All you vigilant folks check your state and county and municipality rules on letting your kids walk to a park, another kids house, school, play on the sidewalk etc.

Anonymous wrote:On the long list of bad parenting decisions, this is pretty near the bottom. When the last time you heard of a baby suffering an injury or death after being left unsupervised in an empty hotel room? I haven’t heard of any such event. When is the last time you heard of a baby suffering injury or death after being unsupervised in a bath tub, or after being exposed to drugs or alcohol? Those are way more dangerous scenarios

Here's one from this month. It's not clear from the article whether the child was alone in the hotel room, or that an adult just didn't notice them leaving.

https://people.com/toddler-found-dead-in-river-after-wandering-away-from-hotel-11751385

Anonymous wrote:I can go 500 ft and stay on my property. Would that be ok?

Is your child's room baby proofed? Would there be strangers in the house at that time? Did those strangers know there was a child alone, like the strangers in this case obviously did? Is your child able to open the exterior doors of your house?

I personally wouldn't leave my 1 year old and go 500 feet on my own property, if I owned such a property, but in a baby proofed room, in a house with no strangers, with doors the kid couldn't open, I would feel very differently.

Having said that, Maryland law says that kids under 8 shouldn't be left alone in a building, dwelling, enclosure or vehicle. I don't know what the rules are as far as being on the same property.

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Anonymous wrote:This is stupid. I really doubt anyone seriously believes that it is in this child’s best interest to have his/her parents arrested and go into foster care.

Agree. This is absurd. The baby was in a safe space (crib), secured in the bedroom and the parents were nearby. They weren’t even a car ride away. They were in the same building. The chances the hotel catching on fire are slim to none. Your house could also catch on fire while your kid is sleeping and you aren’t in the same room as them

They weren't in the same building. If you look on google map the Jetty restaurant is not in the same hotel.

Also, this wasn't a baby, it was a toddler at an age when many children start climbing out of cribs. Most hotel rooms have accessible door handles that toddlers can open, and don't have a way to lock from the outside that prevents opening the door with the handle.

That is awful! I think it’s best they let child go with a relative for a bit, while parents receive education and training about parenting. CPS can offer resources for help. Not everyone is a naturally good parent.

I’m not defending the parents in any way but for the sake of the thread correcting the pp - while the article says the police “traveled” if you look on google maps the jetty restaurant appears to be either directly next door/likely attached to the Hilton. Again I would never do this and don’t agree with it but it is likely the parents felt they were in the same building and had a monitor they could see the baby. They weren’t drive or make “travel” away

No it’s not right next to it.

There have been a lot of cases lately of small children being left alone and dying in a house fire. One mother left her two cognitively disabled children alone for 9 hours. They died in a fire. Another mother left her four children alone overnight ages 4 - 11. They all died in a fire. They probably found them hiding in the house. These are two recent cases.

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Anonymous wrote:This is stupid. I really doubt anyone seriously believes that it is in this child’s best interest to have his/her parents arrested and go into foster care.

Agree. This is absurd. The baby was in a safe space (crib), secured in the bedroom and the parents were nearby. They weren’t even a car ride away. They were in the same building. The chances the hotel catching on fire are slim to none. Your house could also catch on fire while your kid is sleeping and you aren’t in the same room as them

They weren't in the same building. If you look on google map the Jetty restaurant is not in the same hotel.

Also, this wasn't a baby, it was a toddler at an age when many children start climbing out of cribs. Most hotel rooms have accessible door handles that toddlers can open, and don't have a way to lock from the outside that prevents opening the door with the handle.

This is why I don’t shower or sleep when I stay in a hotel room with my children. If DH is with me, we sleep in shifts.

If you're in a hotel room with a child young enough to sleep in a crib, and old enough to climb out of a crib, like this one, it makes sense to put the latch on the door before you take a shower, or go to sleep. You can't do that if you are outside the room. So, your logic doesn't apply.

You should not leave toddlers in hotel rooms that they can leave at will and go to restaurants that are not connected to the hotel. I can't believe we are even debating this. If you desperately want to go to a restaurant without your kids, you should ask Grandma or Uncle or whoever to watch your kids. If you don't, then apparently the police will. That's not horrifying.

So if you take a nap with your children, but you don’t put the latch on the door, should you lose your parental rights?

There are a lot of things that you shouldn’t do. You shouldn’t have an affair. You shouldn’t drive over the speed limit. You shouldn’t own an animal that has a history of biting or that your child is allergic to. Just because you shouldn’t do something doesn’t mean that you ought to lose custody of your children, even temporarily, for doing them.

They didn't TPR anyone. The parents did not lose parental rights. They called a family member to take the child during the time when the parents were doing something (being booked and released) that they couldn't do with the child.

A 1 yo? Heck no. It's not even ok to leave a baby sleeping in the room while you go down to the hotel bar.

I think this would be acceptable to do with a 10 yo or older. But even then, the parents need to be in the same building downstairs.

I've left my 9 yo alone in a hotel room while I went down to the hotel gym for an hour. I wouldn't leave a kid alone in a hotel and leave the hotel.

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Anonymous wrote:They deserved to be arrested. Even with w monitor, the biggest concern is a fire. There is no possibility for a baby to escape a fire…

But there wasn’t a fire.

It’s not worth it to definitely cause harm to a child (arresting parents, taking custody of the child) in order to prevent an extremely unlikely and improbable event.

Ok - you need to understand risk/consequence....

The likelihood of an event occurring goes on the X-axis. The consequences of that event goes on the Y- axis. If the grid is a 9 box, you want all the risks you take to be in the middle box, to the left and to the bottom. This one would be in the upper red box.

Where would these fit in your model? The US Fire Administration reports about 15 people die annually in fires in hotels (in most years this does not include any children). In 2022, 1,129 children were killed in car accidents. Is taking a child in a car also in the upper red box? What about gun deaths? If a parent owns a gun, would that be in the upper red box too?

Sorry I can explain it to you not understand it for you. It is a child, probably the only to the family so their risk for that child tobthat is different than an insurer's model, where a few lives of unknown people is no big deal. When we do this in industry it is tied to cost and factor of safety. When I do it for my family it's totally different. My kids are not replaceable, maybe yours are.

Uhmm…we are talking about whether we want to live in a society where the police can arrest you, take your baby, and give him to your Trump supporting mother-in-law for any minor infraction.

No one said anything about how important your children are to you.

Actually, this seems like a maga move. “I should be able to neglect my baby if I want to!” Guarantee this couple is maga through and through

I think there is a lot of gray area in these types of scenarios. But:

Toddler is the absolute worst age to be unsupervised in an unfamiliar and non-childproofed location for more than a few minutes. And: the restaurant was totally off the premises. Gone for a long time. And both parents drinking. Just ridiculous.

It’s a bunch of bad factors combined.

I’m sure they won’t get their child taken away permanently but CPS intervention is totally warranted IMO.

And unfortunately these terribly irresponsible scenarios encourage more “zero tolerance” policies that don’t allow for parental common sense or discretion. Ruining it for everyone, and causing parents to be hyper protective & more frazzled than need be. (For example, stories about parents getting into trouble for letting an 8+ year old play at the park unsupervised or walk alone to the store down the street etc).

Anonymous wrote:I can go 500 ft and stay on my property. Would that be ok?

I was just wondering about this. What exactly is the law here? Is it okay to go in my backyard? What about my next door neighbor?
Is it that specific, or is it left up to interpretation by the police?

I can go 500 ft and stay on my property. Would that be ok?

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, the people who are excusing these parents have done or would do the exact same thing - go out to a bar to drink while their toddler/baby is alone asleep in the hotel room, as if children don't wake up while sleeping.

No. But part of living in a free society is saying that people have rights even if you don’t agree with their actions.

I would never cheat on my husband, but I don’t think that women who do should be arrested or lose custody of their children.

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Anonymous wrote:They deserved to be arrested. Even with w monitor, the biggest concern is a fire. There is no possibility for a baby to escape a fire…

But there wasn’t a fire.

It’s not worth it to definitely cause harm to a child (arresting parents, taking custody of the child) in order to prevent an extremely unlikely and improbable event.

Ok - you need to understand risk/consequence....

The likelihood of an event occurring goes on the X-axis. The consequences of that event goes on the Y- axis. If the grid is a 9 box, you want all the risks you take to be in the middle box, to the left and to the bottom. This one would be in the upper red box.

Where would these fit in your model? The US Fire Administration reports about 15 people die annually in fires in hotels (in most years this does not include any children). In 2022, 1,129 children were killed in car accidents. Is taking a child in a car also in the upper red box? What about gun deaths? If a parent owns a gun, would that be in the upper red box too?

Sorry I can explain it to you not understand it for you. It is a child, probably the only to the family so their risk for that child tobthat is different than an insurer's model, where a few lives of unknown people is no big deal. When we do this in industry it is tied to cost and factor of safety. When I do it for my family it's totally different. My kids are not replaceable, maybe yours are.

Uhmm…we are talking about whether we want to live in a society where the police can arrest you, take your baby, and give him to your Trump supporting mother-in-law for any minor infraction.

No one said anything about how important your children are to you.

I’m shocked at the number of people making excuses for the parents’ behavior.

Obviously, the people who are excusing these parents have done or would do the exact same thing - go out to a bar to drink while their toddler/baby is alone asleep in the hotel room, as if children don't wake up while sleeping.

Anonymous wrote:On the long list of bad parenting decisions, this is pretty near the bottom. When the last time you heard of a baby suffering an injury or death after being left unsupervised in an empty hotel room? I haven’t heard of any such event. When is the last time you heard of a baby suffering injury or death after being unsupervised in a bath tub, or after being exposed to drugs or alcohol? Those are way more dangerous scenarios

Yes, those are dangerous situations, but what they did is still not excusable.