A mum has banned her kids from playing with lightsabers, sleeping in bunkbeds or using trampolines after deaths she dealt with when she worked as an undertaker. Lauren Eliza, 29, said she's branded a "Grinch" over her safety concerns.
The mum-of-two bans her toddlers, two and four, from playing with balloons, skipping ropes, magnets, lightsabers, and refuses to let them go to trampoline parks. Lauren used to work as an undertaker and attended so many childrens' autopsies which have made her extra cautious about her own kids.
The accidental deaths she dealt with have made her determined to reduce the chance of any of these incidents happening to her family. Lauren, a stay-at-home mum, said: “People call me the Grinch because I keep presents and toys away from my kids.
“I laugh about it. I’m an over protective mum and that’s OK.
“I refer to myself as a scarred mortician. I’ve cared for many kids at funeral homes and it’s an experience you never get over.
“I don’t let my kids go on trampolines and I’d never take them to a trampoline park. We don’t do bunk beds and they don’t wear pyjamas with a string waste band in case they manage to pull them out.
“There are still plenty of toys they can play with. Accidents can happen in the blink of an eye.
“I just to everything I can to reduce the chance of accidental death. They are not allowed balloons as if the little pieces get in their mouth they can get sucked up into their trachea.
“They don’t have skipping ropes or magnets. I don’t let them have lightsabers or anything like that because it can cause head injuries.
“Kids can be really rough.”
Lauren's dad Pat, 53, was a mortician and paramedic, and took a similar attitude to her toys when she was a kid. There was a list of things I couldn’t play with,” she said.
“But I had a normal childhood and didn’t know why my parents limited things until I became an adult.”
Lauren decided to step away from her job as an undertaker in May 2020 to spend more time with her sons. I was nervous about bringing the emotions of work home to a new-born,” she said.
Lauren is also cautious with the food she gives her sons. I cut up grapes for them as they can easily choke on them,” she said.
“I wasn’t allowed to eat peanuts until I was six and that will be the same for them. I don’t keep any small things that they could choke on.
“They have shoes with shoe laces on but I hide them away so they can’t pull the laces out. Death is something that can happen to anyone.
“Talking about death in children is not a popular conversation but it is an important one.”
Things Lauren won’t let her kids play with -
- Balloons
- Light sabers
- Skipping ropes
- Trampolines
Other precautions Lauren takes -
- No bunk beds
- No pyjamas with draw strings
- Cuts up grapes
- No peanuts until six years old
