Dax Tejera’s widow’s arrest for child endangerment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It is all just so unfortunate and the optics are bad. This is not a single mother on WIC. I can’t imagine the guilt compounded by the media dog-pile; they were both neglectful parents, but one is dead and he has the benefit of being male. It is important to separate the two events. She didn’t kill her husband and the Universe wasn’t punishing her for being a crappy MOM; however much the masses enjoy a tidy retribution story.

How are the optics bad? Rich couple staying in a fancy hotel in NYC could easily have afforded a babysitter and chosen instead to not only leave the kids in a hotel but one a block away. This is pure neglect and she should be criminally charged and found guilty. If she were poor, or of color or someone else, those kids would never go back to her and be placed for adoption.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Room service exists for a reason.

As a Yale grad who has been there many times, the Yale Club NYC has restaurants and room service. I suspect the staff would help members arrange a babysitter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is all just so unfortunate and the optics are bad. This is not a single mother on WIC. I can’t imagine the guilt compounded by the media dog-pile; they were both neglectful parents, but one is dead and he has the benefit of being male. It is important to separate the two events. She didn’t kill her husband and the Universe wasn’t punishing her for being a crappy MOM; however much the masses enjoy a tidy retribution story.

How are the optics bad? Rich couple staying in a fancy hotel in NYC could easily have afforded a babysitter and chosen instead to not only leave the kids in a hotel but one a block away. This is pure neglect and she should be criminally charged and found guilty. If she were poor, or of color or someone else, those kids would never go back to her and be placed for adoption.

Your point is valid. However, no chance that the kids would be taken away and put up for adoption whether poor or not. Takes a lot to lose custody. A lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is all just so unfortunate and the optics are bad. This is not a single mother on WIC. I can’t imagine the guilt compounded by the media dog-pile; they were both neglectful parents, but one is dead and he has the benefit of being male. It is important to separate the two events. She didn’t kill her husband and the Universe wasn’t punishing her for being a crappy MOM; however much the masses enjoy a tidy retribution story.

How are the optics bad? Rich couple staying in a fancy hotel in NYC could easily have afforded a babysitter and chosen instead to not only leave the kids in a hotel but one a block away. This is pure neglect and she should be criminally charged and found guilty. If she were poor, or of color or someone else, those kids would never go back to her and be placed for adoption.

Your point is valid. However, no chance that the kids would be taken away and put up for adoption whether poor or not. Takes a lot to lose custody. A lot.

yes, they would be.

[Anonymous]

No. Not put up for adoption. For leaving kids in a hotel room. Nope. Maybe lose custody temporarily. But not terminating her rights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone want to bet that they were out for more than dinner? Someone his age generally doesn't have a heart attack without a stimulant involved.

This seems like defamatory speculation. He was middle aged. Yes, he’s middle aged - men live to their late 70s on average. Cardiac deaths in middle age are actually fairly common. Heart disease can lurk behind the facade of a very fit man - just look at the soccer reporter of similar age who died suddenly during the World Cup due to the dissection of a weakened artery. Heart disease is scary precisely because it can strike seemingly fit people and can hide behind decent numbers and lab results.

Cherish your life. Any one of us middle aged women is one heartbeat away from sudden cardiac death, with nothing more exciting on our agenda than herb tea and a good novel. Judge not.

When you are one heartbeat away from death, all the more reason to not leave a 5 month old and a 2 year old alone in a hotel room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is all just so unfortunate and the optics are bad. This is not a single mother on WIC. I can’t imagine the guilt compounded by the media dog-pile; they were both neglectful parents, but one is dead and he has the benefit of being male. It is important to separate the two events. She didn’t kill her husband and the Universe wasn’t punishing her for being a crappy MOM; however much the masses enjoy a tidy retribution story.

How are the optics bad? Rich couple staying in a fancy hotel in NYC could easily have afforded a babysitter and chosen instead to not only leave the kids in a hotel but one a block away. This is pure neglect and she should be criminally charged and found guilty. If she were poor, or of color or someone else, those kids would never go back to her and be placed for adoption.

Your point is valid. However, no chance that the kids would be taken away and put up for adoption whether poor or not. Takes a lot to lose custody. A lot.

yes, they would be.

Oh grow up you are full of nonsense. I am a former states attorney who handled hundreds of dependency neglect cases and knows the system and the uniform laws that most states follow up down and inside out. It takes YEARS to terminate parental rights and place children out for adoption, with extensive a services and interventions required along the way to establish reunification attempts have been thoroughly exhausted. But most relevant, it is very unlikely a child would be removed for any length of time (a short term removal for investigation might occur) for this reason. Leaving young children unattended is sadly a far too common behavior of parents of all income brackets and education levels. Some parents are stunningly selfish and stupid about the psychological needs of very young children, like how a toddler waking up alone in a hotel room unable to find her parents could suffer an abandonment wound that she struggles for years to recover from. But that kind of commonplace neglect/abuse would clog the system if every parent was held accountable.

[Anonymous]

She's mad because she got caught when her husband died. There was no way to cover up what she did.

Sounds like she did this before and would have continued to do it had she not been caught.

She's hoping to use the 'tragedy' to get a light sentence, even though her crime occured before the death.

What if they both got hit by a car walking back to the hotel? What if they became intoxicated?

I doubt she could carry a conversation and eat at the same time while glued to the monitor.

So easy to arrange childcare.

Now she has a go fund me she doesn't need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is all just so unfortunate and the optics are bad. This is not a single mother on WIC. I can’t imagine the guilt compounded by the media dog-pile; they were both neglectful parents, but one is dead and he has the benefit of being male. It is important to separate the two events. She didn’t kill her husband and the Universe wasn’t punishing her for being a crappy MOM; however much the masses enjoy a tidy retribution story.

How are the optics bad? Rich couple staying in a fancy hotel in NYC could easily have afforded a babysitter and chosen instead to not only leave the kids in a hotel but one a block away. This is pure neglect and she should be criminally charged and found guilty. If she were poor, or of color or someone else, those kids would never go back to her and be placed for adoption.

Your point is valid. However, no chance that the kids would be taken away and put up for adoption whether poor or not. Takes a lot to lose custody. A lot.

yes, they would be.

Oh grow up you are full of nonsense. I am a former states attorney who handled hundreds of dependency neglect cases and knows the system and the uniform laws that most states follow up down and inside out. It takes YEARS to terminate parental rights and place children out for adoption, with extensive a services and interventions required along the way to establish reunification attempts have been thoroughly exhausted. But most relevant, it is very unlikely a child would be removed for any length of time (a short term removal for investigation might occur) for this reason. Leaving young children unattended is sadly a far too common behavior of parents of all income brackets and education levels. Some parents are stunningly selfish and stupid about the psychological needs of very young children, like how a toddler waking up alone in a hotel room unable to find her parents could suffer an abandonment wound that she struggles for years to recover from. But that kind of commonplace neglect/abuse would clog the system if every parent was held accountable.

Everything you write is true but I’ll just point out “the system” doesn’t have much of an alternative for placing children even if the parents ought to be “held accountable.” Foster care is often worse than neglectful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly why most of us would never leave our sleeping toddler and infant alone for a couple hours. 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.

I live alone with my dog. A friend and I have a nightly check-in and a key to each other's house. Neither of us wants our pet starving because something happened to us.
People have accidents and medical emergencies every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does a camera help if you see your child choking or see an intruder? And if you're enjoying dinner with friends, are you really watching the camera? Scary.

NP. Agree, a camera is useless if a child is in imminent danger and you're not near enough to do anything.

The circumstances -- of the issue with the children, totally apart from Tejera's tragic death -- remind me of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. He parentsr left her (age 3) and her 2-year-old twin siblings alone in a rented apartment while the parents went out to dinner. The restaurant was only 180 feet from the ground floor apartment and supposedly the parents checked on the kids in person at some, or several, points, but she was kidnapped by someone who entered the apartment while the parents were at dinner, and she has never been found.

You just don't leave young children alone like that. Even if you're just feet away. Socializing and dining, which is going to distract you no matter how much you check in via camera or in person.

At first I thought for sure that Tejera's widow must have been with the kids and frantically rushed out in a total and understandable panic, leaving them. But knowing that both parents chose this setup with no thought for fire, choking, the thousand other things a young kid can get into--wow, that gobsmacks me.

+ 1 And no time wasted (being prostrate with grief)before asking for contributions to the kid’s 529 plan.

She's too busy to save for college... she has fancy trips and hotels as the priority.

Plus shopping trips to Hermès, Channel, Louis Vuitton, etc. On their instagram, they were posing with their shopping bags in Miami. These two ivy grads seem to have a history of very poor judgment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:True story. This happened about three years ago in a hotel in maryland.

Around midnight I heard a toddler crying in the hallway. He was still crying “mommy” after a minute or so. I looked out the peephole and he was trying the handles on various rooms.

I went to the hallway and he came to me crying.

I carried him to the lobby and there were his parents partying.

The thing is that it was 20 degrees out and we were on the first floor near an exit door that locked from outside.

If that poor child had walked out that door into the cold at midnight he would be dead.

Mom wasn’t even that embarrassed.

I still think of that little boy and wish I had called the cops.

My husband had a similar experience; hotel in Boston about 5 years ago, he encounters a toddler, alone, in a diaper, pacifier in mouth, walking down the hotel hallway alone at about 10 pm. No parent in site. He called security,they found the father....he fell asleep in the hotel room and apparently the child got out. How exactly is beyond me but it was crazy and chilled me to the bone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is all just so unfortunate and the optics are bad. This is not a single mother on WIC. I can’t imagine the guilt compounded by the media dog-pile; they were both neglectful parents, but one is dead and he has the benefit of being male. It is important to separate the two events. She didn’t kill her husband and the Universe wasn’t punishing her for being a crappy MOM; however much the masses enjoy a tidy retribution story.

How are the optics bad? Rich couple staying in a fancy hotel in NYC could easily have afforded a babysitter and chosen instead to not only leave the kids in a hotel but one a block away. This is pure neglect and she should be criminally charged and found guilty. If she were poor, or of color or someone else, those kids would never go back to her and be placed for adoption.

Your point is valid. However, no chance that the kids would be taken away and put up for adoption whether poor or not. Takes a lot to lose custody. A lot.

yes, they would be.

Oh grow up you are full of nonsense. I am a former states attorney who handled hundreds of dependency neglect cases and knows the system and the uniform laws that most states follow up down and inside out. It takes YEARS to terminate parental rights and place children out for adoption, with extensive a services and interventions required along the way to establish reunification attempts have been thoroughly exhausted. But most relevant, it is very unlikely a child would be removed for any length of time (a short term removal for investigation might occur) for this reason. Leaving young children unattended is sadly a far too common behavior of parents of all income brackets and education levels. Some parents are stunningly selfish and stupid about the psychological needs of very young children, like how a toddler waking up alone in a hotel room unable to find her parents could suffer an abandonment wound that she struggles for years to recover from. But that kind of commonplace neglect/abuse would clog the system if every parent was held accountable.

Everything you write is true but I’ll just point out “the system” doesn’t have much of an alternative for placing children even if the parents ought to be “held accountable.” Foster care is often worse than neglectful.

I absolutely agree, foster care is no panacea. As a society I hope someday we will see the value in teaching child development in public schools as required curriculum, not because all kids will be parents someday but because most people interact with children and all of us have been children so that education could go a long way toward educating us out of some common forms of parental abuse and also help abuse victims learn that they are not responsible for how they’ve been treated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Not true at all. Have you been there? It’s essentially a bustling medium sized nyc hotel (shared rights to a few other schools, too). The number of staff that have room keys would be high. If you’re a block away from your house that’s a lot further than a different floor, and I’ve got to assume that an unknown number of strangers don’t have keys to your house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is all just so unfortunate and the optics are bad. This is not a single mother on WIC. I can’t imagine the guilt compounded by the media dog-pile; they were both neglectful parents, but one is dead and he has the benefit of being male. It is important to separate the two events. She didn’t kill her husband and the Universe wasn’t punishing her for being a crappy MOM; however much the masses enjoy a tidy retribution story.

How are the optics bad? Rich couple staying in a fancy hotel in NYC could easily have afforded a babysitter and chosen instead to not only leave the kids in a hotel but one a block away. This is pure neglect and she should be criminally charged and found guilty. If she were poor, or of color or someone else, those kids would never go back to her and be placed for adoption.

Your point is valid. However, no chance that the kids would be taken away and put up for adoption whether poor or not. Takes a lot to lose custody. A lot.

yes, they would be.

Oh grow up you are full of nonsense. I am a former states attorney who handled hundreds of dependency neglect cases and knows the system and the uniform laws that most states follow up down and inside out. It takes YEARS to terminate parental rights and place children out for adoption, with extensive a services and interventions required along the way to establish reunification attempts have been thoroughly exhausted. But most relevant, it is very unlikely a child would be removed for any length of time (a short term removal for investigation might occur) for this reason. Leaving young children unattended is sadly a far too common behavior of parents of all income brackets and education levels. Some parents are stunningly selfish and stupid about the psychological needs of very young children, like how a toddler waking up alone in a hotel room unable to find her parents could suffer an abandonment wound that she struggles for years to recover from. But that kind of commonplace neglect/abuse would clog the system if every parent was held accountable.

And, I was a foster care worker who put up multiple kids for adoption, especially in these situations. They will get off with a good attorney and they are rich but parents lose their kids all the time. This is really serious. This is serious neglect.