old cars and kids ot

okay, slightly off topic, but how did kids (infants) ride around in our cars? we saw a pram for sale this weekend and the antique store owner told us that it sat on the floorboards and that was all that they used to do. Is that right? in the 70's i remember standing up in the back no seat belts, no booster( and i survived) but how did they transport infants?

Now what prompted all of this is my wife and i are expecting and everyone seems shocked that we intend to carry an infant around in the 53 plymouth. its got seatbelts in the back. why couldnt we put a seat in there and be good?

do any of you carry kids around in your cars?
<!-- / message -->

<!-- controls -->​

 

Both my 1.5 and three year old use a full on car seat. My 4 year old uses his booster seat. All of this was with lap belts.

 

what did they use in the 40-50? when did car seats become the norm? dont worry i plan to use a seat. I m just curious

 

I remember my mother telling me that she would sit us kids when we were just babies in a 'B***inet' on the back seat. that was it! I remember standing on the back seat as a kid and in the very back of the wagon in the cargo area.
My father had an old Gemini (Small Aussy sedan delivery of late 70s vintage) we kids would sit in the back of that with no belts, he would do hand brake turns and swerve around so we would slide all over the back of that thing.
Doc.

 

Safety seats for infants and small children were an 80s-90s kind of thing.

There were car seats much earlier, 50s-60s, that hung over the seat backs of the stock seat and actually had steering wheels and horn ****ons to entertain the kids while they steered the car as Daddy or Mommy drove.

By 1959 our family had 5 boys and Dad drove a 1956 Ford Ranch Wagon, then in Germany a 1951 Pontiac Station Wagon. Prior to that with fewer kids it was 1954 Chevrolet 4door and 1956 Old 4door. Dad bought a 64 VW bus in Germany and shipped it home with us so we tooled around the country in it with 6 boys, luggage up top on a big 4X8 carrier.

My wife and I carried our twin girls, born in 1976, around in our 48 Plymouth Woodie Wagon when they were small by removing the 2nd seat and replacing it with the full width 3rd seat and puting their play-pen in back where they slept and played for many a mile around town and on trips in state and out. By 1986 when our son was born, safety seats were required to take the baby home from the hospital.

It is now the law that ALL children and infants be in safety seats (rear-facing for smaller infants, then front facing and when bigger booster seats.

 

Go ahead and put that car seat in the back. We drive our two toddlers, 1.5 and 3.5 year olds in the back of our 37 slant all the time. Seat belts in the back just like your car. We waited until the kids were stong enough to hold their own heads up as the car is very low and does ride a little rougher than a daily. I do try to drive carefully and pay very close attention to the drivers around you that loose concentration when they are staring at your car. Good luck.

 

I put my 6 yr old and 2 yr old in car seats and ride in my 51 truck. They love it.

 

Yep, I've probably put...2000 miles on my '63 with my two kids. When I redid the interior, I added belts in the back, and their car seats (booster for 4.5 year old) stay there just fine.

 

I remember my Dad telling me that when my oldest sister was an infant that my Mom either held her in her arms when my Dad drove or she rode in a milk crate lined with blankets in the back seat. I remember about 1975 riding with my buddy when he brought his newborn daughter home from the hospital. I held her in my arms and he drove. I was never so freakin' paranoid in my life!

 

I grew up in the '50s & '60s. A lot of mothers with infants would ride in the back seat in those days and hold the baby. As soon as they were big enough they's put the baby in a little cradle carrier that usually was on the back seat or sometimes the back floor. Once you were out of the cradle you were on your own. Sit down, be quiet and ride! The first time that I ever saw a seatbelt was at a drag strip. Man, all of that was a bad idea. I had two friends killed in car accidents growing up and they both probably would have survived if they hadn't been thrown out of the car. One was run over by the car he'd been in and one went through the windshield. Buckle yourselves and those kids in, you won't regret it.

 

hmmm...I use to like to lay down on the package tray and look out the back window of my Dad's Buick at night time....glad he never had a wreck. Course we use to make a bed in the floor board and a bed in the back seat and slept away.
Yep back then an infant was protected by Mom....course in a wreck the baby would of popped like a pimple...car seats are probably a good thing. Metal dashes are pretty unforgiving.

 

I have no clue but I know in the 70's I laid down on the front seat of our camper special...no belt, no seat.....just next to my Mom

 

Pictured is the kid seat that my Dad made about 1950.
It hung on the seat back and us kids sat with our feet on the car's seat - no belt.
My 2 older brothers survived this and I myself was using it as late as 1965.

 

When I was a tot, my mom held me while dad drove. When a was a lil older 4-7, I would either stand up in the front(so I could see everything) or lay in the package tray and roll out whenever someone stepped on the brakes. Of course, the mommy holding idea isn't very secure as the laws of physics goes. My dad was hit by a drunk driver in 74 and I got to see first hand what the hood ornament on a 72 eldorado looked like up close..39 s***ches to the forehead and a nifty stripe down my chest. Approved car seats were another 8-9 years away.

 

I remember running around in our station wagon jumping the seats like hurdles as Mom drove down the road. I also remember laying on the back tray in our sedan and sticking my tongue out at the car behind us. And I turned out just fine...LOL!

 

When I would go for a ride with my Grandma in the old LTD we would have to hold up pillow in front of us. The early airbag apparently. She also used to stop at every intersection, even if there was not a stop sign and honk 3 times. She honked so much she had a finger push ****on installed she could hit with her pinky without having to take her hands off the steering wheel. Come to think of it, I don't think she was all there.

 

we sit the seven year old on her booster seat betweent he cross bars of the rollcage in our 33 Chevy coupe nad am puting the rear seat back in the 40 chevy sedan for her to sit on and yes I am putting a seat belt in there as I did with the coupe - when I was growing up we didnt use the seat belts in our parents or grandparents vehicles-did go slamming into the radio knobs and had radio knob shape bruises from his 67 Chevy pickup dash and standing up on a bcakseat of a Maverick watching the semi plow into the row of cars like dominos and eventually into us at stoplight when we were moving out of New Jersey-my brother and I bouncing around like pinballs - yeah thats probably why they made these damn laws - thanks alot Dad

 

We would take road-trips in the summer to see relatives in upstate new york and michigan with my pops driving the family car - a '70 VW beetle, no AC. The back seat had lap belts but I don't think we ever used 'em. Regardless, sis and I would climb into the trunk compartment behind the back seat doin car bingo and that magnet-face thing, and color and draw. That horsehair had a rainbow of melted crayons in it. Being back there was awesome because we were well outta range of either parent's reach-behind-the-seat swipe when we got too rowdy.

DON'T MAKE ME STOP THIS CAR!

Later on when the rear floor pan of that bug started to rust out, I remember tying a pencil I had found in the car to a VERY long piece of green yarn and trailing it out through the hole. Pops driving down the road oblivious to the pencil on yarn hopping around on the road behind him. Its a miracle it didn't get caught on anything and jerked outta my hands.

I'm sure alot of people got hurt back in the day before all the safety features on and in cars, but then again, they didn't have to deal with 20yr olds in ricers doing 80 through the neighborhoods while texting.

 

I'm the oldest of 10 children. I was born in '57...the last was born about '72. I remember my mother holding the infants. No seatbelts in the early years, and no baby-seat. Doesn't mean it was a good idea, but that's the way it was. BTW, just exactly why are your friends so concerned? Simply because an infant will be riding in an old car? You're gonna use a restrained infant-seat like anyone else does today, aren't you? I don't see the problem. It seems that many young parents these days are paranoid beyond belief. Or they enjoy being know-it-alls and doomsayers to their friends who are about to have their first-born. "You mean, you don't have a baby-monitor???!!!" or "You don't have safety-latches on your cupboards???!!!" or "You mean your going to transport your baby in a '53 Plymouth???!!!" But...lots of people are that way. Anything that's different than the way they live must be wrong. Rasberries to 'em. On the other hand, I remember my Dad having me paint the kiddie picnic-table in the back yard when I was about 7-8 yrs. old. I had no shirt on, and I got quite a bit of oil-base paint on me. When I was done, my Dad began wiping me down with terpentine. Just about the time I started saying, "Dad, I'm starting to not feel so good." Mom started yelling at him out the back window, "Ron!!! ...What are you doing???!!!" Hahahahahahhaha!!! He had to quickly wash me down with the water-hose...I was fine. That was just one of a couple times I remember Dad gettin' in trouble from my Mom in regards to my safety. Wanna hear another one? O.K....I've got time. One year, we were moving. We never used moving companies...we moved ourselves. I mean, Jeez...my folks had 10 kids to help move! So my dad and I were moving a few things, including parts of the swing, and the slide. We loaded it all into the back of the pickup. It wasn't illegal to ride in the back of a truck back then. We didn't dis***emble the slide, we just stuck it back there, sitting upright, and my dad had me get under it and hold it down while he drove the 5 miles to the new house. It was a 2-lane road, out in the countr, nice summer day, not a lot of traffic. No problem. Except ...... my dad had loaded it with the high side facing the front !!! The last thing my dad said to me was, "I'll drive slow." So here we go...10 mph...15...20...I could feel the upward pressure a little. 25 mph...30...35...now it was becoming apparent to me we had a problem! I was hanging on just as hard as I could. Finally, I had to let go. The slide went sailing into a field...that thing really flew! Dad pulled over and stopped. He said somethin' like, "I was only doin' 35!" Hahahahaha! Poor Dad. You might wonder why I'd say poor Dad, but you have to realize that this guy worked his *** off to support all of us...can you imagine working that hard, and then tryin' to get other stuff done too? Sometimes ya get in a hurry, and stuff happens. None of us ever got killed. - I've gone on here. But it pertains to the thread. These are examples of one end of the spectrum, in regards to child-safety. Your friends gettin' all up-in-arms about you carrying an infant in an old car is the waaaaaaaaaay other end. Tell your friends to relax. - Wanna here another one? Just kiddin'. That's enough. - Rick

 

I'm overprotective..
we have belts and kid seats, but the "recycled40fordwoodie" is sorta loud.

hence the pink earmuffs.



and reguardless of what my "friends say"

NO I dont have a matching pair..