They will move furniture and climb on top of it to get to locks that were placed high in an attempt to keep them safely inside. They will climb out of their crib and sneak out the door to go find mommy who works down the street across a major highway. All while dad was sitting in the living room thinking his kid was safely sleeping. Both kids were fine but parents aged several years.

That is horrible.

And judged the parents.

If not, you are part of this social problem of unfairly attacking people.

Cop should not have posted the picture. It does zero good to anyone. The adult watching the child should never watch a child again. This isn't a 4 year old who can unlock any lock built. This is a baby that is crawling. How unaware do you have to be to not notice a crawling child has crawled away?

I used to go on ride alongs with police when they would check on/remove children. A 4 yr old girl was pushing her 2 yr old brother in a stroller, down a dirt road, looking for bottles to cash in at a party store a mile away to buy bread. We went and bought groceries, took the kids back to their home and waited for 5 hours before taking them in to family services. Good news, the kids were placed then adopted by an uncle who raised them right and they had a happy ending.

I am more for innocent children then idiot adults. Sorry.

without caring to weigh in?

Both judging and outrage seem to be either overdone or underdone far more often than they are appropriate. Rushing ignorantly and eagerly to judgment hardly helps, of course.

My guess is we could add up all the virtuously outraged "caring" of all the internet viewers and it would amount to approximately nothing compared to the real caring of just one of this baby's parents about their baby.

But if you write next week that you've been having traumatized moments of fear wash over you ever since as you realize again and again that this baby could have died and are waking up in the middle of the night feeling sick with fear and unable to go back to sleep, I'll amend my judgement.

This is a very traumatizing picture. How can you say it is not? A child is literally crawling in the road.

You might want to re-read my post. I have gone to help save children who were neglected and in danger. I took my job very seriously. One does not just turn it off when they retire.

Sorry if I am too mean to the adults in the story. This shit makes me angry.

maybe you're making my point? There is no virtue in rushing to judgement about people one knows nothing about and situations one knows almost nothing about, and that open to question.

I mean, all this based on a newspaper story?! Your experiences must have taught you long ago to profoundly mistrust what is reported in the press. I know I have never had anything I personal experienced reported on in a way I thought was completely accurate and not significantly misleading in some way. I have my own volunteer and professional experiences that required dealing with the media, and both works involved not just babysitting and schmoozing reporters to get them to do their jobs decently and not hurtfully but also dealing with serious malfeasance on their part (i.e., bucking it up to people with power). I'm assuming you didn't write reports or whatever that would affect child custody decisions for instance based on or influenced by what the press report, much less just one story.

I will keep the door open to revising my negative judgement of this particular judgement, but in the meantime my judgementalism is unaffected.

Barely 2 years old.
#1 How did you get out? Realized she left the door unlocked. But it was closed
#2 How did you get out? I locked the door. He unlocked it
#3 How did you get out? I put a slide lock on top of the door? Saw chair
#4How did you get out? I got permission to put a deadbolt on the door that you need a key to unlock. Him..."frew the wingow" Windows were locked, so they ended up Nailing all their windows shut.


Now if there was a fire, how would they have gotten out? Would the parents be negligent if they all perished?

" this social problem of unfairly attacking people...."

Of which the definition has broadened to the point of "this social problem of having opinions about other people...." Kinda like you just did (insert distinction tackling relevant difference to rationalize holding others to a higher standard than you hold yourself to).

How can you take a such a steady picture when you should be hauling ass to get that kid out of the road? How do you even think to take a picture? That is one heart-stopping image. That road is curved! I wouldn't even be thinking about taking a picture if I saw a baby in the road.

After ascertaining that an adult was home and not impaired, they might have a chat on the best way to keep the little monkey from escaping again.

I am the oldest of 4 kids, and I have memories from when my first brother and I were barely past toddlerhood. We woke up very early indeed some mornings, and a couple of times we got loose while our exhausted parents were still asleep. The neighbors brought us home. Nobody called the cops. It only happened a few times.

My brother was younger, but cunning. Mom and Dad, realizing he knew how to manipulate a doorknob he could barely reach, installed a hook-latch high above his head. When he thought she was not looking, he dragged over a little stool and a wooden yardstick and used that to undo the latch.

My question for the photographer: Why in hell did you take a picture? Why did you not drop everything you were doing and pick that baby up out of the road first? Why did you not chat with the parent, the babysitter, or whoever was in charge? If it was not the parents at home, why did you not follow up by contacting them later? Why does everything have to be posted on the damned internet and held up for universal outrage?

...and whose first instinct was to grab a camera instead of grabbing the kid.

While I was asleep my dad installed a latch up high on the door to the driveway so I couldn't wander off. I woke up and tried the door. I saw the new latch that was supposed to keep me inside. I immediately found a broom and popped that latch open, effecting my escape! All that work for nothing!

My Dad and his bachelor friends were really charmed by my brother when he was little, I think. They couldn't wait to teach him how to take things apart and how to fix things, oh boy. One way and another they were all mechanics. Anyway, when he was about three or four years old he was given a screwdriver, and he took his new toy with him when it was time for his nap. It was very quiet. Then he came out of his room and said: "My crib collapsed." Indeed it had -- every single screw had been removed. He grew up to be a very skilled mechanic himself.

There is a picture in my photo album of me showing off my "tools". I guess that, since they weren't real, that's why I turned out to be a somewhat shitty mechanic.

or somewhere. My mother got one of those child harnesses for him, then she had to hear from "do gooder know it alls" that she was treating him like a dog. Sometimes you just can't win when the public sticks in their opinion.

It's a very intelligent idea for little ones who pull the disappearing act in public places. A friend of mine was given one after she decided to take the ferry boat across the bay, and simply inserted herself into another family in order to do so. A pleasant day's outing turned into a freaking nightmare for her parents, for whom she was the only child they had or ever would have.

My mother would gave been in so much trouble over and over if it was today. Back in 1950 things were different. We just kind of ran wild all over our neighborhood.

So did all the other kids.

My sister and I ran wild too, once we were school age. Mom kept a close eye on us before then.

We weren't very old.

When I was 3 I w as lked to the grocery store, picked up a pound of butter and went home. My mother never knew I was eas gone.

Somehow we survived.

I was probably 3 when I crossed a fairly busy road and ran over to the wading pool. But there were lots of kids and parents around.

We never thought anything about it. I walked about a mile to school when I was 6.

He was gonna go bum a smoke from Jimmy.

To fetch a pail of water.

He was tired and shagged out after a long sqwak and was looking for a nice place to do some restin'.

The neighbor across the way has better milk.


Don't forget to tip your servers.

Maybe a little help offering is in order. Many places like the ones seen in the background can have dog safety gates put in just outside of the front door. They normally have a swinging door so no safety violations are breached. Maybe there is a retired neighbor who could help for a couple of hours a week.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Since her second birthday, her parents constantly drop her off - for weeks on end because "they can't handle her".
She's part jackdaw or crow. She gets up into things she shouldn't, can open hook latches and those "childproof" nylon/plastic drawer and cabinet latches.
She sneaks - food, tools, pens, scissors, shoes, cooking utensils (including knives), medicine containers, small electronics, other people's possessions (especially critical or expensive items - or anything that belongs to her sister)...and has created around five or six little "nests" around the house where she hides them and then runs off to whenever she's found out. We haven't been able to keep a tube of toothpaste or any other sort of medicine untouched for more than a week without her hunting them down and emptying them out.

If anything is in a box she's gotten ahold of, she empties the box out and scatters the contents around the floor; the box is then ripped apart at the corner. She takes everything she can apart, and loves to mix liquids up and pour them all over her toys. So far, as far as we can tell, she hasn't poisoned herself, though there have been periods where she's suddenly had bad diarrhea for no reason we can think of.

She'll look you straight in the eyes when caught red-handed, and tell you "No!", then run off to squirrel away what she's appropriated away to one of her nests. She throws epic tantrums at the slightest inconvenience to her, where she grabs anything close to her that seems heavy and flings it, then flings herself on the floor screaming and pounding for up to five minutes. She's figured out how to open the back door; the only thing she can't yet do is get the chain of the slide lock that's at eye level to an adult.

When she's quiet, she's either sleeping or trying to destroy something.
Even with three of us - me, spouse, and her older sister (age 6), it's impossible to keep an eye on her.

The only saving grace we have is that we've screwed into the wall five 3' tall metal child gates that require a certain amount of upper body strength to open just to keep her out of the kitchen and the hallways where she can get loose - and all the footstools are up on top of the stacked washer/dryer, and the folding stool-ladder is up on hooks at our eye-level where she can't get to it. But she can still get up on counters in the jack and jill between the front room and her bedroom - which is why we have to keep replacing toothpaste, mouthwash, soaps, band aids, toilet paper, and Neosporin - that's the bathroom for guests, her sister and her. The few times we've inadvertently left a gate open with her up and about, she's trashed either the kitchen, or our bedroom or our bathroom.

Neither her mother (my step-daughter) or her older sister were anything like this. I can't remember my younger brother, who was a runner my mom finally put in a harness until he was old enough to understand what was going on, being this secretive or destructive.

Nothing we seem to do being "positive" seems to work. She acts like she knows what she's doing and doesn't care - she's getting a reaction, and that's probably one of the major reasons she acts out. I've stopped myself many times from the urge to give her a swift swat. And there's little we can do other than hope she - and our house - survives long enough that she can grow out of this stage.

Haele

She was sure the little monster was on the verge of growing horns and would soon be answering to Satan. She was pretty terrible pre-kindergarten.

Here's some hope for you.

She's 7-years-old now. And she is one of the smartest and sweetest little girls.

caring man so yes hope abound!

I had nodded off on the couch while watching TV. We had childproofed all the doors because he got tall enough for them. He got out and my neighbor grabbed him and brought him home. I was so ashamed of myself and thankful for a good neighbor. She was very understanding.

That kid climbed everything. Found him trying to heft himself up to the top of the closet once.

Anyway, people shouldn't be so judgmental. Parenting can be pretty tough. I escaped the house a few times when I was little, too.

These people shouldn't have kids. Yes, let's pretend that if there's no consequences for this level of irresponsibility, that they will still learn from it. Sure, a toddler wants to explore. It's the parents' job to make sure that exploration can be done safely. Obviously this couple doesn't give a damn about their kids. If the older kid didn't know to make sure the door was shut safely, the kid isn't old enough to be going out. Clearly that kid wasn't taught well.

I don't get it. One of the reasons I don't want kids is that I understand how much work they are. I wish more parents did as well.

...from accidentally leaving the door open? Now is it required that you never be in a different room from your baby in order to be responsible?

A door was left unlocked or partly cracked. The kid left and made it to the sidewalk before a neighbor noticed. The parents are perfectly good people. Somethings things are going to happen when you have a kid and you just hope it's not too bad.

He'd wriggle and slither out...he'd pick up speed if you ran after him too..

My brother's son managed to break free when he was about 2. No one realized he could reach the door knob yet. Lickety split he was 3 doors down sporting his birthday suit... his diaper left behind in the front yard. The neighbor said catching that boy was like chasing a greased pig.

My whole life I've watch the little ones slither away from their caretakers with astonishing speed.

... authorities because a child is unsupervised.

This is a little more than unsupervised play, but it is OBVIOUSLY an accidental occurrence. The hoped for response from neighbors is to get the child out of the street and look for its home. It's ridiculous to launch and investigation with child protective services.

Good phrase "social police with their cellphones." It's really a crazy world.

We picked up our grandsons, 6 and 7 at school the other day and ALL children were met by an adult. I walked to school by myself the second day of kindergarten and so did my two children.

I hope our society finally moves beyond finding someone to blame for everything bad that happens.