This post is in reference to the ThudGuard Helmet featured at Gizmodo.

When Dani and I visited Washington D.C. to see her brother last year, we also visited the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum (Dani is a DAR member). It’s actually pretty interesting - Each state has a room decorated to match some period in the state’s history. California’s room, for example, is decorated to resemble the Customs House in Monterey during our early statehood.

Another state - I can’t remember which, I think Minnesota or Missouri - featured a family scene from a home in the early 1800s. In this scene the older child was watching over a younger child, as you can see in the following picture I took.

Look closely at the younger child - that thing on her head is a “pudding cap” - a hat consiting of stictched fabric and stuffed with a soft filling intended, according to the exhibit’s sign, to keep the child from knocking their head on the ground thus turning their brains to pudding. The older child, as you can see, is also using a set of reins attached to the younger child also intended to keep the toddler from falling down.

I swear I’m not making any of this up.

So, The so-called “Thud Helmet” (which is far less cool and descriptive than “pudding cap”) is neither a new idea, nor further indication of our nation’s slide toward an overprotective nanny state. Instead, it’s downright nostaligic for a peaceful, simpler, more over-protective time.