Summer is officially here, so my daughter already has what I like to call “summer knees.” They’re scraped, bruised, and usually sporting at least one rainbow unicorn bandaid at any given time. Thankfully, this is the most we have to deal with when it comes to her safety.
We’re pretty strict with what she can and cannot do (helmets always, no blue swimsuits (IYKYK), etc.), and one pediatric OR nurse seems to be on the same wavelength.
Based on her experience in the operating room as a nurse, Josie Rose Mueller says she’s “seen some s**t,” and it has totally altered the way she parents, noting that there are at least five things she will never let her kids do because they’re just plain unsafe.
Starting strong, Mueller says she will never let her kids ride in the lap of an adult operating a ride-on lawn mower.
“Without a doubt, I see one person on my Facebook feed doing this every single summer and yes, the photo is adorable, but it is less adorable when I see kids getting their legs cut off from it,” she stated matter-of-factly.
Next, she won’t let her kids get near any sort of amateur fireworks display.
“I will never ever ever let my kids play with explosive fireworks during the 4th of July. I have seen kids lose fingers, entire hands, teeth, portions of their jaw. I’ve seen them blow up basically just about anything,” she said.
When it comes to water safety, Mueller won’t keep an eye off her kids who are not strong swimmers.
She continued, “Number three, I will never let my younger children who are not very, very confident in water go to a swim party without me. It is actually true that the more people in a pool, even the more people surrounding a pool, the higher chance there is for your child to drown. There’s way too much room for error. There’s way too much room for someone to get lost.”
She moves on to a more obvious one, which involves car seat safety.
“This one’s a given, but I will never ever let my kids ride in the car either not in their harness or not buckled in their seat. I have seen situations where one kid is buckled in and walks away with very minor injuries and the other kid either passes or walks away with very severe injuries because they were not buckled in from the same exact car crash,” she shared.
Last, she brings up the ever-controversial topic of kids’ sleepovers.
“I will never let my kids be babysat by or go to somebody’s house or spend the night and do a sleepover at a house where I do not know every single person that’s going to be there, every single person in the house I’ve known them a long time, and I can verify that they’re good people,” she said.
“I can’t even get into the abuse situations that I’ve seen, but it was enough to really … and I still question whether I’ll ever let my kids have sleepovers at all.”
After her video gained over 1.2 million views, thousands of TikTok users commented on her take. Others added more safety situations for their own kids.
“Watch kids around ALL dogs… I have seen way too many dog bites this year from golden retrievers (and other dogs) from a peds pacu nurse!” one mom chimed in.
Another wrote, “ER nurse here- my five- co sleeping under age 2, dogs, ATVs w/no helmets, drunk driving, unsecured guns.”
“Also trampolines and bounce houses.”
“I’m a SANE nurse- no sleepovers for my kids!” one wrote.
“Yes pool parties are a huge no-go if I’m not there! When everyone is watching, no one is watching,” one user chimed in.
