The Right Way to Handle A Case of “Negligence”

That’s what it’s all about. Why make worse of a situation that COULD have ended worse, but didn’t. People learn from their mistakes, are greatful and move on. They don’t need to be chastised, sued, or ridiculed. Different if they were really negligent. In this case, and as in other cases I’ve heard the parent(s) weren’t neglectful. Unfortunately, in some of those cases, things got blown way out of proportion.

Props to Norway for their level head and logical thinking! 🙂

I wish this website dealt with a wider range of parenting issues. We’re all free range – maybe we could help each other.

This is my question: Does anyone read actual fairy tales to their children any more? Does anyone still sing lullabys to their babies ( turning on a cd doen’t count)? I am a fairly active mother with a wide range of aquaintances but when my dd was very young (she’s 12 now) I was the only mother who did this.

When she was in Kindergarten, children got prizes for the having their parents read them the most books.. As one of the volunteers to check the lists of what was read, I found no fairy tales (except mine).
I can understand it to some extent. In the 50s and 60s FTs had all the violence removed thus becoming so watered down that they were rendered meaningless. Feminists attacked FTs for being incredibly sexist accusing them of making our daughters wimps.
My mother always read me FTs and I have always loved them. There are just as many stories of girls saving princes as the other way around. The truth is, if read with violence in tact, they teach children to always be aware of their surroundings, to show kindness to those less fortunate, cleverness wins over strength, and greediness, sloth, and vanity are the qualities of the evil. I would like to hear what ya’ll think about this.
As for lullabys, How come we no longer soothe a crying baby with Mama singing a song? I’ve been at parties when a baby wouldn’t stop crying. I ask the exasperated mother, “Have you tried singing to him?” She looks at me like I’m insane. If I’m comfortable with the family, I’ll hold the baby and sing a simple pleasant song. The baby usually stops crying and people look amazed.
I’ll be 48 next month and I was raised by parents who were born in 1915 and 1923 so my experiences are kinda old fashioned. I would love to hear from younger parents on this topic.

You know, stories like this make me feel all kinds of guilty. My sister an I were “wanderers”. That is, as toddlers, Mom used to put us down for our naps in our cribs. Then we would get up, get dressed, then walk right out of the house and wander the neighborhood on our own. My Mom thought we were in bed sleeping, she was cleaning the house, we were actually a mile up the road in a neighbor’s backyard!

The second time I did it, I had the sense to put on a jacket, scarf and boots (it was snowing outside! In Wisconsin!) alas… no pants. I was 3, after all.

I wandered up to a stranger’s door, knocked and wandered in and settled myself down to watch some bugs bunny cartoons. Of course, when she offered me a lollipop, I said no. I clearly remembered my mother’s words to never take candy from strangers.

Thankfully, that incident ended well. My mother saw my empty crib, panicked, called the apartment complex office, got the secretary, explained the situation, and the woman said to her “oh! Well I think I can help you! You see, my mother just called. She said a toddler just wandered into her house and to be on the look out for any mothers missing their young.” Mom laughed, thanked her, and then drove over to pick me up.

End of story- though it wasn’t the end of my wandering. I did it a few more times over the years. Until my mother managed to get locks installed that I couldn’t reach. 🙂

@MMT – we read to our kids and sing to them all kinds of wacky things. definitely lullabies when they were younger; now weird al songs and other such fare. we didn’t read fairy tales all that much but we told them, to the point where the kids memorized the stories word-for-word. i know that i discovered the grimm and andersen books at a later age (jr high, maybe?) when i could read them for myself. i wonder if my mom still has those books…

We sing lullabies and read fairy tales. I’m 44 with kids who are 13,10,5.

I don’t agree that it’s no big deal or a funny anecdote when a toddler wanders away unattended though. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this could never happen to otherwise attentive parents. Of course it can! However, in the instant that it happens, it’s equally obviously a moment of neglect.

I love that the mom was treated so well. I say this as a mother with a 15 month old who is trying very hard most days to get out the front door on her own. She’s also fearless on walks and will go off on her own and not look behind to see if anyone’s following her. I have to be very alert when we go anywhere.

@MMT

We sing lullabies to our kids, and they love fairy tales. Singing really is wonderful for comforting babies and toddlers. My oldest daughter’s favorite book right now is one about myths and legends.

I’m 38, my daughter’s 11 and has grown up on lullabies and classic Grimm’s fairy tales, plus Greek, Roman and Norse myths. She loves both books and music – we regularly belt out everything from show tunes to Lady Gaga while in the car.

“However, in the instant that it happens, it’s equally obviously a moment of neglect.”

Please. I, too, was a wanderer and I assure you that I was never neglected. My mother did, however, occasionally have to go to the bathroom, put dinner in the oven, not awake the second that I awoke, etc. I simply believed that I was an adult and didn’t need to check with anyone before i decided to go visit my friends. They were constantly having to call my mother to let her know where I was. Now that I’m a mother, I feel guilty for the years I probably shaved off of my mother’s life and am thankful that, for all her independence, my daughter isn’t a wanderer.

Oh, and MMT
I’m 25, I sing “Summertime” to my daughter every night and we sing lots of radio songs for her. My husband plays guitar and when she’s cranky he’ll go make up a song for her and she cheers right up.
As for fairy tales, We bought a collection of shortened versions, but the same death and carnage. Like with the 3 Little Pigs, the first 2 pigs got eaten and that was the end of them and the wolf ends up in a pot of boiling water. I also have all of Grimm’s Fairy tales, Aesop’s Fable, and Hans Christian Anderson, and I’ll start reading them when my daughter is old enough to care about a story with no pictures.

We’ve had several of these toddler in diapers stories. In one case, the toddler got up at 3AM, managed to unlock the door, and went for a walk. In another, the mother was fixing dinner and the child was playing in the backyard, and walked about a mile down the road in an area with little to no traffic. In yet another, the child was playing in a fenced yard, the mother at work, and father, who works the night shift, had fallen asleep on the couch.

All three cases have in common that the parents were arrested and put in prison for child abuse and child endangerment, and the children were put into foster care permanently. In all three cases, as far as I have been able to determine, the parents are still in prison awaiting trial.

Of course studies have shown that foster children are 8 times more likely to be abused or neglected during their stay in foster care, are five times more likely to attempt suicide, have a higher mortality rate, have a 75% chance of dropping out of high school. Fifty percent of foster children become homeless at age 18. Thirty percent of homeless people in the United States are former foster children. The fact is that foster care is, statistically at least, on numerous metrics, the worst possible thing you can do to a child.

But the system decrees that that’s the best situation for dealing with a child that got out at night or was playing in the yard. At the minimum, it provides the state more control over people’s lives, which is always presumed to be a benefit.

What’s my take? Obviously I believe that the police, the social workers, and the courts are endemic child abusers, all drunk on their own power and filled with the most sadistic form of evil known to man – that of the utopian self-righteous do-gooder.

MMT -we used to sing lullabies, but less so these days (my kids are 2.5) but they will ask and we will. Be we sing other silly songs throughout the day that I just make up. When they were little we sang to them ALL the time and perhaps it is because there are two of them and we had to get rid of the rocking chair for space issues that we have stopped the “lullaby” singing, but we do other singing.

Also I just purchased for them their first Enid Blyton books -lots of faries and pixies and magical adventures in those books -I can’t wait -although I did wonder if it wasn’t for me knowing about Enid Blyton, what would they read for fairy tales.

My inlaws have traveled the world to Australia and the Caribbean and they bring back lots of folk tales about how birds got color and tales of ghosts and mysteries that my kids just love!

@Scott… Chill dude, loosen the tinfoil hat a smidge ok? There are lots of darn good people who work in child protective services and foster care. There are lots of kids who benefit immensely from the foster care system. Does it need better oversight and perhaps a more sensible application? Sure, so do lots of government programs. But please check the bathwater for any babies before you toss it out.

Oh yeah…
“the most sadistic form of evil known to man — that of the utopian self-righteous do-gooder.”

GFYS and have a nice day.

I used to make up stories for my son at bedtime. He is now eight and still requests stories every once in a while. My mom sang ‘Be-Bop A Lula’ while rocking him. ‘Tiny Dancer’ and ‘Your Song’ were favorites for me to sing to him.

Also, I wandered and climbed fences. My mother was anything but slacker. She just never thought an 18 month old could climb a six foot wood fence. I really wanted to go visit the puppies down the street!

Ouch. I just finished reading some of the previous entries. I can see why it’s been trying lately.

The funny thing is that even though sometimes kids do wander off, in the main nothing really happens.

And yet kids largely don’t wander off at all. I’m kinda shocked at times by how smart kids actually are. Even the little ones understand schedules and go from place to place in school and other environments with little if any difficulty at all. That’s one of the bigger things I think some educators do take great comfort in, at least when they first start out.

Thankyou, everyone! That’s why I love this website. Since I live in a small town, I sometimes feel that DH and I are the only parents who think the way we do. For those interested in fairy tales, might I suggest the Andrew Lang books. They are a HUGE compilation of ft from all over western civilization snd then some. They were first published in the 1890s and are still published today. I bought mine at barnes and noble relatively cheap. I recommend for starters the Blue Fairy Book, the Red Fairy Book, and the Green Fairy Book. They come in many more colors, though. I also suggest reading them like a hammy thespian changing voices frequently and gestulating wildly. When a hurricane has taken out the electricity for a week or so, the whole family sits down and listens to them read by candlelight.

Great choices of lullabys people! My personal favorites are old jazz torch songs, Irish and American folk songs, and John Denver. Thanks again.

I have a friend who’s under 3 yo was found in the front yard at 3 am on a busy through street. Parents asleep in their bed – child was sleep walking.

Neighbor guided child back to the open door and rang the door bell and called from the doorway till the parents bolted upright and ran to the door.

Friend’s family has a long history of sleepwalking including kids “robbing the house”, night terrors and accompanying black eyes for parents. The next day she went out and got a three of those alarms for hotel doors. One for the hallway door to the front of the house, one for the front door and one for the door to the pool area.

Noone called the cops.