When you give your son a low power, kids flashlight, the last thing to cross your mind is the possibility it may make him go blind. You try your best as a parent to stimulate his little gray cells as safely as possible. You want to encourage him not to play with the Christmas lights plugged into the outlet and yet allow him to explore the wonders of light.
Sure a regular powered L.E.D. can be a problem because of the small size of the diode which would allow the eye to focus a lot of energy to a very small area of the retina. Hence, the low lumen, low powered flashlight. However, I've come to realize that even sound logic is not enough to appease the grandparents.
And because no amount of science or logic will get in the way of firmly held beliefs, you end up spending a part of your precious afternoon taking apart something that was never made to come apart just to add a light diffusing disk to further reduce the already almost non-existent risk posed to your child in the hopes of making everyone happy.
One hour later, the world is now safe from the evil L.E.D., or so you would think. As it turns out, not even your ingenious plan to stave off cataclysmic disaster is enough. Regardless of the time spent, you still hear worries about the device's safety and further threats to take away said flashlight from your child if he continues to shine it in his face.
This leaves me asking myself why I bothered in the first place. I have now come to the conclusion that I was foolish for telling my son he couldn't play with the outlet, as it was far less dangerous to his health than the flashlight.
