I do not believe it was staged. While there is a risk of danger, I believe it is a small risk. Perhaps a the axe head flies off, or a block of wood shoots out and hits the kid. But those risks are small, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to spare a child the experience of physically working to heat your dwelling in order to insure they are safe from an unlikely accident.

Anecdotally, my dad and I drove into the woods and cut down trees for the fireplace in my family's house. After he cut down the tree, he would cut the tree into 1 foot rounds and then split them with a maul. The cut, triangular pieces had to be loaded and stacked into the back of a pickup, and it was back breaking work.

However, every time the work was done, I remember feeling a sense of accomplishment and contemplating how it was the drudgery that ultimately created that feeling.

I think that we should not spare our children these enormously valuable learning experiences in the name of safety.

Your dad could have stacked logs in the truck and cut them to length and split them near the permanent stack location. Otherwise, you're stacking once in the truck bed and then again at the woodpile. Perhaps he was building your character instead of seeking efficiency.

A little bit of gratuitous labor helps the lesson sink in. So maybe you set up a little contest with your victi-er, kid. You each take half the logs and whoever finishes first wins. You even let the kid get a head start. They're concentrating hard because they want to win. But behind their back, you're using a log splitter instead of a maul. When you yell out "done!" they look around, and see that you "cheated". Hopefully, they learn the value of appropriate technology over brow sweat.

That guy shouldn't be swinging that maul so close to his kids, not for safety reasons, because he should be using at least a lever-operated log splitter instead.

I guess risk acceptance is different person to person. I know that when splitting wood, there is often pieces flying in random directions. I would at least have my kids wearing safety glasses. It doesn't take much to lose vision in an eye and all because you don't want to wear safety glasses?! Not for me.

It's not that big a job to stay out of the plane of the moving ax and stack the wood.

This seems to be a modern, Western approach to thing. I've seen South American tribal folk give a 5 year old a machete to do actual work. I didn't see a lot of dismembered children.

A lot of it comes down to family training. The older kids teach the younger kids what to do and not do. This doesn't protect from every little thing, but life is not that safe.

You do need training however. I was in Montana as a child with my dad on business. The client lived way out in the middle of nowhere. He was a big man (bigger than my father who's 6' 1"). He reached into a drawer, pulled out two bear size handfuls of .22lr, showed me how to load the riffle (fortunately I'd been trained by my dad and grandfather on hunting small game around the farm) and told me the adults need to talk. What he didn't tell me is that it was a modified .22lr: full auto. I was in for a surprise when 10 rounds cracked out at supersonic speed. I was fine and had fun. It could have been bad though.

Modern westerners really do love our low childhood casualty rate, even though it gets expensive. Other cultures can be more casual about losing a few.

They're 7+ feet away. He's facing them and can see swing zone well. They're not dumb and know not to get too close.

They'll be fine.

Yep, the girls are fine, but I'm more worried about his posture. Either they took that picture at the exact wrong time or he is doing it wrong.

Looking at the girls, the oldest could probably start chopping wood herself. Not, much, but she looks close to big enough.

It could also be the net effect of the photographer directing them so that he could get what he wanted to show in one shot.

The axe is moving, but it could be moving up. Shutter time might tell us something of its speed.

That's my thought too. Looks like terrible technique. Hands together on the end far too early in the swing.

And standing square on. Where did he swing it from?!

Yeah, its like he learned his technique from cartoons about people hitting the high striker (strongman) at a carnival.

I would argue she is much closer than 7 feet. She is likely 4 feet tall and it appears as if she laid down, she would be a few inches away.

Considering that when splitting wood you should at a minimum be wearing safety glasses, I'm pretty sure this can all be done much safer.

Nobody wears safety glasses to split wood. It's not like there are wood chips flying everywhere.

I could maybe see it if you're hammering in wedges or something.

Weigh your options... wear safety glasses or lose vision. You can't say it never happens.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23311802

I take it you're not from a rural area. I was splitting wood when I was the age of those girls. It's not as dangerous as you make it out to be.

I may not be from a rural area, but it doesn't take a genius to know that wearing safety glasses is simply a smart thing to do.

>SUMMARY: Wood chopping is still present in many homes in rural regions. In some cases, it may lead to serious ocular injury and potential loss of vision.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23311802