I don't recall doing a headstand with a helmet on, when I was a child, but maybe I fell on my head and thus forgot that I did so.

This is just dumb. Screw our nanny state bureaucrats.

When I was little, I never wore a bicycle helmet, and I had a number of falls, including one over the handlebars, landing on my chest and getting a goose egg there.

I used to take my tricyle down a very steep hill at full speed and then whip it around the corner at the end of the sidewalk. I used to get that thing up on one wheel. Then, I'd ride back up the hill and do it all over again. I took quote a few spills. My mother was always terrified that I'd crack my head open.
I'm still alive and not at all damaged (well, physically, the emotional scares from losing that tricycle are still pretty sore. I loved that thing.) The worse was a really scaped up knee and a pretty good bruise on my head when I hit the handlebars upon crashing into the wall.

This is just... dumb...

I mentioned this a while ago but I'll bring it up again. My 12 year old nephew was killed because he rode a bicycle without a helmet. He was sideswiped by a truck and hit his head on the curb. If he had been wearing a helmet he would have walked away with a headache. He'd be 29 now.

When he was 5, my son saw me practicing head and handstands. He attempted to to a handstand himself on the cement patio. His arms weren't strong enough and he landed on his head. Lucky he didn't break his neck. We had a talk about not attempting things like that without a spotter.

DrMaturin, that's very sad. I'm sorry about that.

My best friend was killed by a car on thier bike when he was 15. He was wearing a helmut. It was broad daylight. The car plowed right into him. He died instantly.

The point is, you can't, or shouldn't, over legislate "safety". Bad things happen, even to the most prepared of people. Kids need to learn about healthy risk through making mistakes and learn to build up their resiliance by getting hurt. We use to learn to brush off our injuries unless they were serious. We use to play outside. We've now got a nation of wussy's and fatasses because the government has decided that it's "better safe than sorry". So instead of kids playing ball at recess, they have "indoor quiet time". Or instead of playing outside, kids are locked indoors with video games. It's disgusting.

Besides, really? A STAMP is what's going to teach kids about bad safety choices? Please. I made perfectly bad safety choices without the aid of pictures or tv. I made them just because I was a young, stupid kid. Some kids can find ways to hurt themselves being alone in a foam room, wearing a helmut and kneepads.

What's annoying is it's not just that they are destroying stamps because of a "wrong message;" It is also because they have already used tax dollars to print these things, and NOW, someone says "wait a minute"!?

Oh, so typical of how government works; and wastes tax dollars.

yea, I so want these folks to run (ha, I almost typed "ruin") my health care.

But wasn't the "Just Move" campaign started by the First Lady, the one we hate so very, very much for advising us to drink water?

So, we should be glad that this is happening. This will only further our ends to get rid of the office of the First Lady, never mind that every First Lady has had their own office since Caroline Harrison (wife of Benjamin, not William Henry).

Considering how many years have gone by since I first saw kids with helmets and other protective gear just to walk out the door, I'm surprised that the stamps didn't include them.

Doesn't anyone approve the stamp designs before they're printed? Wait, I just remembered the thing about the Lady Liberty stamps. Never mind.

So it's a bad thing that we've taught my oldest grandson how to do a cannonball from the side of the pool? Oh wait, I probably shouldn't even let him near the pool.

The waste of this absolutely slays me. We are a nation in debt, that can't afford to pay the bills, and then something like this happens. One more example of the shenanigans going on in DC.

Amy, your story about riding the bike made me laugh. When I was 8, I received my first "big kid" bike - a metallic green Lady Schwinn with a groovy metallic green banana seat and a bitchin' sissy bar. Within a couple of hours, I was riding down our street with no hands. When I looked back to make sure my parents were watching, I slammed into the back end of an 18-wheelers cab (a neighbor was long haul trucker and had the tractor home for the holidays). Of course I wasn't wearing a helmet, but man I wish I had a chest protector on!

We never wore helmets growing up. Then when I was 14 my Aunt flipped over her handlebars 1 block from her house, and died from head trauma. When I was 16, my younger brother was found unconscious in the road next to his bike-not sure if it was a fall or a car. He had a good brain bleed too, didn't die thank god but it did put a full head of gray hair on my parents after the aunt.

Mom just got back from a funeral alst week, a woman stumbled on the curb coming out of the post office, smacked her head, and died. Our heads aren't so sturdy as we like to think. So I make my kids wear helmets on bikes. But I have no issue with headstands or cartwheels.

"...never mind that every First Lady has had their own office since Caroline Harrison (wife of Benjamin, not William Henry)."

Fallacy: Appeal To Prior Practice.

The statement doesn't support continuing the practice, period.

Actually I'd love to get my hands on the stamps and hold onto them.

Anyone remember the Inverted Jenny? Having one in a few years might be worth some money.

We didn't have helmets. For anything. Amazing how we all survived.

We also had lead paint.

We played dodge ball.

In the summer it wasn't unusual to be outside most of the day, coming back only for lunch and supper.

Many of us also walked to school by ourselves or in small groups.

IRA - let's not forget the lack of carseats, we never used the seatbelts and in my case, my parents and all their friends would smoke in the car, with the windows rolled up. I loved playing with that little cigarette lighter in the backseat. Needless to say, I burned myself more times than I can count...I was a slow learner. It's a miracle that any of us made it through our childhoods. I miss those days!