Monday, January 05, 2009

stunned

I had just returned with an adorable vintage dress from the D.A.V. yesterday when I read this. I'm sure I'm the last one to hear, like usual. It honestly brought tears to my eyes. The Consumer Products and Safety Act goes into effect Feb. 10th. To save our children from lead and such they are barring any reselling of childrens' items. While it is a noble cause, the law takes it WAY too far. Think about what this means. Resale shops, such as Children's Orchard will be forced out of business. No more buying cute baby clothes on Etsy. No more donating used clothing and toys to the thrift store because they would just have to throw it away. No more reselling on Ebay or in garage sales. How will this affect our family? No more justifying the cost of Gymboree clothes by knowing I can recoup some of it on Ebay after the girls have worn it. No more cleaning out the toy closets before Christmas and selling the items to Children's Orchard. No more scouring thrift stores for vintage dresses and books. Now what to do with all of my childrens' out grown clothing? I give a lot of it away to friends but what about the not so nice stuff I normally just donate? Well it looks like the only option will now be throwing it away. But, when all is said and done, we'll be ok. I'm not so sure about the moms who depend on half price day at the thrift store to cloth their families. There are a lot of moms out there who can't afford retail, even on sale. What will they do now?

6 comments:

Andrea said...

I saw a petition about this a few months ago, but had no idea how far reaching it was. Why haven't we heard about this on the news?

Anonymous said...

I'm with Andrea. Why isn't this on the news?!

Sarah K

Anonymous said...

Just think about people like foster parents, no good used clothing for temporary or short term placements. I think they need to put a little more thought into this!

K1 said...

What!?!? This news is very distressing!!!

Wait...I have a solution. Rachel must transform her basement into a black-market children's resale area. On the surface, it will simply look like storage...things she's saving for her next baby, of course! :-) And if cash happens to fall out of her friends' pockets when they visit her basement, then oh well...what's the government going to do about that?! :-) It may just be the "Underground Railroad" of the New Millennium...

Anonymous said...

So they'll make used children's clothing illegal. It sounds to me like this new legislation is about the economy. They want to force people to spend MORE money. If this was really about the health of children, wouldn't they pass legislation against mothers who smoke during pregnancy? Tobacco products are FAR worse than lead paint ever thought to be.

Natalie Blaine said...

Britt called Children's Orchard and they said they aren't excepting things made in China right now. She said they still know very little about what this all means to them too. It sounds so far fetched and hard to believe. How in the world are they going to regulate this? Its all just to weird.