Anonymous wrote:I forget where I read it, but I read that back in the day, like pioneering times - they used to just tie toddlers to a post outside while the parents went to work out in the fields. Point being, we've come a long way.

1. Lots of kids died then anyway -- cost of doing business, just have to have more.
2. If you didn't work in the fields, then everybody starved including the kid.

An old friend of mine was about 18 months old when her mom had to go out for the afternoon. She left her at home with her dad who wanted to fix some tiles on the roof, so he took his kid, my friend, up to the roof and nailed her clothes to the roof so she was stuck there, and in his mind safe, while he fixed what needed fixing.

The mother came home, saw this and promptly started divorce proceedings.

When I was 1, my mom tied a bottle of apple juice in my crib, because she said I wouldn't fall asleep without it. I had to get every one of my teeth crowned at 2 years old, because they all rotted. I had to go under anesthesia and was at the hospital for several days.

My dad sprayed raid all over our house to kill the cockroaches, when I was a crawling infant. My mom found me chewing on a dead raided cockroach one day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom left me at Ben Franklin once. I was about 5 or 6, and I was looking at model car kits while she bought whatever she was there to buy. Eventually I went to find her and realized she wasn't in the store. I told the cashier, who called my house and talked to my mom. The best part is that the cashier volunteered to drive me home when her shift ended instead of my mom driving back to the store. I remember that it wasn't very long, so she was probably about to get off anyway. So I got to hang out and keep looking at model cars, and then some stranger lady drove me to my house.

I can't imagine that "happy ending" scenario happening today. My mom says she just forgot that she had brought me with her that day. If that happened now, the parent would probably be investigated, and no way some random store employee could be driving the kid home!

You know, I really think we've gone overboard today. Everyone makes mistakes, and the climate we have today is that you have to be hyper-hyper alert that you never let your guard down or do anything anyone could even remotely perceive as negligent, or you'll have your kids taken away. I'm not talking about the wine-tasting-leave-the-kids-in-the-freezing-car parents, but rather people who leave a sleeping baby in a carseat to walk to a mailbox within sight of the car.

Negligence is bad but so is the overly vigilant "guilty until proven innocent" environment we parent in today. And I say this as someone who diligently wakes up her kids and hauls them out of the carseats every single time.

ITA. The state is too powerful in this area.

I posted this before. (Fairly recently) A neighbor called and successfully reported to DSS that another neighbor's elementary aged child was bike riding outside (in the child's own driveway) without a helmet. Apparently, DSS has to investigate every call they receive. I know the family (very kind, keep to themselves, but very powerful), saw the report first hand, and can't imagine what that neighbor has coming to them.

Things have really gotten out of hand, with respect to child rearing, (especially when off kilter holier than thous with a personality disorder get involved).

There has to be some happy medium. I have to admit, a couple of these stories (not the abusive ones, of course) are funny.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We immigrated here from South Asia when I was 6, so lots of crazy things, but my favorite one was not allowing me to sleep over at my white friends' houses because "if there was a fire, the parents would save the white children first" WTF

Lol. That's awesome!

I'm still laughing at this one too! (And the dramamine story, but I feel bad for laughing at that one.)

Anonymous wrote:My divorced dad would take us to bars with him at night and then after drive home drunk. soooo scary!!!! Lots of crazy stuff he's done.

I'm the oldest and I still remember the days when my Dad was an alcoholic. Fortunately, he quit the bottle when I was around 8 years old, but I remember so much crap he did:

-He would ask me for my piggy bank and use the money I saved to buy booze. He'd always tell me that he needed it for groceries, but it was my mom cut him off from the bank account.
-He would take me along to bars. He would have a few drinks with the local lushes and I'd sit in the corner and draw in my coloring books. These were seedy Los Angeles dive bars; not the "bar/small plates" establishment you find in walkable, gentrifying neighborhoods. These were no place for children.
-He would often drunk drive.
-When my mom drove him, he often liked to drunkenly howl and shout out the car window.
-He and my mom would get in massive fights. I'd have to step in - as a 7 year-old - to protect my mom or brother from getting hit. For whatever reason, he often held back from hitting me (I think it was because I was his 1st born son).

Living with an alcoholic parent is tough. I drink moderately nowadays, but Dad like to criticize me for it. Whatever.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom left me at Ben Franklin once. I was about 5 or 6, and I was looking at model car kits while she bought whatever she was there to buy. Eventually I went to find her and realized she wasn't in the store. I told the cashier, who called my house and talked to my mom. The best part is that the cashier volunteered to drive me home when her shift ended instead of my mom driving back to the store. I remember that it wasn't very long, so she was probably about to get off anyway. So I got to hang out and keep looking at model cars, and then some stranger lady drove me to my house.

I can't imagine that "happy ending" scenario happening today. My mom says she just forgot that she had brought me with her that day. If that happened now, the parent would probably be investigated, and no way some random store employee could be driving the kid home!

You know, I really think we've gone overboard today. Everyone makes mistakes, and the climate we have today is that you have to be hyper-hyper alert that you never let your guard down or do anything anyone could even remotely perceive as negligent, or you'll have your kids taken away. I'm not talking about the wine-tasting-leave-the-kids-in-the-freezing-car parents, but rather people who leave a sleeping baby in a carseat to walk to a mailbox within sight of the car.

Negligence is bad but so is the overly vigilant "guilty until proven innocent" environment we parent in today. And I say this as someone who diligently wakes up her kids and hauls them out of the carseats every single time.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"No one has any right to belittle another person's experience"

Says who?

Me

Well good luck with that.

Why thank you!

Anonymous wrote:"No one has any right to belittle another person's experience"

Says who?

Says basic human decency.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents did some ridiculously callous things by today's standards, but this stands out in my mind as the most egregious: My dad dropped us off at Disney World and went to the airplane museum and flew a biplane. He still brags about it today. Gets all salty and eye-rolly when I remind him that in doing so he also abandoned four kids at Disney for the entire day (open to close), with the oldest being about 11 or 12.

Maybe abandoned is dramatic? We were fine, in fact I (the oldest) even contemplated leading the group to Pleasure Island once it started getting dark and he wasn't back yet. But can you imagine that now? Two 11- or 12-year olds, a 9-year-old and a 5-year-old! No cell phones, either. Oy.

I think this is fine. I mean, I know it's illegal so I wouldn't do it. But I have kids with a 9 yr age gap and absolutely let the two older ones go off together while I stayed with the two younger ones in the baby section of amusement parks. They had watches and we had a meeting point. We'd agree "We will meet here at 11:45, it's 9am now" and off they'd go. They were around 9 and 12 when I started doing this.

PP here. I don't think we had any set time other than plan to get picked up when the park closed. I would agree your plan is OK; I think my dad was a lot more careless about it. Just like, whatever, see you later, I'm going to do my own thing several miles away and nobody can reach each other!

Actually what I think annoys me more is his bragging about flying a plane. And each time he tells the story, the plane gets more exotic. Last time he told me the story (as if I wasn't there and haven't heard it a million times), it was a fighter jet he flew. I can assure you, it was not a fighter jet...lol. I remind him of the "abandonment" to bring him back down a notch. And I still think it's crazy and not particularly responsible.

He wasn't a bad dad and he isn't a bad person by any means, but I do think he put his own interests first. Never wanted to drive us to activities. Was a serial cheater and used to bring the women around us when my mom was gone (which was a lot). He actually stopped bringing them around if I was there after I told him I was "going to slash that bitch's tires if I see her car again." I was MAYBE 13. But if I wasn't home, he'd bring them around my brother and sister, who were younger and less aware of what was going on.

I was not young (18), but was in florida looking at colleges with my mom. My mom was leaving my father, and drove me to FL, and was going to rent a place for a couple of months to sort out her life.

I was supposed to fly home from Orlando, but there was an ice storm and flights were canceled. (this was right after the plane crashed into the 14th street bridge.). She left me in Orlando alone with a pre-paid motel room and a some cash.

The night before, I had met a girl at the pool. I ended up going with her family to Disney. The weird thing is this 14 yo girl's parents let her hang out all day with me -- an 18 yo boy/man).

We had a good time together (mostly PG, possibly PG-13, but nothing more).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"No one has any right to belittle another person's experience"

Says who?

Me

Well good luck with that.

Anonymous wrote:"No one has any right to belittle another person's experience"

Says who?

Me

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents did some ridiculously callous things by today's standards, but this stands out in my mind as the most egregious: My dad dropped us off at Disney World and went to the airplane museum and flew a biplane. He still brags about it today. Gets all salty and eye-rolly when I remind him that in doing so he also abandoned four kids at Disney for the entire day (open to close), with the oldest being about 11 or 12.

Maybe abandoned is dramatic? We were fine, in fact I (the oldest) even contemplated leading the group to Pleasure Island once it started getting dark and he wasn't back yet. But can you imagine that now? Two 11- or 12-year olds, a 9-year-old and a 5-year-old! No cell phones, either. Oy.

I think this is fine. I mean, I know it's illegal so I wouldn't do it. But I have kids with a 9 yr age gap and absolutely let the two older ones go off together while I stayed with the two younger ones in the baby section of amusement parks. They had watches and we had a meeting point. We'd agree "We will meet here at 11:45, it's 9am now" and off they'd go. They were around 9 and 12 when I started doing this.

We used to do this ALL of the time when I was growing up at the amusement park. I was the youngest of the cousins, and we would have to meet our parents/aunts/uncles at a certain time and place. Do people not do this anymore?

"No one has any right to belittle another person's experience"

Says who?