Story on twins who died in toy chest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They sound pretty neglectful as parents. She comes home after they are all asleep and doesn't wake up until long after they do? The older ones played outside alone before she woke up? And no one checked on the twins? Why does she never mention the dad again? There is no way, even if they do often wake up during the night, that they accidentally fell asleep in a hard wooden box.

This is a classist response. She's a restaurant manager. She may get home quite late and Dad does bedtime and mornings.

DP. I understand where you’re coming from but I don’t think it’s classist. We have to have general parenting standards regardless of income/occupation.

I do think it highlights a grey area of parenting of what constitutes neglect. Let’s say dad leaves at 7 am, kids typically get up after that and play by themselves until mom gets up at 9 am. Is that neglect? 4 year old twins absolutely need supervision. OTOH, I’ve taken the odd catnap while my children were playing quietly. Presumably mom would’ve gotten up immediately if she’d heard anything.

I personally don’t think it was neglectful per se. Just an unfortunate decision that led to a horrible ending.

No wonder us parents are so burned out when you can’t leave your children for a second.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a freak accident.

https://people.com/4-year-old-twins-die-toy-chest-shut-while-they-were-sleeping-mom-says-7965695

Sounds more like the parents just haven’t been charged yet.

“We are working with our partners at the Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the cause of death," police added. "At this time, we don’t know if this is an accident or if foul play is involved.” No charges have been filed as of Tuesday.”

There is something not right about this story. Or a “sound proof” cedar chest.

I agree. Something is off here.

The mother’s quotes in People seem suspicious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom's story about how they ended up in the chest which somehow closed while they were sleeping doesn't make any sense to me.

+1

I feel like the dad was watching them and they were wound up and wanted them to sleep so pop them Advil/Benadryl or something like that. They had a bad reaction and it was too late when he found them.

Advil does not kill children or make them drowsy. Good lord.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They sound pretty neglectful as parents. She comes home after they are all asleep and doesn't wake up until long after they do? The older ones played outside alone before she woke up? And no one checked on the twins? Why does she never mention the dad again? There is no way, even if they do often wake up during the night, that they accidentally fell asleep in a hard wooden box.

This is a classist response. She's a restaurant manager. She may get home quite late and Dad does bedtime and mornings.

DP. I understand where you’re coming from but I don’t think it’s classist. We have to have general parenting standards regardless of income/occupation.

I do think it highlights a grey area of parenting of what constitutes neglect. Let’s say dad leaves at 7 am, kids typically get up after that and play by themselves until mom gets up at 9 am. Is that neglect? 4 year old twins absolutely need supervision. OTOH, I’ve taken the odd catnap while my children were playing quietly. Presumably mom would’ve gotten up immediately if she’d heard anything.

I personally don’t think it was neglectful per se. Just an unfortunate decision that led to a horrible ending.

No wonder us parents are so burned out when you can’t leave your children for a second.

She said in her Facebook post that Don went to look for them, so I figured he was around and in charge while she was sleeping, which is not neglectful (by her anyway). This sentence, "She comes home after they are all asleep and doesn't wake up until long after they do?" puts blame on the mom for her schedule, which is not fair and implies people shouldn't have the kind of job that has those hours, which still feels classist to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They sound pretty neglectful as parents. She comes home after they are all asleep and doesn't wake up until long after they do? The older ones played outside alone before she woke up? And no one checked on the twins? Why does she never mention the dad again? There is no way, even if they do often wake up during the night, that they accidentally fell asleep in a hard wooden box.

This is a classist response. She's a restaurant manager. She may get home quite late and Dad does bedtime and mornings.

+1 if you read her entire post, she came home late because she is a shift worker. So she also needs to sleep later. This is a common set up for parents that work shifts so that everyone can function. Dad puts kids to bed, Mom peeks in when she gets in after her shift, then goes to sleep. Dad was outside with older kids while they played in the morning, thought twins hadn't woken yet.

We don't know everything yet, but I agree that implying that she is at all neglectful for working shift work just because it doesn't line up with how your life is, definitely feels classist and judgemental.

[Anonymous]

We only have their word that either parent ever checked on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They sound pretty neglectful as parents. She comes home after they are all asleep and doesn't wake up until long after they do? The older ones played outside alone before she woke up? And no one checked on the twins? Why does she never mention the dad again? There is no way, even if they do often wake up during the night, that they accidentally fell asleep in a hard wooden box.

This is a classist response. She's a restaurant manager. She may get home quite late and Dad does bedtime and mornings.

DP. I understand where you’re coming from but I don’t think it’s classist. We have to have general parenting standards regardless of income/occupation.

I do think it highlights a grey area of parenting of what constitutes neglect. Let’s say dad leaves at 7 am, kids typically get up after that and play by themselves until mom gets up at 9 am. Is that neglect? 4 year old twins absolutely need supervision. OTOH, I’ve taken the odd catnap while my children were playing quietly. Presumably mom would’ve gotten up immediately if she’d heard anything.

I personally don’t think it was neglectful per se. Just an unfortunate decision that led to a horrible ending.

No wonder us parents are so burned out when you can’t leave your children for a second.

She said in her Facebook post that Don went to look for them, so I figured he was around and in charge while she was sleeping, which is not neglectful (by her anyway). This sentence, "She comes home after they are all asleep and doesn't wake up until long after they do?" puts blame on the mom for her schedule, which is not fair and implies people shouldn't have the kind of job that has those hours, which still feels classist to me.

PP. Got it, fair point. I was missing the context.

[Anonymous]

Tif children weren't with me when I went out then the first thing I did when returning home was to check in them. I dare say 99.99 % of children meet parents at the door so if they didn't then I would want to know why. 99.99% of mothers also look in in sleeping children.

Story makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Drill holes in any chest like that you have in the house.

You also want to make sure you have any locking mechanisms taken out from chests like that. Many of the older ones have locks of some sort since they were meant to store valuables.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you really not know when you're running out of oxygen if you're asleep? It's not the kind of thing where your body would wake you up bc something is wrong?

This story is freaking me out on multiple levels.

No, you can just die without ever waking up. That's why carbon monoxide poisoning is so dangerous. A person who is sleeping is unlikely to have their body register any of the symptoms and they just die without ever waking up.

[Anonymous]

This story is fishy.

First, that FB post is bananas, reads like a classic liar narrative where the liar embellishes with insane details.

And the story is that the dad and older kids got up on a Friday morning and went outside to play? And the dad never checked on the preschoolers? Who were known to get up and play during the night?

WTF? My kids are teenagers and when I get up before them, I peep into their rooms before heading downstairs. But, with preschoolers, who doesn’t check them?

Also—it was a Friday, the older kids were back in school—so why were they playing outside instead of getting ready and going to school? If the late shift working mom was a late riser, certainly the older kids would have been well into their morning routine, if not already at school.

And who wakes up with their kids and immediately runs outside, no one was eating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tif children weren't with me when I went out then the first thing I did when returning home was to check in them. I dare say 99.99 % of children meet parents at the door so if they didn't then I would want to know why. 99.99% of mothers also look in in sleeping children.

Story makes no sense.

Children meet parents at the door? Say what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tif children weren't with me when I went out then the first thing I did when returning home was to check in them. I dare say 99.99 % of children meet parents at the door so if they didn't then I would want to know why. 99.99% of mothers also look in in sleeping children.

Story makes no sense.

I'm a wonderful mom. I don't check on sleeping children. Checking on my kids woke them up so much and then they couldn't go back to sleep so I stopped doing it. For one of my kids, just cracking the door open wakes him up. I always had video cameras when they were little, but the time they were 4/5 like these twins, I didn't use video cameras anymore.

My oldest kids are 5 and 7 and they often wake up before us. They color or do puzzles for about an hour until we wake up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tif children weren't with me when I went out then the first thing I did when returning home was to check in them. I dare say 99.99 % of children meet parents at the door so if they didn't then I would want to know why. 99.99% of mothers also look in in sleeping children.

Story makes no sense.

Your children stay awake till midnight?

[Anonymous]

It seems so weird to me because I have heard of children getting caught like by their neck when heavy lids on toy boxes close, But I've never heard of a kid's suffocating in a wooden box.