Dax Tejera’s widow’s arrest for child endangerment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If her sister was able to get there so quickly, why wasn’t she babysitting them then? I don’t get it.

Maybe the sister doesn't want to be their babysitter ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If her sister was able to get there so quickly, why wasn’t she babysitting them then? I don’t get it.

I live 15 minutes from my sister in law. If she called me tonight and said she wanted to go out for dinner could I watch her baby, I’d say no. I have a work deadline, my teenager wants homework help, and I had a recent Covid exposure. If she called and said they were putting my BIL in an ambulance? I’d break the speed limit and be there in 12 minutes.

The fact that family was close in an emergency is great but it doesn’t mean they were eager to babysit. Room service or a babysitter are better solutions.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Everything in life involves risk, and I agree that the risk here was very small. But leaving your children alone while you're having dinner 4 blocks away is a completely UNNECESSARY risk. You don't put your pleasure before the welfare of your small children. There were a dozen better solutions to the situation that would not have left the children exposed to a potentially dangerous or frightening situation.

I'm the poster who is, I don't know I wouldn't call it defending them but don't think the kids were in danger. I read it was ONE block away. My opinion would actually change if it was four blocks away. I was thinking like, this is a hotel and the restaurant is on the corner, like .1 miles away. Not multiple city blocks.

One block. Plus a large hotel lobby, a ride (or walk up stairs) who knows how many floors. Down corridors. This isn't a one-minute stroll away or even a five-minute stroll. And do you have any idea how long walking along "one block" of sidewalk in Manhattan can take, depending on where you are?

You also ignore the fact that in a hotel, many people can easily access rooms. Staff and anyone to whom staff gives a key, or who takes advantage of staff just being careless.

But those of you trying to defend being out of the building while an infant and toddler are alone in a room just won't be convinced this is a terrible idea no matter how much the rest of us explain this to you.

Oh, and what is the magical reason for "four blocks" being your tipping point to think this is wrong? Why not two or three blocks? You're just blathering to defend the idea that it's fine to leave young children in a strange place. And please, don't try to say, "The parents could call the hotel and ask someone to check on the kids if the camera showed a problem." Sure they could! And that would out the parents as having left the kids there, because any decent hotel is likely to tell the cops, or at a minimum, staff will talk about this and let it get around. With people of some public profile like this couple, they wouldn't have phoned the hotel -- they'd know it would look terrible and would get out.

You also missed that the mother told her relatives to go to the hotel and get the kids and the hotel would not admit them to the room. The hotel was in the right there, too. No way to know that these strangers turning up were actually who they claimed they were.

But you just go on, defending the decision to leave kids in a building where no one knows they're there except adults who are much more than a one-minute walk away. The whole "you can't live life in a bubble! You can't worry about what might not happen!" crowd can call the rest of us paranoid blah blah. But it only takes one time. Only one, and there's no going back or fixing things beause you just HAD to...go out to a restaurant.

So well said. I cannot believe anyone is defending this decision that is illegal, irresponsible, and such callous parenting. Wow.

+1 I'm truly appalled at the indifference to children's safety...for a meal out. What are these people thinking?!

If this were a black working woman who left her kids to go get groceries after working a 12 hour shift, people would be all over her.

I'm the pp people are mad at for again, not defending them but not thinking this is awful and I absolutely would not be all over her. I think we hold parents to absurd standards in the name of removing every possible risk that makes life impossible for people. And that we should be generally kinder and more understanding of people who are really trying their best.

No one is “trying their best” by leaving their children alone in a hotel while they are a block away eating dinner. That is simply not giving a f*ck. Plain and simple.

These are not struggling single parents, they don't get a pass for a non-essential evening out when they can surely afford a babysitter or nanny.

I did not leave my child in my apartment alone to go to the laundry room in the same building and even that was often a struggle.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the piling on is unnecessary. Not to mention hypocritical. Even if you would never or have never done what she did, I'm sure you have done SOMETHING that you're not proud of, or that could have endangered your kid but with a little luck did not.

You people are gross.

Wrong. It is necessary and the evidence is all the people who also think what these people did is no big deal and who are saying they would pretty much do the same thing. Those people need to know the reasons they shouldn't do it, how others view this, and hopefully learn something and possibly a child's safety will not be so cavalierly put at risk as a result.

+1 Thank you

[Anonymous]

Will she lose custody of her children? That would be hard to lose both your husband and your children, but what she did was inexcusable.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is crazy! You don’t leave your young kids/babies in a hotel room by themselves so you can go out for dinner. There are no excuses for this! It was a stupid and careless parenting decision.

I wouldn't do this because I'd be stressed the whole time about something like this happening but honestly I don't think that badly of her. They were a block away from the hotel and had cameras on the kids. They were not in any danger if they were asleep and not in any more danger then they'd be in their own home on another floor.

No sorry being a block away in a whole other building while your kids are presumably several floors up is not at all the same as different part of the house. Not at all.

How quickly could you get to them in a fire? How many hotel staff have keys to that room? What if they get sick and the building elevators aren’t working? It’s just a huge amount of response time required to get back versus walking upstairs in your own house.

The only one of these things that is actually concerning is the fire. And while its concerning, there are plenty of situations where my kids are far enough away from me where if a fire spontaneously broke out I wouldn't be able to get to them. Normal situations. I don't live my life taking extreme precautions based on highly unlikely outcomes. I understand some people think this is insane but honestly they have a camera on them and I imagine they could, if running, be back to the room in 3 minutes. And the stairs work even if the elevator doesn't. No kid is harmed from crying for a few minutes. And if they get sick (suddenly?!) in such a dramatic fashion that would alert me if I was in the room, like vomiting I guess? Then that would be evident on camera. But honestly my 3/5/7 year old are DEAD TO THE WORLD when they fall asleep. I could 100% leave the house to go run an errand and have no one be the wiser and no one endangered.

I do think leaving the hotel is a little much but if they were eating in the hotel restaurant would people be saying this? I dunno I just can't get onboard with demonizing this they were close and had a camera.

You need to read the details about Madeleine McCann. Ground floor apartment, parents only 180 feet away, checked on the kids supposedly more than once in person. It still ended horribly.

And before you insist that it's super rare for a stranger to abduct a child like that: Do you really not comprehend that on a camera set up in some random hotel room or apartment, you would NOT necessarily be aware f your child were vomiting, for instance? A young child might cry if he vomited...but of course you insist that "no kid is harmed from crying for few minutes" so you'd be at dinner, waiting to see if your kid would just cry it out and go back to sleep....

And who "could, if running, be back to the room in 3 minutes"? From down the block and maybe multiple stories to climb on those handy stairs you reference? Even if the elevator's working it'll be more than three minutes.

As for "my kids are dead to the world when they fall asleep," well, in a strange environment with unusual noises around, like a hotel, hooray for you if that's true. It won't always be true and you cannot know if the one time you leave a child alone in a hotel room is the one time the child will wake, wonder where the adults are, go looking for them, etc. By the time you look up from your dinner to check the camera and see them gone, well, you'll have no idea how long they've really been out of bed, maybe out of the room.

You're preening yourself on how "I don't live my life taking extreme precautions based on highly unlikely outcomes." Fine. But read the post at 11:16: The odds that nothing would go wrong are extremely high, but the unexpected does happen sometimes. It would never cross your mind that your young, seemingly healthy husband would just drop dead, but it does happen to some people. It could happen to any of us at any time. You don’t leave your kids alone because even though, most likely, they would be just fine, what if they weren’t? What if something would happen? You just don’t roll the die when it comes to your children’s wellbeing.

Enjoy rolling the die all you want. Most of us wouldn't. It is not paranoid or silly to choose to go out and have fun only when there is an actual responsible adult to care for kids.

I mean it IS super rare. What happened to that girl. And it was in a ground floor apartment not up in a hotel room. It is so rare that that case is notoriously famous as the horrifying example of the time the worst actually happened. A camera will be set up pointed at the kid, thats the whole point of the camera. And a vomiting incident could go unnoticed just as easily if the parents were eating dinner in their own kitchen with a monitor on.

I mean I think you're assuming that if home a parent doesn't let the kid cry. I always let my kid fuss a bit before going up, not for a half hour or anything but a few minutes absolutely they frequently went back to sleep!

The problem with the bolded is that to really live that life you need to live in a bubble. We take risks all the time, humans are terrible at risk evaluation. The kids were likely more at risk driving to the hotel then they were in that room.

DP. Those of you depending so heavily on "the camera will be pointed at the kid" are so, so naive.

So your children never get out of bed on their own? Do you really not think that in a strange place, where they're outside their usual routines and not in their own beds in their own bedrooms, they will just sleep perfectly like logs and not possibly sleep more lightly and maybe get up and get out of bed to look for mom or dad? Yes, even out of a pack and play or crib if they're able. You look up at your precious camera trained on the kid's bed and they're not there. Not in view. What now, geniuses? You can't know if they're just out of frame or in the other room opening the mini bar or in the bathroom exploring the hot water tap that's set for scalding. Oh, but so sorry -- any mention of specific dangers in life frustrates you because you don't like to hear about them and assume that being aware of them means we..."live in a bubble," I guess.

No what I think is that if I am a block away that I could be back in my hotel room in less than 5 minutes if I was properly motivate (IE, running) and that even waking up in a strange place, very little can happen in 5 minutes. Situations that require an immediate response (ie, the incident where being 10 seconds away instead of 300 seconds away) are extraordinarily rare.

You're all mad at me, I have said I wouldn't do this, I just don't agree with you that its dangerous. I think generally it does show bad judgement because while I don't think its dangerous, the consequences of being caught are SEVERE and being caught is not nearly as unlikely as something bad happening. I mean any of the things you describe could happen if I was in the room but asleep. There is no perfect safety situation.

Re: the bold: Your concern, then is that YOU would get caught and be punished. Your concern is not that the behavior is inherently risky toward your own children.

Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Will she lose custody of her children? That would be hard to lose both your husband and your children, but what she did was inexcusable.

Addressed earlier in the thread -- there's a lawyer posting earlier. Likely she would not lose custody over this but might end up with some form of court supervision for a certain period of time. (Not sure about her actually doing jail time or not, but whether or not she does jail time, it seems quite possible a sentence would include some involvement of Child Protective Services or similar, for a designated period.) Full disclosure though, I am not the lawyer!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will she lose custody of her children? That would be hard to lose both your husband and your children, but what she did was inexcusable.

Addressed earlier in the thread -- there's a lawyer posting earlier. Likely she would not lose custody over this but might end up with some form of court supervision for a certain period of time. (Not sure about her actually doing jail time or not, but whether or not she does jail time, it seems quite possible a sentence would include some involvement of Child Protective Services or similar, for a designated period.) Full disclosure though, I am not the lawyer!!

Having worked for CPS she can and absolutely can lose custody of the kids for this. However, she's rich and powerful and will probably find an attorney to get her off. Kids should be place with relatives or in foster care, not with her. This was horrible neglect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She made a poor decision during a moment of great stress. I think she was in the wrong and the charges were warranted but there were mitigating factors such that she should hopefully not serve jail time for this misdemeanor charge. Some may say she had no excuse - should have waited for someone to come to hotel room or taken an Uber with kids to the hospital until someone could come to help watch them.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/abc-news-producer-dax-tejeras-widow-says-she-was-monitoring-her-children-in-nyc-hotel-before-arrest/ar-AA15Uqdg

Did he have heart issues, or he just died suddenly?

[Anonymous]

They clearly were partying left to get more favors which then caused a heart attack for the husband. Nothing about their decisions with respect to their kids speaks to rational and sober thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will she lose custody of her children? That would be hard to lose both your husband and your children, but what she did was inexcusable.

Addressed earlier in the thread -- there's a lawyer posting earlier. Likely she would not lose custody over this but might end up with some form of court supervision for a certain period of time. (Not sure about her actually doing jail time or not, but whether or not she does jail time, it seems quite possible a sentence would include some involvement of Child Protective Services or similar, for a designated period.) Full disclosure though, I am not the lawyer!!

Having worked for CPS she can and absolutely can lose custody of the kids for this. However, she's rich and powerful and will probably find an attorney to get her off. Kids should be place with relatives or in foster care, not with her. This was horrible neglect.

That would be horrible for the kids, who just lost their dad.

[Anonymous]

And her parents were close too!!! So many mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will she lose custody of her children? That would be hard to lose both your husband and your children, but what she did was inexcusable.

Addressed earlier in the thread -- there's a lawyer posting earlier. Likely she would not lose custody over this but might end up with some form of court supervision for a certain period of time. (Not sure about her actually doing jail time or not, but whether or not she does jail time, it seems quite possible a sentence would include some involvement of Child Protective Services or similar, for a designated period.) Full disclosure though, I am not the lawyer!!

Having worked for CPS she can and absolutely can lose custody of the kids for this. However, she's rich and powerful and will probably find an attorney to get her off. Kids should be place with relatives or in foster care, not with her. This was horrible neglect.

That would be horrible for the kids, who just lost their dad.

Yes, it would. Parenting is a very important job requiring much effort and responsible behavior, in addition to love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will she lose custody of her children? That would be hard to lose both your husband and your children, but what she did was inexcusable.

Addressed earlier in the thread -- there's a lawyer posting earlier. Likely she would not lose custody over this but might end up with some form of court supervision for a certain period of time. (Not sure about her actually doing jail time or not, but whether or not she does jail time, it seems quite possible a sentence would include some involvement of Child Protective Services or similar, for a designated period.) Full disclosure though, I am not the lawyer!!

Having worked for CPS she can and absolutely can lose custody of the kids for this. However, she's rich and powerful and will probably find an attorney to get her off. Kids should be place with relatives or in foster care, not with her. This was horrible neglect.

That would be horrible for the kids, who just lost their dad.

And? Life has consequences. These kids could have died or something bad happen.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is crazy! You don’t leave your young kids/babies in a hotel room by themselves so you can go out for dinner. There are no excuses for this! It was a stupid and careless parenting decision.

I wouldn't do this because I'd be stressed the whole time about something like this happening but honestly I don't think that badly of her. They were a block away from the hotel and had cameras on the kids. They were not in any danger if they were asleep and not in any more danger then they'd be in their own home on another floor.

No sorry being a block away in a whole other building while your kids are presumably several floors up is not at all the same as different part of the house. Not at all.

How quickly could you get to them in a fire? How many hotel staff have keys to that room? What if they get sick and the building elevators aren’t working? It’s just a huge amount of response time required to get back versus walking upstairs in your own house.

The only one of these things that is actually concerning is the fire. And while its concerning, there are plenty of situations where my kids are far enough away from me where if a fire spontaneously broke out I wouldn't be able to get to them. Normal situations. I don't live my life taking extreme precautions based on highly unlikely outcomes. I understand some people think this is insane but honestly they have a camera on them and I imagine they could, if running, be back to the room in 3 minutes. And the stairs work even if the elevator doesn't. No kid is harmed from crying for a few minutes. And if they get sick (suddenly?!) in such a dramatic fashion that would alert me if I was in the room, like vomiting I guess? Then that would be evident on camera. But honestly my 3/5/7 year old are DEAD TO THE WORLD when they fall asleep. I could 100% leave the house to go run an errand and have no one be the wiser and no one endangered.

I do think leaving the hotel is a little much but if they were eating in the hotel restaurant would people be saying this? I dunno I just can't get onboard with demonizing this they were close and had a camera.

You need to read the details about Madeleine McCann. Ground floor apartment, parents only 180 feet away, checked on the kids supposedly more than once in person. It still ended horribly.

And before you insist that it's super rare for a stranger to abduct a child like that: Do you really not comprehend that on a camera set up in some random hotel room or apartment, you would NOT necessarily be aware f your child were vomiting, for instance? A young child might cry if he vomited...but of course you insist that "no kid is harmed from crying for few minutes" so you'd be at dinner, waiting to see if your kid would just cry it out and go back to sleep....

And who "could, if running, be back to the room in 3 minutes"? From down the block and maybe multiple stories to climb on those handy stairs you reference? Even if the elevator's working it'll be more than three minutes.

As for "my kids are dead to the world when they fall asleep," well, in a strange environment with unusual noises around, like a hotel, hooray for you if that's true. It won't always be true and you cannot know if the one time you leave a child alone in a hotel room is the one time the child will wake, wonder where the adults are, go looking for them, etc. By the time you look up from your dinner to check the camera and see them gone, well, you'll have no idea how long they've really been out of bed, maybe out of the room.

You're preening yourself on how "I don't live my life taking extreme precautions based on highly unlikely outcomes." Fine. But read the post at 11:16: The odds that nothing would go wrong are extremely high, but the unexpected does happen sometimes. It would never cross your mind that your young, seemingly healthy husband would just drop dead, but it does happen to some people. It could happen to any of us at any time. You don’t leave your kids alone because even though, most likely, they would be just fine, what if they weren’t? What if something would happen? You just don’t roll the die when it comes to your children’s wellbeing.

Enjoy rolling the die all you want. Most of us wouldn't. It is not paranoid or silly to choose to go out and have fun only when there is an actual responsible adult to care for kids.

I mean it IS super rare. What happened to that girl. And it was in a ground floor apartment not up in a hotel room. It is so rare that that case is notoriously famous as the horrifying example of the time the worst actually happened. A camera will be set up pointed at the kid, thats the whole point of the camera. And a vomiting incident could go unnoticed just as easily if the parents were eating dinner in their own kitchen with a monitor on.

I mean I think you're assuming that if home a parent doesn't let the kid cry. I always let my kid fuss a bit before going up, not for a half hour or anything but a few minutes absolutely they frequently went back to sleep!

The problem with the bolded is that to really live that life you need to live in a bubble. We take risks all the time, humans are terrible at risk evaluation. The kids were likely more at risk driving to the hotel then they were in that room.

DP. Those of you depending so heavily on "the camera will be pointed at the kid" are so, so naive.

So your children never get out of bed on their own? Do you really not think that in a strange place, where they're outside their usual routines and not in their own beds in their own bedrooms, they will just sleep perfectly like logs and not possibly sleep more lightly and maybe get up and get out of bed to look for mom or dad? Yes, even out of a pack and play or crib if they're able. You look up at your precious camera trained on the kid's bed and they're not there. Not in view. What now, geniuses? You can't know if they're just out of frame or in the other room opening the mini bar or in the bathroom exploring the hot water tap that's set for scalding. Oh, but so sorry -- any mention of specific dangers in life frustrates you because you don't like to hear about them and assume that being aware of them means we..."live in a bubble," I guess.

When my oldest was between 2-3 we were traveling and I woke before she did. I decided to make a run out to the car with my suitcase. I was gone maybe 3 to 4 minutes. When I came back she was sobbing in the hallway and an older couple was trying to calm her down. She clearly woke up and tried to find me. It was scary as hell.