Oops!

[quidditchgrrl]

One more thing to mark off on the parenting checklist...allowing your teenager to take your other three small children on errands.

Here at the library said teenager decided he needed some time alone. So he left his three siblings in the car, two of them still strapped into their car seats, while he perused the Internet inside the building.

You know, it's *checks weather.com* 21 degrees outside. Little brother got cold and decided to come in, which set the whole ball in motion. It took twenty minutes to find big brother, who didn't seem to be upset about it.

Both son (who left with the police and his sibs before his mom got here) and mom were pretty damn belligerent about the whole thing. *whaps*

*shakes head* My brothers used to take me drag racing with them on the weekends my parents work. And mom and dad would leave us in the car while they went in for milk at the store.

I think the world has changed, don't you? Egad, people are stupid.

Just thought it might make your day...

Comments

[tonksnymphadora.livejournal.com]

oh that's lovely!

[authenticjoy.livejournal.com]

Lovely. I guess teenagers aren't taking those "responsibility - the anti-drug" commercials and generalizing them, eh? Maybe they think that it only applies to getting stoned and such.

Heh.

21* and they are sitting in the car? That's not irresponsible. That's stoopid. Like way stoopid.

Mom got belligerent about it, eh? WTF? Do you think she would have been more belligerent if her kids turned into popsicles while her older kid surfed the net in the warmth of a public library?

What's that got to do with parenting, anyway? That's just stoopid people breeding more stoopid people. That's not parenting.

[quidditchgrrl.livejournal.com]

Exactly. From the folks who handled it - thank goodness I wasn't Librarian in Charge, or that kid woulda had trouble walking - this youngster didn't seem to think this was a problem at all.

There was no consensus about whether or not this kid had done such a thing before, but he's a regular at the library. AND the two people who walked the little brother around felt sure that the older brother would have exacted some retribution on his younger sib for ratting him out. That's sad and scary.

Obviously this woman never gave a thought to how *much* responsibility taking care of three very young children is for one teenaged boy. Teens aren't known for their selfless dedication, especially when there are three kids standing in the way of what he wanted to do. I thought about it, and just the logistics of getting them into the building are intimidating. I think she might have been belligerent because of the fact that she was caught being irresponsible herself, and doesn't want to own up to the fact that she didn't create the means to ensure her kids' safety.

Can't wait to read about this in the little suburban gossip rag for the remainder of the story.

[authenticjoy.livejournal.com]

That's just it. You can't really blame the teenager, but you have to, or he will never learn.

Whose job is it to teach him that responsibility? It's his parent's job and clearly that lesson is not being taught if Mom became belligerent over being caught in her own act of irresponsibility.

So who is going to teach him?

It's a hard old world, Dude.

I could feel a bit for her, except that she became angry herself, you know? She tried her kid out - Gave him responsibility. That's something good. It didn't work out this time. Punish the older kid, teach, and move on. Be thankful that someone is looking out for your younger kids.

This is the concept of 'it takes a village'. The librarians gave the police a heads up that there were kids alone in the car on a 21*F day. The cops rode to the rescue and the kids didn't turn into popsicles. That's the concept of 'village'.

Somehow the concept of 'village' has been turned into making sure that kids never hear the word 'fuck' uttered in public.

Um, no. Not quite the concept.

[quidditchgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, there seems to be this new-fangled concept that you don't have to *teach* your children anything, they'll learn by osmosis, and it's other people's job to ensure the little darlings only learn good things. Rrr.

And yes, it *is* the Village of Worthington. ;)

[prettygnomeface.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is incredibly sad.

There have a been quite a few incidents in Melbourne, Australia (Where I'm from) similar to that.

I think in 2002 there was a woman who was so desperate to feed her gambling habit she left her baby in the back car seat in the middle of summer while she went to a nearby casino. Unfortunately no one noticed the child sitting in the car seat and she died.

I don't have children, but if/when I choose to I couldn't imagine myself ever leaving their side. Not even for a second.

[quidditchgrrl.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with leaving school-aged children in a car. They have the means to open the windows or put on their mittens (they also have the means to actually figure out how to drive the car, but anyway); toddlers and babies in car seats do not.

There have been a rash of summer incidents here where a parent forgot to drop their child off at day care and left them in the car when they went to work. That is very sad, especially as those parents are extremely distraught and many try to kill themselves out of remorse. This lady was more upset that her son (and she) got caught being irresponsible, hang the little ones.

*shrug* I'm fairly laissez-faire about parenting. There is no well-defined line sometimes between endangering and day to day activities. This certainly crossed the line, though.