Rochester resident Matt Knutson is the communications and events director for United Way of Olmsted County.

“I’ll run to the store and grab a baby gate,” I told my wife when we realized our daughter Gracelyn had moved several feet off of the blanket where we left her playing with an elephant stuffed animal. She can’t quite crawl, but she can sit up and throw her torso to the ground in an oddly effective way of slowly maneuvering around wherever we’ve put her down. With her prime playing spot somewhat near the stairs, it became apparent that the one item we’d put off from purchasing was now going to be required. I had to go buy a baby gate.

If you have never purchased a baby gate before, like myself, you’ll be surprised at just how many options are available to you. There’s big ones and small ones. Multiple colors. Varying widths. Some gates are permanent and some exist for more mobile situations. Deciding which one to get would not be as easy as I had initially thought. Consulting the internet resulted in some very passionate moms who thrive on leaving reviews for other parents, mostly providing harsh criticism for baby gates for one picky reason or another. It seems like every negative review also had positive ones, so I turned off my phone and browsed the choices once again.

The one thing Sera, my wife, had said to me before I left was to not get a pressure-mounted gate. Being that the gate will be used at the top of the stairs, her thoughts made sense. What if the pressure didn’t stay as tense as we’d like, and eventually the gate would be weak enough for Gracelyn to push over? We’re not just keeping her out of a room, we’re keeping her safe. The store I was at only had pressure-mounted gates. Literally, there were no other options. I grabbed one that at least recommended screwing it into the wall if we were to use it nearby stairs, and hoped the kit would have the necessary parts to do it. Thankfully, it did.

As luck would have it though, Sera unknowingly was right about avoiding pressure-mounted gates. Assembling the gate was relatively simple, but attaching it to the wall proved a bit more complex. Every twist of the screw brought the locking mechanism closer together, and once the gate locked, you knew the gate was secure to both sides of the wall. After a few minutes of tinkering, the gate was secure and all was well. I promptly swung the gate open, half-tripped up the last stair, and smiled as the gate closed itself and automatically locked. I had chosen well, I thought to myself. Then I looked at the wall.

The pressure created from turning the screws was now quite clearly too much for the wall to handle. It was warping the drywall in a very apparent and unattractive way, forming an asymmetrical indent larger than my hand. Our safe baby gate was no long sustainable, and I quickly took it apart before any real damage was done to the wall.

A quick drive to another baby gate store brought on even more options that left me feeling surprisingly inadequate despite being seven months into this parenting gig, but they did have non-pressure-mounted gates! I grabbed one, brought it home, and realized it was too tall to be attached to one side of the wall. My living room now has two half-assembled baby gates that are not functional.

As I stare at these gates, waiting for the motivation to pack them in their boxes and return them, I’ve reflected on how sometimes you just want to do the right thing, and no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get it done. There is always the possibility of someone putting up a gate in the path of your success. While we’re trying to thwart Gracelyn’s adventures from falling down the stairs, the gates are literally preventing us from gating her. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to remove the metaphorical gates keeping us from succeeding and actually install a baby gate that will work. Until then, we’ll live on the edge, though hopefully not literally the edge of the stairs.