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Parenting
I'm sorry, lizlemon, but...
I can't believe you run across the street to the gas station to get milk while the girls are home alone (I presume, napping). ? We usually are very similar on our parenting styles, and this shocks me.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: I'm sorry, lizlemon, but...
Really? I didn't think anyone would be surprised about that from me. I'm a self proclaimed free range parent. My girls are both asleep and contained in their room. I have a monitor with me that works the whole time. I'm gone for all of 8 minutes and can see my house the entire time.
What are the chances that someone is going to walk past my house during those eight minutes, determine that there are two babies sleeping inside and decide to break in and steal them? I would say the chances of my DD having a meltdown because I am out of milk is much higher.
I don't mind that someone disagrees with me. But I'm curious why you think it is wrong?
I saw a woman get herass handed to her the other day for leaving her DC in the car (it was not hot, the air was running & the doors were locked) while she ran into the gas station...where she could see her child in the car the entire time.
To each their own I suppose...I couldn't do it. I know it's a PITA to drag the kiddos shopping with you sometimes, but "running across the street with the montior" just sounds too much like the beginning of those scary stories on the news where some child gets really hurt and I end up shaking my head to later, wondering what in the hell they were thinking.
Yeah, I would never do this either.
This gets a big eyebrow raise from me.
I wouldn't do it either. I always worry about all the things that CAN happen. Not only to DD but to me.
But, I am admittedly a total freak like that.
I worry about the things that could happen to ME, too. I get totally freaked out that I will pass out and my kids will be roaming the house and scared.
?
Yes!! ?what if I was hit by a car on the way over? ? How would any know that I have two daughters sleeping-- ALONE-- in the house? ??
I don't think this makes me a "risk taker." What about walking to the mailbox? Do you ever work in your backyard while your kids sleep?
FWIW, I struggle with the choices I make as a parent just like anyone else. I think back to when I was young and I was allowed to ride my bike around the block. Will my kids be able to do that? Are there really more scary people out there now who want to hurt our kids? Or are we just way more informed as parents w/ modern media and the internet so we think we see a bad guy everywhere we turn?
what about walking the dogs a few yards down the block? I have to do this sometimes if I'm home alone, he's taking a nap. or checking the mailbox a few houses down?
When I have to shovel in the winter I often do it when DS is napping. The monitor does not work outside at all, I am down 2 flights of stairs and have to go decently far up the sidewalk to get our whole property line. Kind of the same thing.
I don't even walk two doors down to get my mail of we're home alone...not worth the risk.
In this world, in this day and age, with so many sick people running around out there??? It would only take 1 min for somebody to walk through my place and swipe up my daughter. I don't get how it makes it ok to have a monitor with you. What is a monitor going to do if someone is making off with your child?
Call me paranoid but I'd rather be labeled as paranoid than have a missing child.
I have to say this...while I don't agree with you on this topic it is SO REFRESHING that you're having an intelligent, calm, rational conversation about this.
SO MANY TIMES I'd like to ask questions re: people's parenting decisions...not to berate them, just to try to understand them more & I end up not saying anything because people here get so damn defensive.
This is just so nice!
I can understand this POV. But I have a couple of friends whose DHs work so much and often late, that if they didn't do stuff while their DC was napping the snow would be knee deep, the grass overgrown, the mail running of the box etc.
And I understand that some people don't have the luxury of an available spouse but IMO, leaving your child alone in the house...if you are outside, for any length of time is too risky!
There are always babysitters. You could hire a neighborhood kid to shovel your drive or mow your lawn. Gracie and I walk outside together to get the mail, she thinks it's fun. IMO, there is always an alternative to leaving your child alone. Those things are simply not as important as the saftey of your child.
If anything ever happened to Grace, I'd never be able to look at a freshly mowed lawn ever again.
I also have to say that I nannied for YEARS for a family who lived in a mansion (literally). I was further away from those kids IN THE SAME HOUSE when they were in bed, than I could ever be in practically my entire NEIGHBORHOOD! Yet leaving them unattended (no monitor--nothing could reach!) was not an issue.
To each their own--this one doesn't bother me honestly. On nice summer nights, DH and I will go for a walk around our cul-de-sac after B is asleep. We do the cell phone trick: I call DH's cell and he puts in in B's room, then I put mine on speaker and we walk with it so we can hear everything.
THIS! Liz could have very easily said "F you if you don't like my decisions." I can't really reply to this b/c I live in the middle of the boondocks, and people don't even know that my house exists b/c it can't be seen from the road. So when used to nap I would go lay out on the back porch or do something outside. But it's not the same thing.
Matthew James 1/11/07
Does anyone ever go to urbanbaby.com? A variation on this discussion was apparently one of the most talked about thread there. From the New York times:
"Among long-term devotees of UB in New York, a handful of arguments have achieved a kind of mythic status, among them the laundry fight, which resurfaces regularly. It began when a woman asked what others thought about leaving a baby asleep in a locked apartment for a few minutes while Mother went down to the basement to pop a few things in the washing machine. Some found the idea horrifyingly insupportable. (''What if you fall down and break your leg?'' one wrote. ''Or the apartment starts on fire? It isn't smart.'') Others said the scenario was no different from what happens when a mother in Westchester ventures from one floor of her house to another while her child is napping.
What really seemed at issue was whether one sort of living arrangement (suburban) was more virtuous than an alternative (urban). ''When you leave your apartment, you're no longer in your home,'' wrote a participant. ''When you live in a house and go downstairs to do laundry, you're still in your house. DUH!'' This incited a defense of the idea of an apartment as a home, beginning with, ''You're only making yourself sound more and more stupid.''
Melissa Senate, an avid user of UB who thanks the community in the acknowledgments of her coming book, ''Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?'' said she had to walk away from her computer screen during the laundry exchange. ''It got so heated and angry and ugly,'' she recalled. But still, the tone of the board makes sense to Ms. Senate, who lives in Manhattan with her husband and 20-month-old son."
I wish we could have more discussions on here where we don't "attack" each other. There are definately parenting styles on here that I don't agree with so I'm not surprised that not everyone agrees with mine.
As long as no one is questioning whether or not I love and value my girls, it's all good. On this topic, I just can't see living my life in constant fear of the world around me. I also don't want to raise my girls to look for the bad or scary in everything. I am very aware of my surroundings and our world as it is today. I honestly don't think it's as bad as everyone thinks.
I don't think the kidnapping fear is really realistic, at least not where I live...but I'd worry that would be the day the baby jumped out of the crib, or they figured out how to open the door etc, etc....
However you have the monitor and could get home quickly so I don't really see too much issue with it. The only other thing I might worry about is that someone who didn't approve would get wind of it and call CPS. That's definitely more likely than your kid getting randomly kidnapped which has got to be more than a million to one.
So you wouldn't even garden in your backyard with a monitor?
This bothers me too. Who decides what weather is mild enough to leave your kid in the car? I don't know. I would just never even THINK to do that. Gracie falls asleep in the car all the time and we wake her and take her in the house. I would never leave her there. Even if I could see her.
How do your neighbors feel about that? because honestly, if I were your neighbor and saw a child sleeping alone in a car, seemingly unattended for more than a minute or two, I would definitely call the police!
IMO, that's pretty alarmist!
I live in a subdivision that is in the middle of nowhere (and is a dead end, so we know who goes in an out). I leave DD napping/sleeping in the house all the time to walk to the mailbox, garden, read on the deck, even run over to the neighbors. I don't go anywhere my monitor doesn't reach. To me, the risk of someone kidnapping my sleeping child, where I live, is so, so slim.
I realize that its not for everyone, but it just isn't something that worries me too much
Annelise 3.22.2007 Norah 10.24.2009 Amelia 8.7.2011
I understand people might feel that way but the way I think of it is this:
How am I to know what is happening in that situation? How do I know how long that kid has been alone? How do I know what the temp inside the car is like? How do I know whether that mom is watching from the window or has been murdered in her home? You just don't know. It's better to be cautious than regret ignoring it later. I simply couldn't ignore it. My conscience wouldn't allow it.
Me. If it's nice enough out for ME to sit in the car without getting hot or cold, then it's nice enough for the kids too. And FWIW, I do often spend lots of time sitting out in the car with the kids while they sleep- I just read a book or something like that.
I guess it's a good thing you're not my neighbor. I don't have many neighbors and I don't think that any of them are concerned either. Still, it strikes me as strange that you would call the police. Assuming that your neighbors aren't total strangers to you, why wouldn't you just go knock on the front door and voice your concern? I agree that with the pp that calling the police is alarmist and unnecessary in a situation like that.
If its your neighbor, couldn't you just walk over, knock on the door and see if she'd been murdered?
At any rate, I guess I'm glad you aren't my neighbor, because you'd probably call the cops on me a lot.
Annelise 3.22.2007 Norah 10.24.2009 Amelia 8.7.2011
How about knocking on the neighbor's door if you're so concerned?!
Because we don't live on a Lifetime Movie set?
Well, based on this discussion, my opinion and pookie's are almost exact. I know I may seem paranoid to others, but frankly, I don't give a damn. That's just how I feel. So you're definitely not alone on this one, pookie. And FWIW, my mother was the same way w/me growing up, and everyone used to tell her how paranoid she was, and she was just like, "I don't care - I'm not doing that." There were times when I thought she was overly cautious as a kid, but now that I'm a parent, I totally get where she was coming from. So go ahead and judge, call me overprotective and anal and what not... I don't care. They're still my kids and I'm going to do what I feel most comfortable with. I don't judge the more lenient ppl (within reason, of course), but I'm going to do it my way.
And about being worried about being hit by a car, etc... just for the point of discussion - you could be in your own home, feet away from your kid, and have a brain aneurysm. Or a blood clot reach your lungs. Or a stroke or heart attack, whatever. But you obviously can't live your life covering every base on the tiny possibility that might happen...
one (or more) replies mentioned "calculated risk", and that's exactly what I consider leaving the girls napping in the house while I run outside (to bring in the trash cans, clean the yard, chat with the neighbor, etc.) The likelihood of someone snatching them in broad daylight, essentially in front of me, is so slim, that I'm not willing to adjust our lives for it.
If you're not willing to take some risks with your children, I guess you'll never be putting them in a car? There's a way greater likelihood of them dying or getting seriously injured in a car crash than being kidnapped/getting caught in a fire/insert other catastrophic event here.
https://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/childpas.htm
I don't see how a parent can say one thing is so irresponsible and unsafe that they'd never do it, yet engage in the other, way more dangerous behavior on a daily basis.