modern technology.
It's amazing how people raised babies back in the day. A metal box? Were they raising babies or veal?
Reminds me of something I saw on the (now retired) website, threadbared.com. An unholy thing of horror called the Crib Sleeper, it was basically a strait jacket that tied to the cribs bars with the slogan, "Tie 'em in and keep 'em warm." Yeah, cuz that's what they were really using them for... warmth.
The absolute WORST thing about that contraption is that you crocheted it so there was PLENTY of time for you to realize what you were doing. I can just picture 2 expectant moms sitting at a little league game, crocheting baby strait jackets.
The sadist in me is mad that I was born to late to keep a baby in a cage while crocheting him a bright little strait jacket.
I wonder if they could make a car roof top version. Just throw her in there, she can feel the wind in her hair. Screw car seats.
Tonya isn't that the same thing that Joan crawford used to keep her children in bed?
Sounds like that thing they showed in mommy dearest movie. Keeping your kids straight jacket tied to the bed. Scary crap.
Oh good God. I wonder how many babies plummetted to their deaths?!
Ava's Mommy, I'm not sure b/c for some reason I never saw that movie. I can, however, totally see Jane tying their kids up in a crib for 'safety.' I can also picture her throwing her kid outside, naked and in a cage.
I just realized that this picture was taken before sunscreen so that poor baby's skin could have sunburned!
Yikes!
Although I do recall that "back in the day" doctors advised parents who had jaundiced babies to place them in the sun for awhile each day.
I wonder if that enclosed, high-rise cage qualified as therapy? And the pigeons must have had a ball perching on the top looking for crumbs of zwieback!
I'm fairly sure that Joan Crawford (NO WIRE HANGERS -- EVERRRR!!!) would tie her adopted son into his bed to prevent him from finding water at night (he was a bed-wetter). Joan really was a demented sweetie-pie, wasn't she? :O
Tonya, that movie is on You Tube, you can just type in Mommy Dearest and find it all. I watched it again recently, it amuses me and I was on Joan's side.
That's way better than my baby cage, which was a laundry basket with a rock on top. In the basement. With that little gap for the rats to get in and gnaw on my toes. Fuck you mom!
DD, I'm gonna go watch that today. Thanks.
Poor Crabbie. At least you didn't have to hunt the rats for food, right?
DD, I've always felt that way about the witch from Hansel & Gretel. She got such a bum rap for trying to cook those kids but if you ask me, they deserved it. She was just sitting inside her home, minding her own business when those 2 little brats EAT HER HOUSE! A lawyer could argue that building it out of gingerbread makes it an attractive nuisance, but the fact remains that 2 kids she didn't know felt they had a right to chow down on her home! I'm not saying she was right, but I could understand boiling someone for that.
I can't find Mommy Dearest on youtube! :(
OK, my stomach dropped when I saw that picture. It even has gaps along the sides for the baby's head to get trapped in if he gets too curious.
LOL to Tonya and Crabbie!
Tonya...
I also was always on the witches side too.
Biz said...
I wonder if they could make a car roof top version. Just throw her in there, she can feel the wind in her hair. Screw car seats.
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LOL, they could also put the dog up there w/the baby, keep each other company.
Wasn't a very similar product on the market about 10 years ago for cats? You put the "cage" in the window and the cat could hang out it in and pretend he/she was outside. I had three cats at the time, but I never got one. I was afraid it would not be secure enough or I'd install it wrong and the cats would fall out. Can you imagine hanging a baby in a cage out a window of a high rise?
jeez, & michael jackson got into trouble for dangling his baby out the window!
How far did the baby have to fall before this contraption was considered unsafe?
Of course it's a family with a nanny! If a person loves & cares for a baby (like a mommy would) you would never let your baby be inside this thing. You just know it feels wrong. But a family with a nanny or housekeeper that watches the child might not worry so much. This sickened me. I instantly thot of Eric Clapton's little boy that fell out of a hi rise window in NYC while being watched over by the housekeeper who was a young man! Supposedly he was washing the windows & had them opened & the curious little boy just fell out! Can you imagine the horror!~
Rox
PS: I am implying Eric Clapton did not worry about his young son, he didn't live with him but was just staying with him that day. It was tragic accident. I love Eric Clapton, if I see him, I think about his baby boy. Still. Like he's in those new phone commercials that the phone lookes like the neck of a guitar. Cool phone. But Eric is still tragic to me. Sorry to make it sound like I think he didn't care. I know he does. "Tears in Heaven"
rox
OMFG! I did it again! I am NOT implying... It's Monday. Gawd!!! I suck. You know what I meant.
rox
if it was given to ppl with no gardens, then why use it for a baby playpen? Use it for flowers! Grow veggies. It could have worked for that!
Lol....it's funny to see today's sensiblities waged against those of the past, before everyone looked at every single thing as a potential Death Trap.
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