Chinese Recalls: How Can You Even Avoid Their Products?

I saw that there were even more recalls of Chinese products. This time it's Barbie toys or something like that. It's getting to the point where you really can't trust anything. Some people on a homeschool forum I go to was asking whether or not you let your babies suck on their toys. Well, it's kind of a natural thing for babies to want to put toys in their mouth... kinda hard to do.

Anyway, I went high chair shopping yesterday. We've been feeding our baby in his swing, and now that he's eating more table food, we thought it was about time. They had some really nice high chairs, most of them are adjustable and have these really cool trays that you can put the food on and take off to wash. We got the Rainforest one with this monkey toy that they can play with while they're sitting there waiting for you to finish getting their dinner ready.

While we were at Babies R Us looking at high chairs, we looked at all the boxes to find out where these high chairs were made. Made in China. Made in China. Made in China. Every single high chair at Babies R Us was made in China. Even the wooden ones. What have we as a society gotten into?

There is a much greater problem with finding all these products made in China than the fact that there are so many getting recalled. What if our relationship with China sours? What will we do then?

We depend on China so much, for almost everything. Obviously high chairs. Toys. A lot of our clothes. Even things like tires, baby food, and pet food have been recalled lately, so I guess that some of those things are made in China as well. What would we as a country do if one day we woke up and all trade with China was cut off? Not a pretty picture.

Why can't we make more things in America? There are so many people fed up with the toy recalls lately, I think that there is a growing segment of the population that would be willing to pay a little more to buy something made in America. Not only could we oversee the standards that the products were made with, but we could also help out local workers. These workers in turn go out and buy more products, keeping our economy humming.

I'm really tired of companies outsourcing jobs to India and other places. I once tried to validate a Microsoft product and I got India. Most of the people were nice enough, but this guy was breathing heavily into the phone and it was driving me bonkers. Maybe I just ended up with a rare gem, but maybe that's a cultural thing and is okay there? I know that the Indians have to work too, but I'm not so sure that working 3rd shift over there to answer calls during US business hours is great for their family structure over there.

I'd much rather talk to an American. By the way, if you are looking for someone to host your web site and would like to have an American answer the phone, please consider giving your business to Godaddy.com. I know they hire American, because my husband just got a job there and starts on Monday. They have tons of American people working in their call centers, web designers, etc. They seem like a good group of people who treat their people well, so at least look into them if you need web hosting.

Enough of that commercial. I really do find it disappointing that we can't find some company that will make toys that children want to play with (my daughter does not want to play with a corn cob doll, thank you) in America. Not only does it make us feel better to support Americans, it also makes us feel safer when it comes to things like lead paint, the company could still get products to us no matter what happened with our relationships with other countries.

Not to mention, the likelihood of buying a product made in America made by a prisoner who was sent there because of his religious beliefs is slim to none. Can't guarantee that with China. But that's another post.