Abducted Girl’s Mom Made Lazy, Selfish Choice (Letter)

I’d be awful by the cell phone measure and for having my kids walk to and from school without me despite being home. Nothing lazy or selfish about it. They’re old enough, the independence learned is important, and it’s safer than driving them overall.

I don’t buy your sympathy for a minute; you wrote this letter for no other reason to brag about what a noble, sacrificing mother you are. I’m sure it was born of the terror in your heart of something happening to your kids, and all your attempts to control that, but it was cruel, poorly-worded and in extremely bad taste. You don’t offer your prayers in one breath and then backhand the mother with the next. Furthermore, if your child is abducted during school hours, your being awake, asleep or reachable is not going to make that much difference.

And since we’re giving opinions, mine is that you’d do better to teach your precious angels to make their own damn lunch.

Maybe the lazy and selfish choice is to drive a child to school every day. On the day that Jessica Ridgeway was killed, and every day since, an average of 6 children aged 0-14 were killed in a car accident. But those happen every day, so it’s not news.

What a cruel letter.

How horribly judgmental of this woman. I am so glad that there are perfect parents out there to show us all how to do it *right*. Anyone who thinks this woman(Jessica’s mom) is not already feeling awful is inhuman and to kick her while she is down is just cruel.

I wonder what it’s like to be perfect? To have never made a mistake? Of course, one of the recent rebates reminded is that children of single parents are most likely to go on killing sprees so she has that to look forward to.

Seriously, though, that’s just a grunt from someone’s amygdala, an unfiltered reaction. These always cite a need for validation (“I know a lot of other people think it but won’t say it”) fronted with bravery. But those remarks aren’t worthy of anyone’s attention. I’m sure the mother of the missing girl has retraced every decision she made. She didn’t do anything to put her child in harm’s way, other than bringing her into the world.

Fear prevents life, as Our Host reminds us.

Ugh. This smacks of the same “blame the victim” mentality that plagues rape victims. Jessica and her family were victims, not perpetrators. I’d wager Jessica’s mother is spending plenty of time beating herself up playing the “what if” game as she struggles to come to grips with her grief. The last thing she needs is for people in society to castigate her. Perhaps the real “stranger danger” is the sanctimonious judgement from random people because someone else dares to act differently from themselves.

This is just another awful example of victim blaming.
It’s also a great example of someone pactifying themselves into believing that because they do all these things, nothing can happen to their child. Which is wrong and potentially dangerous if you aren’t teaching your kids to take care of themselves as well. (Which, again, is not a guarantee, just a smart move.)

Lady you are an arrogant, ignorant asshole and that is all the breath you are worth.

If she would have just… Where does it end? There are never enough precautions taken to prevent the unpreventable. Hindsight is always 20/20. After each tragedy you can always say, if I had only. But the truth of the matter is you can’t make perfect decisions taking into considerations the actions of evil people. Fortunately and unfortunately life happens. Most of the time for good and on occasion for evil. The parents and the child are the victims in this story. The abdicator is to blame.

Amber,
Some parents are diligent and bad things still happen, and some parents are truly neglectful and everything turns out fine. The rest of us are somehwere in the middle, with good days and bad days. I have found in life that when I judge someone else’s actions without being in their shoes and having had their experiences, I can be quite harsh. Then inevitably, I find myself in a similar situation and although I don’t necessarily change my opinion, I understand more where the other person was coming from. We judge out of fear of being in a similar circumstances, and when we find blame, those are lame attempts to comfort ourselves that it “can’t” happen to me because I…. (am not lazy/love my child more/ wouldn’t let my child x, y or z; etc.). It can happen to anyone. I am sure this mother is beating up on herself enough because she has to live it every day for the rest of her life. I live in NJ and when I heard about Autumn, my heart went out to her parents for the pain and anguish they must be feeling. I do not wonder what they did wrong. I wonder how on earth will they get through this. So, all I can do is go home today and give each of my kids an extra tight hug, and tell them I love them even more.

Well I surely fail the cell measurement. I forget mine from time to time and it dies on me about twice a month or so. Not to mention that on Friday afternoon after work it goes in to my back pack, not to be seen again until Monday morning.

I walk my kids to the bus stop across the road, more for the fact that the school requires it than anything else. My boys (6&7) cross that road to get to their friends house quite often on their days off.

Amber you sounds very happy with your decisions and I wish you and yours nothing but the best. But to blame the mother in this serves no purpose. Her decision can be analyzed all day long but no one could safely say that it might have changed what happened.

Just my 2cp

So…I wonder what this woman would say if/when she falls asleep at the wheel while driving her kids to school?

Or what about that one day that she forgets to charge her phone, or it fails entirely, and it dies an hour after she goes to sleep, and something happens to her child, who was let out of school early?

Darling, I will take you seriously when you learn how to a) spell, b) construct a sentence, c) learn to proofread, and MOST IMPORTANTLY d) your kid finds the cure for a deadly disease / devotes his or her entire life to making others’ lives better / becomes President / runs a Fortune 500 Company / something else awesome. Until then, I will judge YOU for being so nasty and sanctimonious.

I am missing something. How does the cell phone actually keep a child from being abducted/killed? Did she try to call? And if she did, does the mom come flying out of the house only to arrive too late?

I have searched websites and all I can find is they need to kill the guy till he’s dead, make tougher penalties, THERE SHOULD BE A LAW, and all this stuff blaming the mom for not being available, but… what about the rest of us? What can we all do to make our children safer?

Community. We need everybody to know their neighbors, know the kids, watch out for them, and take care of each other. We need eyes on the street, we need people out walking and we need to send a message to would-be predators that you don’t mess with our community because we are watching each other. We are taking care of each other. Mess with one of us, you mess with us all. In a community like that, you can easily let your child out of the house, because you know your neighbors have got your back, and your kids’.

Get to know your neighbors. Put your local police department’s dispatch line on your cell phone, and get used to calling them when you see suspicious activity, then let your neighbors know what you’ve seen. If you see a crime in progress, call 911. These predators are no match for a community, but sadly, we don’t have as many of those as we should.

As if that mom needs any more guilt. I’m sure she’s already run every possible, “If I only… ” through her head and has beaten herself up about it. Shame on you, Amber.

I wish I could “like” or “+1” or whatever else you call other people’s comments, because so many here have eloquently said what I’m thinking after reading this.

This letter just disgusts me. As if stories like this need to be cause for pissing contests over who is the “better” parent. You can be the “best” parent in the world (which is impossible, BTW, because of a little thing called subjectivity) and horrible things can still befall your family. Just as you can be the safest driver, and still be in a serious car accident. I feel like I can go on and on on this topic, but should stop. I’m just fuming right now, especially after the news in my state of NJ. For shame, Amber.

How about placing the blame on the person responsible, the person who took her.

It’s not worth giving this lady any attention for her insensitive, tacky, cruel letter.

It’s really difficult to maintain, and continue to nurture, my belief that most people are good when the odious SanctiMommies like Amber crawl out of the woodwork, spewing their hateful brimstone at times like these.

@Steph, as a police dispatcher and calltaker, I would suggest one caveat to “call if you see suspicious activity”. Yes, know your neighborhood, but also please come up with an appropriate definition of suspicious. It is not the person walking down the street, minding their own business, that you don’t recognize. And it is even not that person if they happen to be a different race from you. It’s not the car that you don’t recognize, legally parked (maybe your neighbor has a guest?). It’s not the teenager carrying a violin case that “might” contain a weapon. And, as we all know, it’s not the kids playing in the yard while their parent is in the house, or the dad playing a chase game with his daughter as they meander down the sidewalk.

Calling the police about people living everyday lives is a waste of limited law enforcement resources, and ties up limited dispatch lines (yes, there are a finite number of phone lines – both landline and cell – leading into your local dispatch center). Please call in behavior that is truly suspicious; not behavior that you don’t understand, don’t recognize, or is different from what you would do.

Amber really should buy that lottery ticket now, you know,before her luck runs out.
What a piece of trash.

Amber,
I think you submitted your letter to the wrong site. Maybe you should have sent it here:

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

And while you are at it, maybe you can start a BIG letter campaign to the moms of the victims of Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Charles Manson to blame them for their daughter’s death, too. Tell them that maybe if they hadn’t been so LAZY and SELFISH as mothers maybe their children wouldn’t have been killed by serial killers.

Why, oh why, do we always blame everything on the mother? Isn’t the pain of losing a child enough? Why the passive aggressive mommy war?

Rather than simply attacking Amber, poor dear, I thought I’d mention that her note is based on a rather shaky premise, namely that older children are safer than younger ones.

In fact, though stranger abductions ARE quite rare (that’s WHY we can remember so many of them, because rare things stick out in the mind), we do have some statistics on them. They’re more common in older teens than in younger children. This, of course, makes a strange kind of sense – most rapists and murderers, terrible though they are, are not pedophiles as well.

Not allowing your child to so much as go to school unattended until she is in her teens pretty much assures that your child will have less practice at a time when she’s (slightly) more vulnerable. (And really, the more you tell your child or imply that everything is dangerous, the less they’ll believe that anything is dangerous.

Worrying about stranger abductions is a waste of valuable brain space for most of us, but if you MUST do it, you can at least do so accurately.

When someone cries “LAZY!” and “SELFISH!” they are probably feeling pretty upset and desperate, and wanting to know that someone is taking responsibility. Maybe she also just wants to be heard.

It’s a pretty tragic strategy, in this particular case, to want Mom to take responsibility for this girl’s untimely death, and my guess is that nobody is really hearing what is so important to her.

What this person is probably looking for and wanting more of in her own life and in the world… perhaps responsibility, maybe also safety and well-being for children and all beings… is getting totally lost in the shrill shriek of her blame, judgement, and criticism. When we express what matters to us in that way, nobody gets it. All they hear is the judgement.

I hear you, Amber. I hear that you want all children to be safe. I hear that you want a sense of responsibility, that others are understanding that the choices that they make affect others in the community, is that right?

Whose choices are triggering your outrage, that need for responsibility? The mother’s choices, or the person who dismembered this child’s body? Can you see the ways that this mother, in giving her daughter some age-appropriate independence, was supporting the very things you crave: responsibility? Well-being?

Ah, well, maybe it didn’t work out that day. A mother thinking in terms of the big picture is making decisions each day on the assumption that her child will live to adulthood. And then, sometimes, either illness, accident, or bizarrely unlikely crime scenario cuts that child’s life short, and Mom doesn’t get to find out if her nurturing will bear out and support the growth and joy she envisioned. Was Mom setting out to shorten her own child’s life? Don’t answer that.

Every one of us makes a guess, in each moment, how best to meet their own needs, and how to contribute to others. Perhaps, Amber, you imagine that by explaining how you do things, you can inspire others to live that way, and that all children will then be safe.

And yet, children die every day within a couple of feet of their parents, in the car. In my community, on the sidewalk, hit by a truck, walking to school hand in hand, mother and child. Where is the responsibility in that scenario? Is it any more with the mother there than it is in this case of Jessica?

Sh*t happens. I don’t perceive a stranger abducting my child as any more preventable than a tsunami. My spiritual practice doesn’t involve a cell phone, it involves acceptance, and seeing God in all things, every scenario. Not always easy. But I imagine it’s the path to peace.

Peace be with you, Amber.

Rather than write a long and nasty response letter, I’ll just say this: Amber I hope nothing ever happens to your children which forces you to have to deal with judgmental people on the internet who think you’re a horrible mother.

I have met a few people like this. They are the ones that are always talking to the friends about not having a life, and whatever life they do have, their kids are sucking that out of her.
If she is a single mother because of divorce, I can see why. And the father should go after custody.

And how save are that incredibly judgemental woman’s children while they are in the car. She’s a sleep-deprived driver, which is about as bad as being drunk.

So you barely see your kids because of work, and when you do it’s just to get them ready/drive them to/from school? And then while they’re at school you spend your time writing letters like this? And you expect to be praised for that?

Having other people (teachers and babysitters) raise your kids is lazy and selfish. Hovering during the few moments you are actually with them, instead of teaching them to be independent is lazy and selfish. Letting your children have a life, even if it is in small bursts such as waling to school, is the opposite of lazy and selfish.

In my circle of acquaintances, I know of a child who died while watching TV (dresser the TV was on fell over and crushed him), while taking a bath, and while sleeping in bed. Clearly those parents who allowed their children to watch TV, bathe, and sleep were awful, selfish, lazy parents!

I’m clearly a lazy, selfish parent, because as I write this my youngest four children are playing in the backyard ALL BY THEMSELVES! while my oldest two do their chores. Oh, but at least my cell phone is charged and sitting right next to me!

Amber, you have fallen into a trap of believing that you can prevent anything bad from happening to your children if you just do everything perfectly. The honest truth is that you cannot control every circumstance. You cannot be perfect. And you need to start weighing the downfalls of these protective measures against the actual risks that something bad will happen.

By staying awake long enough to walk or drive your kids to school, maybe you eliminate the ALREADY VERY SMALL possibility that someone will abduct them on the way to school. It’s worth pointing out that there are still plenty of dangerous things that could (but probably won’t) happen to you and your kids even if you are walking with them, like a mugging, a drive-by shooting, a car careening onto the sidewalk and hitting you, or a lion escaping from the zoo and mauling you. If those things happened, you being there isn’t going to make much of a difference. You probably already recognize that those things COULD happen, but that the likelihood is too small to bother worrying about, right?

So you eliminate one out of several very improbable dangers. That’s what you gain by walking or driving your kids to school. What do you lose? Well, you deprive your children of the opportunity to grow and develop independence. You teach your children to be afraid of the world around them. You isolate yourself and your children from the community through fear that any “stranger” could be out to get you. If you drive, you deprive your children of exercise, and expose them to the much more likely danger of being involved in a car accident. If you drive while sleep deprived, you expose yourself and your children to the very real danger that you will fall asleep at the wheel and cause an accident. You also endanger every single other person on the road, including the children being driven to school, and any children walking to school.

To be honest, I am terrified of the idea that you routinely drive your children to school while exhausted after working all night. I would really like to know where you live, so I can be sure to keep my children the hell away from you.

“I get home from work by 6:30 am, exhausted and ready to crash. ”
“With all that said, even though I fight so hard the urge to go to bed and pass out, I MAKE the time and EFFORT to pack my kids their lunches for the day and either walk WITH them or drop them off at their schoool, EACH SINGLE day.”

So you think your children are SAFER driving to school with you “fight[ing] so hard the urge to go to bed and pass out”? You do understand that tiredness is the leading cause of car accidents? You are putting yourself, your children and everyone else on the roadway at risk by driving while “exhausted and ready to crash.”

When I went to law school I wanted to be a DA until I interned at the DAs office. The case that changed my mind involved a group of young adults, college students, who did everything we tell young people to do and still something went wrong. They wanted to go out drinking and dancing so they brought along their designated driver, a friend who doesn’t drink alcohol at all. But they stayed out too late and the designated driver, who didn’t consume a drop of alcohol all night, fell asleep while driving, struck another car on the highway, and killed that driver. She was prosecuted for felony vehicular homicide because nothing can be a simple accident anymore. The internship ended before that case finished so I don’t know the result. It was many years ago so I’m fairly sure that she’s out of prison now though.

But you can continue to be holier-than-thou. Just stay off the roads around my child’s school. Thanks.

You know I just had a conversation with my kids this morning that I think this woman needs. Judge not or you’ll be judged; Treat others how you want to be treated; He without sin may cast the first stone; Don’t judge until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, and There but for the grace of god go I. Yes some are biblical but the point is Don’t Judge Others.

Seriously…. Isn’t being a parent hard enough without other worrying about other parents or people judging us for our decisions?

If you, Amber, feels that a 10yr old can’t walk to school then fine that’s your rule. That doesn’t mean that someone else is a bad parent for encouraging their child to do so. Yes a terrible thing happened… ONE terrible thing happened to one terrible person that the news talked about.
Stop judging and stop blaming. The ONLY person to blame is the person that did this horrible thing. No one else.
Never letting bad things happen is an impossibility. So go out and enjoy life because you never know what tomorrow will bring you.

Really Amanda, Amber doesn’t spend any less time with her kids than most parents do. She gets them ready in the morning and drops them off at school – no different than MILLIONS of other parents in the US – and is with them after school until she goes to work. I don’t know what time she goes to work but, if she is home by 6:30a, it is sometime after dinner. I see no difference in being home from 2:30 to 7 with your kids and being home from 5 until bedtime with your kids. I may be home more actual hours with my kid but I am not having much meaningful interaction while she is asleep.

Even if she is spending less time with her kids than you like spending with yours, attacking a woman for being judgmental while being EXTREMELY judgmental yourself just makes you look foolish.

Amber,
You are a disgusting, horrible person.
That is al.

@An… magic age apparently none. The key must be that you need to be male to be safe. (Though that probably doesn’t work either.) The police have apparently linked the Ridgeway case one of several attempts to abduct adult women in the area.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/police-jessica-ridgeway-case-linked-attempted-jogger-abduction/story?id=17545672#.UIcBD2fD2yA
I could say sarcastically that “I suppose all adult women need to make sure to never go out with out a man to protect them.” But sadly, fear has probably already driven too many women to live that way. I have had two instances in my life where I sought out help and a terrified woman yelled at me through the locked door to go away. I am not a scary looking person. In fact, full grown, I am 1″ over my state’s requirements for car seat use, and I was just a child the first time I encountered this. But these women were convinced that no one knocking on their door could be innocent. I was the one in trouble at the time, but I felt sorry for them. I knew I would be okay, they are probably still living in a prison of fear.

So sad that people feel this way. I can only imagine how terrible Jessica Ridgeway’s mother feels without someone who doesn’t even know her blaming her. Not checking your cell phone every minute certainly has no pertinence to your ability to parent.

I haven’t read the comments so apologies if I am repeating what others have said. I’m geographically near this case, and I read in our local paper that the mom started by walking with Jessica, then letting her go on her own when they felt ready, etc, because she wanted to be more independent. She used the buddy system- her friend was to meet her only a couple of blocks away. But, this was clearly a predator who had been studying the community looking for a target. There were two attempted abductions in the neighborhood in the spring. In other words, something very, very rare. And, I do think it’s appropriate for schools and parents in our area to be a bit more cautious for now- as long as that doesn’t turn into a new normal.

Also thought it was interesting that the comment blaming the mom in our local paper got LOTS of down votes.

I wonder what this lady, word used loosely, would think of me.
When I did my midnite stint, it was during the summer holidays. Would come home, send my wife off to work, my teen was self sufficient and usually had plans with friends. My youngest daughter, 8, would let me grab a couple hours sleep, then would get up and cook, clean, and have time with my kids, before grabbing a couple more hours before going into work.
It wasn’t uncommon, to come out of my room at around 10am, to find a note on the floor infront of my door. Telling me “Gone to so and so’s”. I would call verify she was there. And get on with my day.

This poor woman spends a worry-filled 5 hours a day sleeping. No wonder she isn’t seeing clearly or using spell check.

Of course it isn’t this mother’s fault what happened to her child. But posters on here are becoming just as ridiculous and over the top when you are suggesting she is stunting her 7 and 9 year old’s growth by fixing them lunch and walking them to school – a great way for a working mom to do something for her kids and spend quality time with them.. Or that she is a helicopter mom who is “hobbling her children’s future.” The fact is she sounds like a normal, typical, involved mom. Millions of kids grow up and have grown up like this and are very successful. So even if she was out of line blaming this poor mother, let’s not lose common sense perspective.

@ Mary – I think most are responding to Amber’s assertion that she is a BETTER mother and that Jessica Ridgeway’s mother was wrong for not making her child lunch. I make my 7 year old’s lunch every morning because it isn’t worth the battle it would take to get it done on time and I don’t think that going without food all day is a reasonable consequence for not being able to pull everything together on time in 1st grade. I don’t, however, think that people whose 7 year olds (or 10 year olds in Ridgeway’s case) are selfish and lazy for not packing their kid’s lunch.

I agree that walking your kids to school is not helicopter parenting and hindering your children’s future IF you are doing it to spend time with your kids, get exercise or whatever. That is not why Amber is doing it. She says that specifically. She is doing it because she believes that it is unsafe for children to walk to school on their own. That attitude – that it is unsafe to walk a short distance – gets passed down to kids and does hobble their future.

A few random thoughts upon reading this letter.

1) How would she possibly have been able to cope with life if she would have had kids before the advent of the cell phone?

2) She packs her kids lunches (at 7 and 9 yo) and drives her kids on occasion even though she admits to being exhausted and then calls someone else a bad parent?

3) Most importantly, with her spelling and language usage… at least she’s not homeschooling, thank goodness.

There are too many disturbing things about Amber’s letter to address. I agree with every comment above. Wish there was a way to like posts!

I was very dismayed this morning to read a series of posts in my Facebook feed from NJ friends. Most warned other NJ Mom’s about the changing times and how sad it is that the ever-increasing prevalence of murderers, rapists and kidnappers has forced parents to lock down their children. One even wrote, “WARNING!! Do not let your children out of your sight, EVER! Not even for a second. We must keep our children safe. It’s not a safe world out there anymore!!!!!”. The people writing these posts are intelligent, articulate and thoughtful people so their fear resonates loud and clear.

Good grief.

Not sure what the point of printing this letter on this site was. It’s obviously runs right in the face of what most of the readers here believe in. Just a “let’s discuss how much better we are” opportunity? Certainly didn’t generate discussion beyond abusing the author.

Oh Dear! Now why is it relevant to attack Amber’s spelling and language skills?

I think she is not alone in thinking that we personally can control everything that goes on in our children’s lives, and that our devoted attention to every detail will ensure nothing bad happens to them. I certainly remember feeling that way when my children were babies and toddlers. However, eventually I realized that I couldn’t stay on top of everything, and that some things were more important than others (e.g. you can’t leave a baby or a toddler in a bath by themselves but you can let them play outside and get dirty). Therefore I learnt to prioritize what I paid most attention to; I let (indeed, I insisted!) my children made their own lunch when they were in the middle grades of primary school; I let them suffer the consequences of forgetting things that were required at school (e.g. their sunhat, so they had to stay inside instead of playing outside). But I always made sure they were strapped correctly in their car seat, or their pram or stroller. For some things it is not so clear what the best judgment is, and parents will have varying opinions – such as regarding walking to school alone. I did let my children walk home from school, but it was something that we worked up to. I didn’t have a cell phone (mobile) until the eldest child was halfway through her first year at school, and I hardly think that constitutes a dereliction of duty. I have one now, but I certainly don’t have it with me all the time, or even switched on or charged.

Sometimes bad things happen even when you do your best to protect your children. As much as we may not like to admit it, it is often just bad luck. It’s only by a gradual process, and over a long time that I’ve come to realize this.

Looks like there is at least one mom blogger out there who plans on continuing to give her kid(s) some independence: http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/145525/missing_girl_autumn_pasquale_search.

I just hope for that letter writer’s sake that nothing terrible ever happens to her kids, because she will certainly blame herself for it. Apparently she believes that she and all moms can control all outcomes for our kids.

I’m not sure, but my gut tells me God or the universe will punish someone who gratuitously attacks the mother of a dead child.

And as a single mom myself, I’ve fielded many accusations that my choices are selfish and not in my kids’ best interests. As if anyone knows how much I sacrifice for my kids day in and day out. Jerks.

I think i must be one of those worst mothers. Not only does my daughter have to make her own lunch, and walk herself half an hour to school and back home, but because i have to leave before my daughter, she needs to do final check of house to make sure everytbing is turned off, pets outside and doors locked. I will admit though i do have the occational what ifs, but these thoughts cant rule my life.

I feel sorry for this woman because only people who feel deeply insecure about their own lives would judge another person this harshly. She is trying to justify her own actions by condemning those who do things differently.

But whatever psychological issues caused her to write this letter, only a person who can feel no empathy would ever blame a parent for the tragic death of their child.

I can’t comment on the letter (at least there is nothing I can add after other comments here).

I will say this, with all the “The world is a different (worse) place than it was when we were growing up”, I often think about cell phones. My kids’ school was almost apoplectic one day when I didn’t answer my phone immediately (they called 4 times in 15 minutes while I was on the subway). The problem? Child bleeding out? No. There was confusion at pick-up time (after school activity had been cancelled) and my daughter was left at school by my caregiver when she picked up my son as scheduled…all straightened out in 30 minutes. My daughter was 9. (She didn’t have an emergency ziplock comfort bag)

I thought that day about the fact that when I was growing up, my stay at home mom could have been at the grocery store when a call came from school (as she was the day I got the chicken pox and had to hang out with the school nurse). Schools didn’t EXPECT that a parent could be reached at all times (no exceptions). Kids got sick. Kids got hurt. Kids missed the bus. It happened. Kids were fine. Kids didn’t freak out because they couldn’t talk to mommy NOW.

Only once (kids now 8 and 11), have I turned my ringer back on after an appointment or meeting to see multiple missed calls from my sitter due to a real “emergency”. I listened to the messages and got a sickening feeling hearing that my child (3 years old at the time) had started vomiting and was lethargic. Even if I had not gotten the call, when I didn’t respond, my teenaged sitter had called her mom, who was a nurse, and was about to take my child across the street to the hospital. I called back, rushed home and to the ER (she was admitted with severe vertigo).

Best part of this sitter, I was her babysitter (for her and her 3 older siblings, when I was 12)….i hope some of her staying calm, had to do with having a good role model!

What gets to me about this line of reasoning is when is she going to make that break? If 10 is not old enough, is 12? 14? When exactly do you make that break? How do your kids get to be responsible enough to drive, to date, to anything, if they didn’t have the little things. Or do you let them walk to school on their own at 15, but not drive ’til 18? (Good luck with that.)

My son is really REALLY clingy. We have been working on his walking to school on his own for a while. He’s not fully there – we walk him part way and he walks himself the rest of the way. But our goal is for him to walk himself. (Nevermind that he’s an incredible dawdler and I worry he’ll never get there because darn! that rock/stick/whatever is so interesting!). But we keep at it and we’ll get there. THAT is what good parents do. They teach their kids how to be independent.

*that would be Sancti-mommy….guess if I use a made-up word, I should spell it correctly, huh?

“If you don’t care how words are spelled, you don’t care what they mean.”

My dyslexic husband and two dyslexic children would beg to differ. Try hard as they will – and using the computer’s spell check – unless a third party edits it there will always be grammatical and spelling errors. Let’s not over analyze and judge others – especially when we don’t know their circumstances. I understand you are angry, but two wrongs do not make a right. Same thing goes for all those attacks on her assuming she is never going to let her children go. I know everyone is angry, but really? The fact that she walks her 7 and 9 year olds to school and thinks a 10 year old should be walked does not mean she is going to have children living in her basement when they are 40. Most parents today feel this way and most kids grow up self sufficient and on their own. As much as we like this way of child rearing does not make it the only way that works. I have had many friends over the years that were more protective and their kids ALL turned out great. The point of this blog should not be to condemn everyone who does not feel exactly as we do, but to spread the word that this is an option and we can raise our kids our way and you can raise your kids your way and guess what? They will all most likely turn out fine. If free range parenting was the main secret to successful, independent adults then the poor would be ruling the world right now – since it has been pointed out several times on here that those are the kids most likely to be free range since their parents simply cannot watch them all the time. Yet, we know from experience this is far from the truth. There are many factors that go into raising independent, mature, self sufficient, successful adults, and making their lunches at age 7 or walking with your 9 or 10 year old to school is simply not going to ruin your kids or turn them into bumbling adults who can’t do anything.

Just ran across this: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=22667163&nid=148&title=teenage-brothers-charged-with-killing-nj-girl-12&s_cid=queue-6

Autumn, the New Jersey girl, was lured into the home of two teenage boys, ages 15 and 17, and then murdered. So I guess now Amber needs to write a letter about how the boys’ parents were not watching them closely enough either.

@Mary – Except helicoptered kids are NOT turning out fine. Spend time on any college campus and you will see that. They have no common sense and can’t think for themselves. They rely on their parents or the school to solve their problems. They make bad choices and put themselves at risk. They expect to be coddled. Heck, there was some major university a couple years ago that made the news because it had hired CROSSING GUARDS for it’s student body. And, more importantly, the student body was okay with that. They didn’t rebel and demand not to be treated like babies. Many thought it a grand idea. The students could function academically at a top university but could not manage to walk across the street by themselves, nor did they have any great desire to do so.

“They will all most likely turn out fine. If free range parenting was the main secret to successful, independent adults then the poor would be ruling the world right now — ”

First off, helicopter parenting is a recent phenomenon and people in their 20s have never ruled the world. The mid30-60 year old age-range is still ruling the world. That group DID largely grow up free range.

There are many reasons that the poor in the US will never rule the world. But the US is not at the top of its game either. There are many countries that are free range. Those countries are doing far better – weathering this deep recession – better than the US.

I don’t anticipate the US recovering its former glory. Millenials are having a difficult time getting jobs. Some of this is related to more experienced people willing to work for less just to have a job. But a big part of it is that millenials, in general, make bad employees. They are over coddled and think that their poop doesn’t stink. If I were hiring someone right now, barring an exceptional younger candidate, I’d hire a 40 year old over a 25 year old any day. Even if the 40 year old was a career changer who had the exact same experience as the 25 year old. The 40 year old is much more likely to be an independent thinker who doesn’t demand special treatment than the 25 year old.

I’m not going to join this debate though there are a lot of good comments in the merit it. However this letter should not have been posted, this troll should not have been given the attention she desires. Even the spelling issues are likely contrived to get even more attention.

Do not feed the trolls, and worse do not glorify them and give them the center stage.

There are plenty of letters with similar messages that could have been chosen to discuss without listing their author or having the author around. That would have started a much better discussion.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that some parents can inhibit their kids and over coddle them far too long. I’m just saying I have no idea how long Amber plans to do these things for her kids and right now I don’t see them as being harmful. My parents took me to school all through elementary school. I started walking in junior high – 7th grade. Yet I am more than capable of getting around by myself now. My mother made my lunch everyday until I was in high school, I think. She didn’t do it because I wasn’t capable, but just to be nice. Yet today I am more than capable of cooking and making my own lunches and have never struggled in being able to do so. (My mother did teach me cooking as a girl, but just didn’t assign making my own lunches as something I had to do.) So judging by what she told us, the ONLY thing she is doing wrong, in my opinion is harshly judging someone else, which I definitely disagree with. Also, Donna, I think the college thing depends on where you live. My husband works at a large university in the midwest and he doesn’t really come across this problem. (He also used to work at a University in the Eastern US and didn’t run across this problem on any large scale degree. Sure there are a few young adults who have been overly coddled, but most of the young adults he encounters and teaches he says are pretty responsible and self sufficient. Maybe you work at a college where things are different and I’m not saying it can’t be different in different areas. I also think it’s a possibility the media plays up things like this as well as they do stranger danger. They take a few studies and examples that will surely exist everywhere and make it sound like it’s a wide spread phenomenon and that almost all young adults are coddled infants who can’t do anything on their own. Sure there are parents who overly hover and never let their kids do anything on their own until they reach adulthood. But at least in the areas I have lived, this just isn’t true of most parents. Do most of them protect a bit longer than most people on here? Absolutely. But by middle school their kids are spreading their wings more and doing and going places on their own more and more each year. And the results I am seeing are normal young adults who are capable and self sufficient for the most part. Like I said, other areas may have parents who never let them go anywhere or do anything, on their own until adulthood, which is sad, but thankfully I can attest it’s not that way everywhere. 🙂

I never assume that I am the best person in the world. And honestly, I don’t care much about what other people think, I tend to want to think on my own, not be part of a herd.

I will make my decisions based on what is best for MY family. Which may have very little to do with what is best for a single mom and her needs. I will not judge her, and I don’t want her judging me. And if she chooses to anyhow, well, I could not care less.

However, if something happened to my kid and this lady said this to me, I would have to deck her. But fortunately, people are generally much politer in person than they are on the internet where they will never actually be identified by the people they are commenting about.

But, according to this mom, I am lazy and selfish too, I guess. Because, though I bought the house that is best for our needs, I should sell it now so I can get a house that has good cell service so I can be reached no matter what at any time, in 5 different ways.

A lot of schools just have an automatic type notification when your child misses. (To try and discourage playing hooky.) So it could be she just was counted absent and they made the call, left a message, and didn’t think anything more about it. (Many parents are at work when these calls are made and so they probably didn’t think twice when they got a machine.) I’ve also seen a lot of these types of calls made with automated machines and not real people, so it could have been one of those, as well. If it was a real person, I’m sure they just thought she was sick and maybe at the doctors when they called so they weren’t actively trying to reach the parent out of fear, since you really wouldn’t imagine something so terrible happening. 🙁

I want to cry, thinking of Jessica’s mother.

I do agree with the other comments, about the school contacting a 2nd or 3rd number if they can not reach the first. I’m actually the ‘3rd contact’, because I’m a stay at home mom for some of my daughter’s classmates. I live right down the street from the school, so if both parents are stuck at work/unavailable I’m the go-to person.

They caught the monster that killed Jessica. Guess what, it wasn’t the mom after all!! We all knew that though with one notable exception.

My kids are now celebrating by taking back their neighborhood. We’re all so glad and thankful to the police and FBI for being so diligent and thorough.

What a relief for your community, Ali. I read the article about it and it sounds like the 17 year old turned himself in with the encouragement of his mother. It sounds like your community really pulled together, as well, with the article talking about high schoolers volunteering to walk younger kids to school. Hopefully now everything can get back to relative normal.

That was barf-inducing. Amber, you need to get off of your high horse!

@Havva: well said.

I was reading the latest,

“Jessica Ridgeway, 10, disappeared on her way to school on the morning of Oct. 5. After leaving home on foot, she never met up with friends she normally walks to school with at Chelsea Park. The park is about three blocks from her home and about a mile from the school.”

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2012/10/24/suspects-home-near-jessicas-home-school/#respond

So it wasn’t like this girl was walking alone, she usually met up with friends as they all went to school. (which is safer) For this to happen would take a psycho-path, who pretty much stalked this poor girl. It doesn’t feel like a crime of opportunity here.

So what women should never be able to take a jog in the park? We have to be imprisoned by sick teenagers?

I know, Jessica’s case is heartbreaking.

Still, this past summer in Aurora, Colorado, we had a theater shooting that left 12 people dead and 58 people injured.

Are we now being irresponsible to go to the movies?

My point is that child abductions by strangers are very very rare. And ever rarer is the child murdered. Kidnappings and murders were much more common in the 70s and 80s when it was common for children to walk to school.

Oh, Suzanne, people actually did say that.

Those parents were irresponsible to bring their kids to a midnight premiere, because even during summer vacation with school the next day it’s never okay for kids to be up that late and if they’d been in bed they’d still be alive. You point out that the shooting could’ve just as easily happened at the matinee and you get told “but it didn’t! Hah!” like that’s a logical point.

Those parents were irresponsible to bring their kids to a premiere because those are only for “freaks in costumes” and people who have fun dressing up in costumes might go crazy at any minute, and see, they’re dead. You point out that many more murders are committed by people without costumes and you get met with silence and a repeat of “only freaks”.

Those parents were irresponsible to bring their child to this movie because it was violent and of course sooner or later something would happen. You point out that most violent movies are not marred by shootings and get told “Well, it had to happen sooner or later”. You point out that it could’ve easily happened during Toy Story 3 and get told “It couldn’t’ve, because it didn’t”.

Nevermind that shootings like this are, by definition, totally unpredictable. It was all the parents’ fault. (Oh, and of course, any good parent brings a gun to the theater so they can shoot the random shooter. Let’s see. Dark, crowded theater full of panicked people, including children, running this way and that, lots of smoke in the air, the shooter dressed in protective gear, and somebody was supposed to try to *shoot* him? Without hitting a bystander?)

I am going to say one thing in defense of Amber. As a single mom with shared custody I get limited time with my kids. I also work the afternoon shift and for two of the 3 to 5 days a week I have my kids (rotating schedule) I am at work before they are out of school and they are asleep before I get home. I drive my kids to school because we live too far to walk, but if we lived close enough I would probably walk with them because that is the ONLY time I get to see them that day. I also show up on Wednesdays to have lunch with them as that is our exchange day, dad drops them off in the morning and I’m working that night so can’t pick them up.

I’d rather see her looking at that time she has with her kids as quality time to bond as opposed to tome she needs to protect her kids from predators.

@ Mary –

I don’t work at a university. I live in a city where the major state university is the largest employer so life revolves around it. The same college town I’ve lived in since I was 12 (minus a few years in CA and now Am. Samoa). I have seen huge changes to the student body over the years.

Do think large numbers of college students are having mom call professors and are unable to figure out most basic tasks? No. Do I think the onset of adulthood is now universally at least 4 years later than it was when I was a teen? Absolutely. We don’t really expect young adults in college to be adults. They may live away from home but it is more a boarding school mentality than a true adulthood. Mom and dad still call many of the shots and colleges are expected to be more supervising and hand-holding. And the students are okay with all of this because they don’t really want to grow io either.

And it starts in toddlerhood. EVERYTHING about growing up is being pushed later and later. We’ve gone from sippy cups until 2 to sippy cups until 4. Babysitting at 11 to babysitting at 15. And, yes, this 2000s view that kids are not competent or safe enough to walk to school until middle school when they used to do it in kindergarten is a symptom of this unnatural extension of childhood that babies kids and makes them less competent.

Do I know if Amber’s kids are going to be incompetent adults who.live in her basement? No. Do I know that they are maturing slower than kids in previous generations? Yes. Do I think that harms them and society? Yes.

I wish this Amber could meet me. I’m almost 36 years old with tremendous anxiety problems due to my overprotective grandmother, and relatives who use this fact against me after my grandmother’s death. Two days after my grandmother died I went to the park with friends ( first time in YEARS going out in 100 degree weather without my grandmother nagging me about heat stroke). However, I screamed down the entire park yelling “Don’t kidnap me! Don’t kidnap me!” at a guy who accidentally opened the unisex restroom stall door because the lock was open. After I came out he twirled his finger by his head to show he thought I was loony. I guess this Amber who has kids will have to handle her paranoid adult kids when they grow up.

“And it starts in toddlerhood. EVERYTHING about growing up is being pushed later and later. We’ve gone from sippy cups until 2 to sippy cups until 4. Babysitting at 11 to babysitting at 15.”

Seriously, Donna? Where do you live? I live in Ohio and here in the midwest everyone I know uses 11 and 12 year old sitters – they tend to take the job more seriously than the older teens sometimes do. 😉 And I’ve never seen a 4 year old with a sippy cup. Maybe the coddling thing is more of a cultural influence in certain areas of the country?

Sue – Where I live, kids are babysitting by about 6, but I live in a 3rd world country. But apparently you don’t read this blog very often. The babysitting thing is a pretty consistent complaint. In fact, do a quick search of the web. Most website about babysitting age state that 13 is the minimum age for babysitting (although a few will concede a responsible 12 year old may be okay). Many say something along the lines of “we don’t recommend hiring anyone under 16.” Most people who commented or answered surveys said 14 or higher. So, 11 and 12 year old babysitting may be happening but it is against the grain these days.

I couldn’t find that many that advocated leaving children home by themselves, without kids to babysit, until they were between 10-12. And even then only for an hour to so (so not much of a babysitting gig). Personally, I’m fine with a 12 year old babysitter but not one that just stayed home for the first time by herself a week ago.

I did a quick search and I did not read forums, but just averages and statistics and it seems the average statistical age nationwide for kids to start sitting is 12. Since this is an average, I assume they sometimes start a bit younger and sometimes a bit older. But it does make me think – with relief – that this overprotective coddling is not a huge widespread issue, thankfully, and that hopefully with the work of Lenore we can stop this line of thinking and practice some common sense. 🙂

WOW!! Very insensitive. Imagine there are those who do not have a cell phone still. Who do not live in fear everyday and believe that when something like this occurs then they are actually a victim and not at fault. What are we actually losing as a society when all the BAD things are hyped up in the media and most people make a conscious choice to be fearful and raise their children in a smothering environment?

My prayers and sympathy go out to all families who have suffered cruelty at the hands of evil.

Jessica’s mother has to live with her grief every day, including her own unavoidable “what if” stage of grief (“what if I had done something differently that morning, that day…”) and then she has to also deal with people such as this woman, who actively blame her for her own daughter’s death. The fact is, we can do everything “perfectly” and things still go wrong, tragedies happen, evil does exist…and we can never fully protect any child, let alone ourselves, from the suffering that can and does happen.

This woman reminds me of a mother I used to be friends with—we had very different parenting styles. She was like a nuclear helicopter, and I was more the kind to encourage my kids to become independent. She was very judgmental of my (and others’) beliefs that kids should do age-appropriate, developmentally healthy activities on their own. One day I told her the story of an acquaintance who always walked her daughter to school in the city, holding her hand, when one day a car jumped the curb and hit the child, leaving the mom unharmed (fortunately, the child recovered after good medical care and physical therapy). My point was that we can do everything right, and bad things still happen. Her response? She quizzed me about which side of the sidewalk the mother was walking with the child…was the mom on the street side, the better to protect the kid from curb-jumping cars? She said she “always” made sure to have her children walk as far from the street as possible and maybe this mother didn’t do that!

I should add that this helicopter mother was still walking her oldest child to the local high school when the girl was 15…

I guess my point is, that some people have a real anxiety disorder about being parents and their children’s safety, and by blaming others, it makes them feel better about themselves and their choices. In the end, they are truly harming their own children and sending them the message that the world is filled with hatred and destruction at every turn.

Jessica’s life was a glory and her death a heartbreak. The circumstances of her death are all the more horrifying because it was such a random and one in a million event. The letter-writer’s smugness (under the guise of sympathy) I believe comes from being neurotic…but that is cold comfort to the person being judged and condemned.

“Community. We need everybody to know their neighbors, know the kids, watch out for them, and take care of each other. We need eyes on the street, we need people out walking and we need to send a message to would-be predators that you don’t mess with our community because we are watching each other. We are taking care of each other. Mess with one of us, you mess with us all. In a community like that, you can easily let your child out of the house, because you know your neighbors have got your back, and your kids’ ”

Yep. Couldn’t agree more, Steph.
But when the “eyes on the street” are ill-perceived stranger danger, and every household is a stronghold unto itself, then we know we’ve lost our grip.
Out there in looneyland are gazzillions of good people who can perform this little chore right well and proud, but we’re becoming determined to prevent them.
It takes good parents – plus a village (not one or the other.)
Community: know thyself. Rank strangers become infinitely less so when extended the common courtesy of an invitation to participate.
We are not masquerading at the Ball of the Red Death (nod to Poe) but instead, ordinary folk. Most of us quite capable of redeemed humanity. All to the good.
Our children thrive within a well managed public realm. Even better. Worth the fuss and fight. You betcha!

And to the original poster: my tongue goes limp, in failed attempts to express my profound astonishment at your extreme lack of basic humanity. I wonder that you could offer a stale crust to a starving orphan, let alone find within your haunted heart the compassion that particular mother must be in dire need of.
Shame on you.