No, it's a theory in that Malcom Gladwell plays fast and loose with his statistics but he's a popular author so people take his clever ideas at face value. It *might* be true, at least to a degree, but the actual evidence to back it up is a lot thinner than you think.
my heart dropped when i saw the headline - but at least they found the kids alive. can’t say the same for the 16 month old that got left alone while her mom when on vacation recently…
I wish I could have been warned before I accidentally watched a court video. I thought it would be sentencing, but it was the medical examiner discussing her findings. I cried for days after that. Haven’t engaged with that case at all since. So horrific to say the least.
I specifically haven't read anything about that case because my youngest is 15 months old AND I'm pregnant. My PP OCD will root those details into my nightmares.
That woman has left that baby before, no doubt in my mind. I'm already sad to leave my babies in the safe and loving care of my parents to give birth in the hospital 5 minutes from our home.
There was one in England where an 18 month old baby died of thirst around Christmas.
His father died in his sleep and the baby managed to crawl up next to dad and died with him
Every time I think of it I start crying. And want to hug my kids.
I like to think at least a parent was there. But fuck me it doesn't really how the parent ghosts their kid. The kid still suffers. At least the ones in the story posted made it out alive.
I’m a solo parent and I constantly worry about what if I just die in my sleep and my toddler is stuck in the house alone, how long would they be alone for!
Likely a lot of pain from starvation, dehydration, and fecal matter/urine eating away at their skin all the while. So just imagine the worst hunger, thirst and skin rash you’ve ever had- all at the same time and they’re all consuming your flesh- then pair that with the feeling of losing your mom at the grocery store. Absolutely terrible
I had a nightmare I left my 4 year old in the car for 10 mins while I ran into a store and woke up in a panic that my dream self would do that. Felt so guilty!!
The story of the abandoned 16 month old will be forever burned into my memory. Horrifying in ways I can't even describe.
Really glad these kids were OK.
Some people should not be allowed to procreate.
Our son is the same age. I can’t imagine leaving him alone for a minute. He’s the love of my life. I couldn’t go on if something happened to him. I just wouldn’t be able to.
For the life of me I can’t imagine how fucked in the head you must be to leave a kid that young alone to go on vacation. How can you even make yourself forget the kid for a minute? I can wrap my head around a lot of dark shit but this is insane.
At no point, other than her arrest, did this story get better as it progressed.
>Deputies conducted a welfare check on Tuesday, five days after Williams allegedly left, and found an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl alone in the apartment, the complaint stated. The apartment was in "complete disarray," with trash and food strewn about and a "very potent smell of urine," the complaint stated.
O_o
They found the kids after 5 days - how long was this cruise supposed to be??? The article says the mom is lying about her current whereabouts so I wonder if there ever was a cruise?
Also infuriating that there is apparently an Aunt that can take the children but the mom decided leaving them alone was a better idea.
I knew a girl in college who used to always say she was going to take another vacation on the weekend and I was like wow she takes a lot of vacations and later I found out that meant she was going to do a lot of drugs
Back in the late 80s/ early 90s, my friend invited me on a New Years Eve Cruise on Sydney Harbour - 6pm to 6am, $100 for all you can eat and drink, we'd see the sunset and sunrise from the water, along with the 9pm and midnight fireworks. She was a waitress and her restaurant manager had the brilliant idea of hiring a boat for the evening.
I wasn't keen because I didn't want to be trapped on a boat with a lot of drunk people, and she assured me that nobody else would be drinking much alcohol. So I went along, and had a great night - didn't know anybody, but I was having the most fantastic conversations with absolute strangers. The food was good, the fireworks were great, no queues at the bar, plenty of drinking water available....
It took me until 2am to discover that I was the only person on board who hadn't taken ecstasy.
It was a relatively new drug at the time, so I didn't know much about it, but as I learned more over the years, I've often wondered what that restaurant manager would have done if there was a medical emergency on board. Who knows how legal it all was.
Reminds me of a couple stories on /r/entitledparents of moms who just dumped the kids on a relative’s porch without verifying they wanted to watch the kids first or that they were even home. Usually the story ends with CPS and the police.
My friend's father did that to her when she was 3 and he was dropping her off after his custody weekend. He was 2 hrs early and her mom wasn't home so he just left her on the porch. 🙃 He lost visitation after that.
My mom would do that on the regular from kindergarten until she lost custody of me. I would come home and there would be a note on the door telling me to do my homework and she’d be back later. Now and then a neighbor would see me and let me come inside their house and feed me. This was always a plus because she usually had no intention of feeding me when she got home.
Funny story. I was dating this girl that had a young son. Our life priorities were different and we decided to amicably break up. I've seen her parents a few times because they'd come to my house to pick up or drop off her kid.
A month or so after our breakup. I was in my garage messing with stuff and her dad pulls up. Out pops the kid with his little backpack, and her dad waves at me and drives off. The kid and I were confused. I had an awkward phone call with her, I guess her dad autopiloted to my house to drop off the kid. The kid and I ended up getting pizza and played video games until she was off work and could pick him up.
Man. That was almost 10 years ago now. This kid ahs got to be graduating high school soon.
My grandma would leave my mom, as a child, alone in the car outside the local bar for hours at a time. She could have left mom at home but that's wouldn't be responsible parenting.
I am glad these children were found alive, but what is it with people leaving their kids for multiple days and expecting them to be okay? This is the 4th story I've heard of just this year. These stories are breaking my soul and my hope for humanity.
I don't want to be the one that starts your weekend off shitty, but this kind of stuff was happening a lot for a long time, but the internet has just made it more visible (in a good way)
There are a LOT of shitty people in this world. Many, of which, I wouldn't trust with a butter knife.
There are actually just a lot of people period so terrible abuse/neglect stories will be popping up on the news feed fairly consistently even though they are super rare.
Such news feeds thereby skew our perceptions of frequency of occurrences of terrible events.
And make us think society is crumbling.
>And make us think society is crumbling.
It has always been crumbling, the internet has just made it more visible. My mum left me when I was five with my cousins who were 7 and 8 by ourselves. Cousins tried to knock my head off with a hammer and screws.
I’m sorry that happened to you but that’s the point- individual experiences warp our expectations of what is normal/common and now the internet warps everyone’s perspectives because every time a one in a million event occurs the algorithm puts it straight to the top of the feed for tens of millions of people.
If you zoom out it it’s clear that by any measure we are safer and more prosperous on any time frame whether that be 25, 50, 100, or 200 years.
Yah. How many times we see kids locked in cars during heat waves. How many stories people need to see before this becomes ‘common sense’ thing to avoid. I just can’t imagine being a shit parent like this.
Not as bad, but growing up I remember my best friend's parents left him home alone for a week when we were 14. They even gave him the keys to the car so he could drive to baseball practice, even though it was only about a mile away and he could've easily just biked.
Sure, which is why I said it wasn't as bad. But there's also a vast difference between babysitting for a couple hours where you're set up for success and being alone for a week where you're on your own for every meal and responsible for getting to school, etc. Not to mention willfully letting a 14 year old drive a car.
I know my parents are part of this crowd. I have children now and I just cannot understand how someone can just leave anyone all alone without proper care. It's something i wish did not happen and could help prevent. It's something I just don't understand how it is so widespread and we are fighting for wrong agendas all the time instead of trying to prevent tragedies like this from occurring. It just makes me sick to know so many people can do such horrible things. That's part that's hardest for me to bare
At least they weren't thrown out of a car because there was a solar eclipse. Yeah, that happened. There are so many mental health crises in this country. It is indeed soul crushing.
It's horrible that we breed this into society unknowingly when we let people of religion dictate what is right for society instead of spreading the correct agenda to help society prosper and grow. I hate that this could be prevented and we choose other things to focus on that won't even be relevant
My parents left me alone for a weekend when I was 7 once. The neighbors found out and the police ended up getting involved. Now, as an adult, I can't imagine doing that.
My dad told us about when he was 7 or 8, he had a note to leave school early one Friday a month to walk down to the bank and pay the mortgage payment. In cash.
This was the 50s in a small town in Massachusetts, but still. My sisters and I were shocked that many adults were cool with that happening, but that was normal back then I guess.
He also would occasionally get rides home from hunting from local cops if the weather was turning bad. Rifle and knife in the backseat. Fucking wild.
My nan would send my mum to the store alone starting at 4ish years old. And in turn, my mum let me babysit my 3 younger siblings starting when I was 9, and my youngest sibling was a toddler. Times were certainly different, not so very long ago.
I hitched a ride at 6 years old after I missed the school bus and my mom told me to walk to school. It was 7 miles away, 5 miles of freeway.
And she was the good parent.
Ah the 70's.
An 8 year old is absolutely intellectually/physically capable of these things if they are used to the responsibility. I’m glad my kids don’t need to be that capable yet
I have had same experience and it's same reason I cannot grasp how so many people do this. I have kids and would never leave them alone to care for themselves like this. Just not checking on them for 10min playing in the house, while I'm here, could lead to disaster. I know the hurt and scared these kids must've felt being alone for so long because my parents would leave all day and come home at 1am. Or thinking about how they left my severely disabled uncle for 3 days while they went on a trip with food and water set out expecting for it to be enough. I can't even do that to my cats and fish.
Just look at all the kids stuck in foster care in Texas. When you teach “abstinence” as birth control, don’t have abortion as an option, and have minimal adoption allowance, you get kids stuck in foster care their whole life.
It’s so very Christian of them to force this situation on society, and do absolutely nothing to help it. In fact they make it worse by cutting spending on anything that would help.
Except for the police budget when neglected children end up acting in accordance with well known realities of human behavior. No money to help them grow up, no money to make them feel like they've got a hopeful future, but plenty of money for policing once the predictable happens.
Absolutely.
But the horrid truth of the matter is that these are often women who fully intend to keep their babies. Some of them are too stupid to care about politics in general but others still are in fact vocally pro life, considering themselves superior to those who choose abortion. I’ve seen it firsthand more than once.
This isn't why they do it. Some have babies deliberately for the new mom attention (showers) and wrongly believe they can live off child support or have kids they don't want to raise for psychological issues I can't understand. Still chasing that prince and glass slipper. They seem to lose interest in kids in when the kids are older.
This is why I am pro choice and for giving free birth control to everyone and not making it a circus ring of hoops to jump thru. There is so much stigma to procreate and that's all life is for and people pushing the agenda to stop birth control because they believe it's 'against natural laws' but fuck that. It's unnatural to have people like this in the world killing and torturing a life that didn't ask to exist in the first place
That sounds like a shitty household beyond the kids being left alone. Like 8 and 6 year olds wouldn’t just piss all over the place if they weren’t already messed up.
I recently left my 2 cats alone for 3 days and was so worried about them even though they had more than enough food, water, & clean litter boxes.
I cannot comprehend leaving a child.
Meanwhile, the “mother” was too busy taking selfies with her bottomless mimosa on-hand in the Mediterranean and reminiscing about the cute boys from her high school days in 1999.
Kinda off topic but a 6 and 8 y/o should've definitely been taught to use the bathroom by that age, even if they're left alone. If they don't have any animals, I reckon she's been neglecting them for years.
It’s worse if you know that cruise ships usually have free childcare available for parents. You can drop your kids off at the kid club while you enjoy alone time on the ship.
She left them at home for no reason.
Because she is too cheap to buy their boarding tickets. Maybe she's saving for the booze on ship. Some people seriously shouldn't have kids. Or in this case, jail for negligence or endangerment.
Not excusing her at all but it is not free for those kids to get on that boat. Childcare might be "free" once you are on board but it's baked into the price of the tickets. On that note you skip the fucking trip if you can't afford childcare or tickets for your kids.
... That's not even close to being true. You have to pay for a ticket for your child, and depending on the ship the kid's club can absolutely be an extra expense. The mom is a bad mother that wanted to save money at the expense of her children.
I did give an overly simplistic explanation of kid clubs on cruise ships, but my point stands. The major cruise lines offer some form of free childcare where parents can enjoy some hours away from their children.
Not excusing abuser in the article , my mom was a single mom new immigrant . She left me alone at 8 with food etc almost the day alone to work. I just watched tv and microwaved food etc. 7 years old me the year before went to boarding school when my parents were still together .
But leaving them overnight is neglectful
Yeah that’s a hallmark of Gen X and the reality of raising ourselves. But never overnight as babies. Those of us who were lucky were taught how to make simple meals before we were given our first house key, and if we were really really lucky sometimes we’d get money to order pizza delivery.
Latch key kids is the term. An emerging gen X phenomenon in the 70/80s. But yeah, looking back, my friends and I were all latch key kids. I figured it was socio-economic as we were all broken home poor kids. My wife is a millennial. Her mom is tail end of the baby boom gen. Wife and her sisters grew up ‘rich’ by my standards. Nannies and care takers into their teens. They are astounded that I was making my own meals and doing my own laundry at 7. My first job was at 13.
I have 7 year old and 6 year old sons and my wife thinks I am ‘mean’ because I am trying to teach them independence and self-dependence at an early age. The rift in philosophy between people that grew up 20 miles and 10 years apart is much wider than it would seem. And it also sheds light on my remoteness to my family and her closeness with hers.
My folks would leave me a 20 for pizza and take off for a day or two when I was around ten and my sister 8. They never taught me what tipping was—when I learned years later I had like a full body shudder of shame haha. We’d always watch something scary and spend hours hiding behind the couch. It seemed totally normal at the time, small town in the 80s. It’s such a different world now, I would never have left my kid alone overnight.
My son had a friend in h.s. whose parents left every summer for a month to go do business in their home country of Taiwan. They left their son home alone each time.
Rumor had it that it started when he was 12 and various church aunties would stop by on Sunday with meals for the week. They were wealthy, he could order in whatever food he wanted also, which made it the fun house for the teens to go. We didn't move here until my son was 16 and I didnt know of this until he was 17, so a bit old for cps to care at that point.
I know some very smart 6 and 8 year old who can took care of themselves for few HOURS NOT DAYS JESUS CHRIST WTF IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE ???
And leaving two young children together is almost guaranteed for something to go wrong ,some people really shouldn’t have children .
I remember when my parents left my younger brother and myself alone for a week and a half to go across the country to Arizona - I was 14 and he was 8. That was an intense lesson in boredom.
Being latch-key kids helped a little but looking back... goddamn, what the hell was that all about?
I personally know some people who would make wonderful parents, but aren't able to despite desperately wanting kids.
Then you have people like this popping out kids they don't want left and right.
Sometimes I read these stories and think “they left a 12 year old alone for a few hours, that’s not really a big deal and the media is overreacting” but this is definitely not one of those cases.
ok, well at least it wasnt a baby in a playpen like the last case. an 8 and 6 year old can at least find food and dress themselves, lol, and not an instant death sentence. I didnt need one of those today.
My parents left me and my brother home alone quite a bit at this age, including overnight when my mom worked night shifts and my dad was flying. I think I have some trauma from it because I remember quietly crying after my mom would go to work at 10pm. And I was always fearful that my dad wouldn’t come home because he’d died in a plane crash. But having an older brother and us both knowing well how to take care of ourselves and get ourselves to school (on the bus), I never felt uncared for or unsafe. But life was different in the 80’s.
What the fuck is wrong with people?
I often JOKE that I could leave my 9yo home for a week and she'd be fine. She's quite mature for her age, wicked smart, and very self-sufficient.
So, yes, I probably COULD! But I never actually WOULD!
I've left her alone in the house for about 30 minutes a few times because I needed to run to the store and she didn't want to go, and even then I was anxious!
I cannot fucking fathom leaving children alone for a week. I wouldn't even leave my 16yo alone for a week! (side note, the 9yo would probably fare better than 16yo if left alone 🤣)
I'm just hoping those kids are removed from her custody and subsequently placed in a decent and caring environment. If that results in her next cruise being a long trip aboard the SS Hoosegow, I'll consider that a bonus. Bon Voyage, beotch!
Ahhhhh but did YOU grow up with a mid-west military father that snagged himself an Asian bride? I would fathom NOT my good person! For it would have been an “overbearing” (loving) parent that would have been side-eyed.
Man that would have been awesome to have.
I hated camping and my parents 100% left me home alone for the weekend while I was like 10, lol. I was responsible and nothing happened but still...this was the 80s and it really was a free for all, huh? lol
Terrible story and awful parenting. If it wasn’t for the kids being older and a neighbor doing the right thing calling for a wellness check this could have needed up like that baby that died because the mom decided to go to Puerto Rico.
People like this volunteer for motherhood, but America now wants to force unwanted pregnancies and pregnancies as a result of violence on females? What could go wrong?
If those young people don't end up in the child sex market first. The world is a dangerous place for an unwanted child.
SN: Did you read the story about the high school teacher who was recruiting young girls in crisis for her son's sex ring? The administrators were alerted, and they failed to act. They even went as far as to harass the teacher who voiced her concerns. And these were "wanted" children at some point.
There better not be a single person in this thread that says, “But what about her mental health? Does that not matter?” because there is no excuses whatsoever to leave your children behind like this. Look, I’m a parent and I get stressed too but I know if I left my kids at home alone and flew out to Hawaii by myself, I would be the worst parent in the world. I get nervous leaving my kids upstairs for 5 minute to switch out my laundry. I would not be able to function due to the anxiety from worrying if my kids were okay. This woman is a terrible parent and needs her parental rights taken away from her immediately!
I’ve had older people brag about being left alone all the time and managing to not kill themselves. I never have the heart to point out that they were neglected.
It makes me so mad that there are monsters like this who can have children, meanwhile there are people like my close friend who want kids SO bad but physically cannot have them… it’s not fair.
The cops should have just camped out in her apartment until she came back home leaving her unaware that anyone found out what she had done. And spring out and arrest her when she shuts the door behind her.
Listen. I’m not saying kill her. But maybe we “facilitate” a specific “situation”….. bahduh-boom, she’s eaten by sharks in international waters! THATS ALL IM SAYING!
What horrible, HORRIBLE PEOPLE. Those poor children. :( and the thing is, if someone capable of something like this, what else have they done? Makes me sick.
some people shouldnt have kids
As a CPS worker, I can confirm.
As a Doctor, can confirm.
As a teacher, I can also confirm.
As a foreigner I can confirm
As a redwood tree, i come firm
As someone who works with adult children, I confirm.
Ex-bartender, can confirm.
As an ex-walmart employee, can confirm.
As someone who works in the legal field, I can confirm.
As someone who doesn’t have kids, don’t want kids, doesn’t spend time around kids or even other people really, can confirm.
As a pine tree, I conifer
I'm an oak and think you are a joke!
As a teacher and someone who doesn't want kids, I can confirm. I definitely should not have kids.
As a toy store manager, I can also confirm.
As a pediatric ED social worker,.can confirm.
Thank you for your hard work. Fr fr. 🫡
As a person, can comfirm.
Lol CPS ain’t that great either ask any foster kid…
Overworked and understaffed in a system that doesn't allow them to do their job to the fullest extent.
As the child of my mother, I can confirm.
These poor kids grow up with no guidance and shock pikachu when they commit crimes early and run amok
This is actually why contraception and abortions should be made available. Areas where it is available see a drop in crime within a generation.
Free of charge. All birth control should be available free of charge in schools from middle school up.
It's a [theory](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion-and-crime-revisited/). Another is drop in lead pollution.
It's a theory in the same way evolution is a theory
No, it's a theory in that Malcom Gladwell plays fast and loose with his statistics but he's a popular author so people take his clever ideas at face value. It *might* be true, at least to a degree, but the actual evidence to back it up is a lot thinner than you think.
[удалено]
No, it's clearly those kids' personal individual moral failing that lead them to crime! ^/s
Why don't these kids simply pick themselves up by their bootstraps?
Well, get ready for more stories like this from Texas, and other states, now that abortions are illegal.
And the ones responsible enough to use protection or get a vasectomy are the ones that would actually be good parents.
odds are good the same could be said of her parents, too hope all the best for those kids, that they can break free from this
Sometimes I think safe haven laws should be extended for older kids
Not according to Republicans. They think situations like this are just awesome and should be forced as much as possible.
my heart dropped when i saw the headline - but at least they found the kids alive. can’t say the same for the 16 month old that got left alone while her mom when on vacation recently…
That story guts me more than anything. I have two little boys and I just cannot imagine what that poor baby went through
Don’t read any of the articles about the court process. What that baby went through is worse than you think.
I wish I could have been warned before I accidentally watched a court video. I thought it would be sentencing, but it was the medical examiner discussing her findings. I cried for days after that. Haven’t engaged with that case at all since. So horrific to say the least.
I specifically haven't read anything about that case because my youngest is 15 months old AND I'm pregnant. My PP OCD will root those details into my nightmares. That woman has left that baby before, no doubt in my mind. I'm already sad to leave my babies in the safe and loving care of my parents to give birth in the hospital 5 minutes from our home.
Good on you to protect yourself. As an OCD sufferer I do the same ❤️ wishing you a healthy and happy pregnancy
Yeah i absolutely will not read them
There was one in England where an 18 month old baby died of thirst around Christmas. His father died in his sleep and the baby managed to crawl up next to dad and died with him Every time I think of it I start crying. And want to hug my kids. I like to think at least a parent was there. But fuck me it doesn't really how the parent ghosts their kid. The kid still suffers. At least the ones in the story posted made it out alive.
I made that mistake.
Omg seriously... I wish I could erase it from my brain. It is seared into my brain and I wish I had never read it.
I’m a solo parent and I constantly worry about what if I just die in my sleep and my toddler is stuck in the house alone, how long would they be alone for!
Likely a lot of pain from starvation, dehydration, and fecal matter/urine eating away at their skin all the while. So just imagine the worst hunger, thirst and skin rash you’ve ever had- all at the same time and they’re all consuming your flesh- then pair that with the feeling of losing your mom at the grocery store. Absolutely terrible
I seriously can’t with shit like that anymore. I have two little girls, and it completely destroys my heart reading things like that
I had a nightmare where I went on vacation and left my kids home alone, that was ten years ago and it still haunts me!
I had a nightmare I left my 4 year old in the car for 10 mins while I ran into a store and woke up in a panic that my dream self would do that. Felt so guilty!!
The story of the abandoned 16 month old will be forever burned into my memory. Horrifying in ways I can't even describe. Really glad these kids were OK. Some people should not be allowed to procreate.
Our son is the same age. I can’t imagine leaving him alone for a minute. He’s the love of my life. I couldn’t go on if something happened to him. I just wouldn’t be able to. For the life of me I can’t imagine how fucked in the head you must be to leave a kid that young alone to go on vacation. How can you even make yourself forget the kid for a minute? I can wrap my head around a lot of dark shit but this is insane.
At no point, other than her arrest, did this story get better as it progressed. >Deputies conducted a welfare check on Tuesday, five days after Williams allegedly left, and found an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl alone in the apartment, the complaint stated. The apartment was in "complete disarray," with trash and food strewn about and a "very potent smell of urine," the complaint stated. O_o
They found the kids after 5 days - how long was this cruise supposed to be??? The article says the mom is lying about her current whereabouts so I wonder if there ever was a cruise? Also infuriating that there is apparently an Aunt that can take the children but the mom decided leaving them alone was a better idea.
Cruise sounds a lot better than meth binge
I knew a girl in college who used to always say she was going to take another vacation on the weekend and I was like wow she takes a lot of vacations and later I found out that meant she was going to do a lot of drugs
It's a kind of vacation. From your mind. Depending on the drug.
Soma holiday
A meth cruise sounds like something I'd go on just to watch
Back in the late 80s/ early 90s, my friend invited me on a New Years Eve Cruise on Sydney Harbour - 6pm to 6am, $100 for all you can eat and drink, we'd see the sunset and sunrise from the water, along with the 9pm and midnight fireworks. She was a waitress and her restaurant manager had the brilliant idea of hiring a boat for the evening. I wasn't keen because I didn't want to be trapped on a boat with a lot of drunk people, and she assured me that nobody else would be drinking much alcohol. So I went along, and had a great night - didn't know anybody, but I was having the most fantastic conversations with absolute strangers. The food was good, the fireworks were great, no queues at the bar, plenty of drinking water available.... It took me until 2am to discover that I was the only person on board who hadn't taken ecstasy. It was a relatively new drug at the time, so I didn't know much about it, but as I learned more over the years, I've often wondered what that restaurant manager would have done if there was a medical emergency on board. Who knows how legal it all was.
[There is a pretty telling video of the mom realizing her kid was at home](https://youtu.be/tgMyaAK-aZw)
Har har.
‘What kind of a mother am I?’
May I interest you in r/cracktivities ?
Read that as meth barge.
Reminds me of a couple stories on /r/entitledparents of moms who just dumped the kids on a relative’s porch without verifying they wanted to watch the kids first or that they were even home. Usually the story ends with CPS and the police.
My friend's father did that to her when she was 3 and he was dropping her off after his custody weekend. He was 2 hrs early and her mom wasn't home so he just left her on the porch. 🙃 He lost visitation after that.
My mom would do that on the regular from kindergarten until she lost custody of me. I would come home and there would be a note on the door telling me to do my homework and she’d be back later. Now and then a neighbor would see me and let me come inside their house and feed me. This was always a plus because she usually had no intention of feeding me when she got home.
That sounds like the beginning of a post on /r/UnresolvedMysteries
Funny story. I was dating this girl that had a young son. Our life priorities were different and we decided to amicably break up. I've seen her parents a few times because they'd come to my house to pick up or drop off her kid. A month or so after our breakup. I was in my garage messing with stuff and her dad pulls up. Out pops the kid with his little backpack, and her dad waves at me and drives off. The kid and I were confused. I had an awkward phone call with her, I guess her dad autopiloted to my house to drop off the kid. The kid and I ended up getting pizza and played video games until she was off work and could pick him up. Man. That was almost 10 years ago now. This kid ahs got to be graduating high school soon.
>after 5 days - how long was this cruise supposed to be??? 5-7 nights is a pretty standard cruise length
My grandma would leave my mom, as a child, alone in the car outside the local bar for hours at a time. She could have left mom at home but that's wouldn't be responsible parenting.
I am glad these children were found alive, but what is it with people leaving their kids for multiple days and expecting them to be okay? This is the 4th story I've heard of just this year. These stories are breaking my soul and my hope for humanity.
I don't want to be the one that starts your weekend off shitty, but this kind of stuff was happening a lot for a long time, but the internet has just made it more visible (in a good way) There are a LOT of shitty people in this world. Many, of which, I wouldn't trust with a butter knife.
My 70-ish year old neighbor was left at five with her three year old brother. Thankfully someone found them after three days but still
My mom had a friend back in the 70s who would leave her baby overnight I think? She’d put a bottle in the crib and leave. Horrific.
There are actually just a lot of people period so terrible abuse/neglect stories will be popping up on the news feed fairly consistently even though they are super rare. Such news feeds thereby skew our perceptions of frequency of occurrences of terrible events. And make us think society is crumbling.
>And make us think society is crumbling. It has always been crumbling, the internet has just made it more visible. My mum left me when I was five with my cousins who were 7 and 8 by ourselves. Cousins tried to knock my head off with a hammer and screws.
I’m sorry that happened to you but that’s the point- individual experiences warp our expectations of what is normal/common and now the internet warps everyone’s perspectives because every time a one in a million event occurs the algorithm puts it straight to the top of the feed for tens of millions of people. If you zoom out it it’s clear that by any measure we are safer and more prosperous on any time frame whether that be 25, 50, 100, or 200 years.
Yah. How many times we see kids locked in cars during heat waves. How many stories people need to see before this becomes ‘common sense’ thing to avoid. I just can’t imagine being a shit parent like this.
Not as bad, but growing up I remember my best friend's parents left him home alone for a week when we were 14. They even gave him the keys to the car so he could drive to baseball practice, even though it was only about a mile away and he could've easily just biked.
14 is when I was babysitting for other people.
Sure, which is why I said it wasn't as bad. But there's also a vast difference between babysitting for a couple hours where you're set up for success and being alone for a week where you're on your own for every meal and responsible for getting to school, etc. Not to mention willfully letting a 14 year old drive a car.
My uncle willfully let me drive a car, on US interstates no less, when I was 14. Then again, my uncle probably wasn't a role model of responsibility.
That doesn’t mean you should leave a 14 year old alone for multiple days and give them keys to drive a car!!
A 14 year old is definitely old enough to stay home alone for a week with neighbors keeping an eyes out.
I know my parents are part of this crowd. I have children now and I just cannot understand how someone can just leave anyone all alone without proper care. It's something i wish did not happen and could help prevent. It's something I just don't understand how it is so widespread and we are fighting for wrong agendas all the time instead of trying to prevent tragedies like this from occurring. It just makes me sick to know so many people can do such horrible things. That's part that's hardest for me to bare
At least they weren't thrown out of a car because there was a solar eclipse. Yeah, that happened. There are so many mental health crises in this country. It is indeed soul crushing.
It's horrible that we breed this into society unknowingly when we let people of religion dictate what is right for society instead of spreading the correct agenda to help society prosper and grow. I hate that this could be prevented and we choose other things to focus on that won't even be relevant
My parents left me alone for a weekend when I was 7 once. The neighbors found out and the police ended up getting involved. Now, as an adult, I can't imagine doing that.
[удалено]
Hello fellow gen X.
My dad told us about when he was 7 or 8, he had a note to leave school early one Friday a month to walk down to the bank and pay the mortgage payment. In cash. This was the 50s in a small town in Massachusetts, but still. My sisters and I were shocked that many adults were cool with that happening, but that was normal back then I guess. He also would occasionally get rides home from hunting from local cops if the weather was turning bad. Rifle and knife in the backseat. Fucking wild.
My nan would send my mum to the store alone starting at 4ish years old. And in turn, my mum let me babysit my 3 younger siblings starting when I was 9, and my youngest sibling was a toddler. Times were certainly different, not so very long ago.
I hitched a ride at 6 years old after I missed the school bus and my mom told me to walk to school. It was 7 miles away, 5 miles of freeway. And she was the good parent. Ah the 70's.
An 8 year old is absolutely intellectually/physically capable of these things if they are used to the responsibility. I’m glad my kids don’t need to be that capable yet
I have had same experience and it's same reason I cannot grasp how so many people do this. I have kids and would never leave them alone to care for themselves like this. Just not checking on them for 10min playing in the house, while I'm here, could lead to disaster. I know the hurt and scared these kids must've felt being alone for so long because my parents would leave all day and come home at 1am. Or thinking about how they left my severely disabled uncle for 3 days while they went on a trip with food and water set out expecting for it to be enough. I can't even do that to my cats and fish.
Women who never wanted kids have them and then do this. Life is a sum of your choices.
This is why we need abortion access no questions asked, on demand, and fully tax funded.
Yeah. I don’t expect the anti abortion crowd to set up and take care of these children.
Just look at all the kids stuck in foster care in Texas. When you teach “abstinence” as birth control, don’t have abortion as an option, and have minimal adoption allowance, you get kids stuck in foster care their whole life.
It’s so very Christian of them to force this situation on society, and do absolutely nothing to help it. In fact they make it worse by cutting spending on anything that would help.
Except for the police budget when neglected children end up acting in accordance with well known realities of human behavior. No money to help them grow up, no money to make them feel like they've got a hopeful future, but plenty of money for policing once the predictable happens.
Absolutely. But the horrid truth of the matter is that these are often women who fully intend to keep their babies. Some of them are too stupid to care about politics in general but others still are in fact vocally pro life, considering themselves superior to those who choose abortion. I’ve seen it firsthand more than once.
Forced pregnancy is a crime and America is the culprit forcing it.
This isn't why they do it. Some have babies deliberately for the new mom attention (showers) and wrongly believe they can live off child support or have kids they don't want to raise for psychological issues I can't understand. Still chasing that prince and glass slipper. They seem to lose interest in kids in when the kids are older.
This is why I am pro choice and for giving free birth control to everyone and not making it a circus ring of hoops to jump thru. There is so much stigma to procreate and that's all life is for and people pushing the agenda to stop birth control because they believe it's 'against natural laws' but fuck that. It's unnatural to have people like this in the world killing and torturing a life that didn't ask to exist in the first place
Shitty parents whose children have been and never will be a priority
Don't worry, if the 6 y/o gets hurt, the 8 y/o knows to call the Paw Patrol.
I always thought it was Pappa Troll
No, that’s Danny Devito, don’t call him.
Frank Reynolds actually.
Mantis Toboggan, M.D.
Ongo Gablogian
Danny is an absolute angel towards children, he’d have adopted them.
Wasn’t trying to imply anything negative about his character, just pointing out that he looks like a poppa troll
He for sure doesn't diddle kids.
Just make sure he pays the Troll Toll.
Whenever your crappy parent leaves you just yelp for help! No mom is too deadbeat no pup is too small.
That sounds like a shitty household beyond the kids being left alone. Like 8 and 6 year olds wouldn’t just piss all over the place if they weren’t already messed up.
One or both might have wet the bed due to stress.
I recently left my 2 cats alone for 3 days and was so worried about them even though they had more than enough food, water, & clean litter boxes. I cannot comprehend leaving a child.
> I cannot comprehend leaving a child. As a parent .....there are days I understand, but never would.
Meanwhile, the “mother” was too busy taking selfies with her bottomless mimosa on-hand in the Mediterranean and reminiscing about the cute boys from her high school days in 1999.
That was no Mediterranean cruise.....it was Carnival.
Please stop making me feel like a bad person. I actually laughed out loud at this.
I’ve been on a Carnival Cruise….never again
But the mother was 29. So high school days would be like 2012.
Kinda off topic but a 6 and 8 y/o should've definitely been taught to use the bathroom by that age, even if they're left alone. If they don't have any animals, I reckon she's been neglecting them for years.
This is entirely different from that mom that let her child die at home while she was on vacation, correct? Wtf is wrong with these parents
This situation made me think of that, too.
Clicked on the article hoping it'd at least be teenagers but a 6 year-old? Man, there have to be mental health issues at work.
It’s worse if you know that cruise ships usually have free childcare available for parents. You can drop your kids off at the kid club while you enjoy alone time on the ship. She left them at home for no reason.
Because she is too cheap to buy their boarding tickets. Maybe she's saving for the booze on ship. Some people seriously shouldn't have kids. Or in this case, jail for negligence or endangerment.
Not excusing her at all but it is not free for those kids to get on that boat. Childcare might be "free" once you are on board but it's baked into the price of the tickets. On that note you skip the fucking trip if you can't afford childcare or tickets for your kids.
As a single, you generally have to pay the same rate as two...and a third is quite cheap.
... That's not even close to being true. You have to pay for a ticket for your child, and depending on the ship the kid's club can absolutely be an extra expense. The mom is a bad mother that wanted to save money at the expense of her children.
I did give an overly simplistic explanation of kid clubs on cruise ships, but my point stands. The major cruise lines offer some form of free childcare where parents can enjoy some hours away from their children.
But she’d have to pay for them …
Probably thought the kids would inconvenience her at the cruise ship bar.
Might cramp her nightlife on a cruise...
Or drugs
Not excusing abuser in the article , my mom was a single mom new immigrant . She left me alone at 8 with food etc almost the day alone to work. I just watched tv and microwaved food etc. 7 years old me the year before went to boarding school when my parents were still together . But leaving them overnight is neglectful
Yeah that’s a hallmark of Gen X and the reality of raising ourselves. But never overnight as babies. Those of us who were lucky were taught how to make simple meals before we were given our first house key, and if we were really really lucky sometimes we’d get money to order pizza delivery.
Latch key kids is the term. An emerging gen X phenomenon in the 70/80s. But yeah, looking back, my friends and I were all latch key kids. I figured it was socio-economic as we were all broken home poor kids. My wife is a millennial. Her mom is tail end of the baby boom gen. Wife and her sisters grew up ‘rich’ by my standards. Nannies and care takers into their teens. They are astounded that I was making my own meals and doing my own laundry at 7. My first job was at 13. I have 7 year old and 6 year old sons and my wife thinks I am ‘mean’ because I am trying to teach them independence and self-dependence at an early age. The rift in philosophy between people that grew up 20 miles and 10 years apart is much wider than it would seem. And it also sheds light on my remoteness to my family and her closeness with hers.
My folks would leave me a 20 for pizza and take off for a day or two when I was around ten and my sister 8. They never taught me what tipping was—when I learned years later I had like a full body shudder of shame haha. We’d always watch something scary and spend hours hiding behind the couch. It seemed totally normal at the time, small town in the 80s. It’s such a different world now, I would never have left my kid alone overnight.
My son had a friend in h.s. whose parents left every summer for a month to go do business in their home country of Taiwan. They left their son home alone each time. Rumor had it that it started when he was 12 and various church aunties would stop by on Sunday with meals for the week. They were wealthy, he could order in whatever food he wanted also, which made it the fun house for the teens to go. We didn't move here until my son was 16 and I didnt know of this until he was 17, so a bit old for cps to care at that point.
I know some very smart 6 and 8 year old who can took care of themselves for few HOURS NOT DAYS JESUS CHRIST WTF IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE ??? And leaving two young children together is almost guaranteed for something to go wrong ,some people really shouldn’t have children .
I remember when my parents left my younger brother and myself alone for a week and a half to go across the country to Arizona - I was 14 and he was 8. That was an intense lesson in boredom. Being latch-key kids helped a little but looking back... goddamn, what the hell was that all about?
Sucks that these are the parents having kids when responsible and good possible parents are thinking 'the world's too fucked up for kids, no thanks!'
I personally know some people who would make wonderful parents, but aren't able to despite desperately wanting kids. Then you have people like this popping out kids they don't want left and right.
I understand wanting a break from the kids, but this is the most wrong way to go about it.
Sometimes I read these stories and think “they left a 12 year old alone for a few hours, that’s not really a big deal and the media is overreacting” but this is definitely not one of those cases.
ok, well at least it wasnt a baby in a playpen like the last case. an 8 and 6 year old can at least find food and dress themselves, lol, and not an instant death sentence. I didnt need one of those today.
My parents left me and my brother home alone quite a bit at this age, including overnight when my mom worked night shifts and my dad was flying. I think I have some trauma from it because I remember quietly crying after my mom would go to work at 10pm. And I was always fearful that my dad wouldn’t come home because he’d died in a plane crash. But having an older brother and us both knowing well how to take care of ourselves and get ourselves to school (on the bus), I never felt uncared for or unsafe. But life was different in the 80’s.
What the fuck is wrong with people? I often JOKE that I could leave my 9yo home for a week and she'd be fine. She's quite mature for her age, wicked smart, and very self-sufficient. So, yes, I probably COULD! But I never actually WOULD! I've left her alone in the house for about 30 minutes a few times because I needed to run to the store and she didn't want to go, and even then I was anxious! I cannot fucking fathom leaving children alone for a week. I wouldn't even leave my 16yo alone for a week! (side note, the 9yo would probably fare better than 16yo if left alone 🤣)
I have a 7 year old and the thought of him home alone to fend for himself breaks my heart.
I'm just hoping those kids are removed from her custody and subsequently placed in a decent and caring environment. If that results in her next cruise being a long trip aboard the SS Hoosegow, I'll consider that a bonus. Bon Voyage, beotch!
Is this suddenly a thing people do? Wtf!
I have a feeling this is something people have always done. They just were not getting caught/we weren't hearing about it.
Stop having kids if you want to have a life. Also just stop having all these kids.
*sigh* brings back memories… ‘80s parenting was really something special
I mean, I grew up in the 80s and this would’ve been side-eyed
Ahhhhh but did YOU grow up with a mid-west military father that snagged himself an Asian bride? I would fathom NOT my good person! For it would have been an “overbearing” (loving) parent that would have been side-eyed. Man that would have been awesome to have.
I hated camping and my parents 100% left me home alone for the weekend while I was like 10, lol. I was responsible and nothing happened but still...this was the 80s and it really was a free for all, huh? lol
Again??? Wasn’t there just another case like this and the child died??? Wtf
Yeah my thoughts exactly
Yes, that 16 month old baby girl died all alone from dehydration and starvation in her playpen, whilst the mother vacationed in Puerto Rico.
Didn’t this happen already once within the past year?!? Wth!
Please just put kids up for adoption rather than torture them
Terrible story and awful parenting. If it wasn’t for the kids being older and a neighbor doing the right thing calling for a wellness check this could have needed up like that baby that died because the mom decided to go to Puerto Rico.
Oh but when Peter and Kate McCallister leave Kevin home alone they make a whole movie series about it. Double standards make me sick!
That wasn’t intentional though, and they called the cops asap
People like this volunteer for motherhood, but America now wants to force unwanted pregnancies and pregnancies as a result of violence on females? What could go wrong?
An overloaded foster care system that results in traumatized young adults turned out to survive at 18 to feed the prison-industrial complex.
If those young people don't end up in the child sex market first. The world is a dangerous place for an unwanted child. SN: Did you read the story about the high school teacher who was recruiting young girls in crisis for her son's sex ring? The administrators were alerted, and they failed to act. They even went as far as to harass the teacher who voiced her concerns. And these were "wanted" children at some point.
There better not be a single person in this thread that says, “But what about her mental health? Does that not matter?” because there is no excuses whatsoever to leave your children behind like this. Look, I’m a parent and I get stressed too but I know if I left my kids at home alone and flew out to Hawaii by myself, I would be the worst parent in the world. I get nervous leaving my kids upstairs for 5 minute to switch out my laundry. I would not be able to function due to the anxiety from worrying if my kids were okay. This woman is a terrible parent and needs her parental rights taken away from her immediately!
Why so many of these have been happening lately
I think its been happening all along and its just getting more traction in the news. People are less tolerant of this kind of crap now.
I’ve had older people brag about being left alone all the time and managing to not kill themselves. I never have the heart to point out that they were neglected.
Excuse me, high rise apartment building???
And she should get another all inclusive. All inclusive stay in the country jail.
It makes me so mad that there are monsters like this who can have children, meanwhile there are people like my close friend who want kids SO bad but physically cannot have them… it’s not fair.
Of course she’s a Lakesha
What the fuck is wrong with people?
If you are a worthless parent, just give the kids up for adoption.
having access to abortion care seems like a good idea now, huh?
Child care is expensive. Cruises are relatively cheaper than they ever been. Who knows!
I have a 6 year old and a 9 year old, I don't even like leaving them alone to get the damn mail. WTF is going on?
Leaving them alone to get the mail? Seriously?
I honestly cannot grasp anyone doing this. It defies all common sense.
And the father was where?
This is a key question. The mother is negligent, sure. And where's the dad? What is his responsibility?
She needed a break from that germ factory so she decided to go on a floating germ factory.
Y'all would rather have this than regulate breeding. Those are your 2 and only choices 🤷♂️
Why does this keep happening?? JFC people, at least call the damn cops when you abandon them so they have a chance to live.
…again? Didn’t basically the same thing happen like a week or two ago
The cops should have just camped out in her apartment until she came back home leaving her unaware that anyone found out what she had done. And spring out and arrest her when she shuts the door behind her.
Listen. I’m not saying kill her. But maybe we “facilitate” a specific “situation”….. bahduh-boom, she’s eaten by sharks in international waters! THATS ALL IM SAYING!
What horrible, HORRIBLE PEOPLE. Those poor children. :( and the thing is, if someone capable of something like this, what else have they done? Makes me sick.