January 22, 2009

Where should the line be drawn?

By now, you've surely heard about the new children's product safety laws that will come to fruition in February. Many etsy sellers and sellers of handmade children's products are facing extinction.

It doesn't only affect the sellers. It affects those of us who buy the products. I love the fact that I can find one of a kind gifts for baby showers. I look at some of the things that I wish I would have known about before Jack was born and I'm sad that they won't be available if we have another.

On the other hand, before any of this came out in August, if I were to ask you if you thought the government should take action to make sure children's products were safe and lead-free, what would your response have been?

Is finding a balance possible? Is there a good place to draw the line that would allow large manufacturers to be held accountable while still allowing small businesses to avoid, well, going out of business? Are we asking to have our cake and eat it, too?

I have no answer. But I do have links.

Jcaroline wrote a really easy-to-understand summary of this piece of legislation.

Etsy wrote an open letter about the situation.

Kathleen Fasanella offers some ineteresting commentary/advice.

You can see what children's products on etsy would cost under the new law here.

Jcaroline provides some insight on what she might do if she were a seller of handmade children's prodcuts.

2 comments:

Smith Family Blog said...

Thanks for posting on this-- I've seen mentions of this on etsy, but didn't know what it was all about.

Sara Neufeld said...

Thanks for this post. I have not really wanted to think about this yet...but I need to get in gear! :)