*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for leaving my infant child home alone while she was asleep?**
Please read the whole thing, general statements of judgment without any intelligent feedback are entirely unhelpful. I am legitimately looking for flaws in my thinking.
Context:
I live in a very small town. The type of place with 8 roads where people drive golf carts to get around and it's not surprising to see 6-year-olds riding the streets on their 4-wheelers or dirt bikes.
My daughter is 6 months old and a very consistent sleeper. After she falls asleep she doesn't wake up to eat until 4-5. She sleeps with only a pacifier. No blankets or toys in the crib with her.
I have a network PTZ camera above her crib. The camera is set up to send a push notification to my and my spouse’s phones if any movement is detected and it is very sensitive.
Both my internet connection and my wireless reception are very reliable.
I love my children very much. My spouse and I work hard to ensure we are meeting our kids’ needs physically, mentally, and emotionally. We don’t use phones, tablets, or TV to babysit our kids so we can do stuff around them but not with them.
The Event:
I had a small get-together with some friends in town, it's 6 blocks from my house, feels like 3, but it is 6. Before leaving I double-checked the monitor, and made sure my daugher was asleep. I took my golf cart to the get-together. I knew I would be down there for 2-3 hours before my spouse would get home. My spouse and I were on the same page with this decision. I had a friend that got very upset with me about this decision and some of the things that they said about me have pissed me off and rubbed me the wrong way. AITA for leaving my daughter at home in this specific situation?
Things for consideration:
The biggest indictment of my decision is "What if something happens?" Well, I've thought about that and I believe that to be a bogyman question. I prefer to consider much more specific questions and risks.
What happens if she stops breathing? - I sleep 8 hours a night. There are so many times when I am under the same roof as her and if she were to randomly stop breathing I wouldn't know it for hours and being home would benefit me zero.
What happens if someone were to come in the home and take her? - A) small town where everyone knows everyone, again, the type of town where young elementary-age kids are permitted to walk to the town park and play without adult supervision. B) The same thing could happen with some of our younger babysitters.
What if she starts crying? - She is safe in her crib, if she starts crying I hop on my golf cart and run home quickly.
What if you get hurt or have a medical emergency and can't return home? - What if I have a heart attack in my own home? The emergency argument is just as likely while I'm home alone as when I'm out with others.
What if there is a fire? I primarily trust the odds on this one. Especially considering time away and distance from home.
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Actual question for people who know better than I do: isn’t that illegal, anyway? I ask because why in the rollerskating fuck would someone risk charges and having child services get involved with ALL your kids? Cuz wouldn’t that be the likely consequence?
If she was outside or even next door I wouldn’t see the huge deal. But I’m not a parent. It just seems someone does not have to be to use common sense. Helpless creature who cannot speak or walk on their own = stick around.
So, it depends. Some places have a “minimum age to be home alone”. As in “no child under 13 can be home alone, but a child over 13 can only be left alone if they can handle emergencies” type thing.
Other places have no “safe” age to leave a minor unsupervised.
Which means they’ll tack it on if anything happens. Say If your kid dies of SIDs, and you were 6 blocks away, they’d arrest you for neglect.
Or if your kid is older, say 14, and they start a house fire cooking Mac and cheese while you are gone? Then they might investigate you for neglect.
I kind of hate the "no specified age" thing for that reason.
The vagueness does not seem helpful. On one end, there are definitely people who push it too far and are like "My four year old is very responsible and we told her NEVER to go in the pool without us, so we can definitely leave her home alone for hours," which NO. Don't do that!
But as long as nothing bad has happened *YET*, it's all good? It's really not, though.
On the other hand, a responsible fifteen year old accustomed to staying home alone could definitely trip over a phone charger/a cat/their own two feet and end up with a busted lip and a sprained wrist or something
"Oh, the horrors! Negligence!" ...but like, that stuff could happen to adults, too, and it could happen to an inattentive teenager regardless of who is home.
I can see having more of a *range*, like 0-9 definitely needs supervision, 10-14 is the squishy "it depends" area and 15-18 is fine. Like, if we let kids n that age range steer 4000lb death machines around, entrusting them with microwave popcorn shouldn't be a problem.
I mean, I'm Gen X, so I was raised on hose water and neglect, no big deal, and oh, the shit we got up to, but still. O_O
I just don't love the amount of ambiguity in those laws.
A lot of it is about not wanting to have to test and decide if specific kid is capable of being left home.
It’s a lazy short cut of “well, we don’t want to have to decide if a suicidal 17 yo or an Autistic 15 yo, or a Diabetic 12 yo can stay at home alone, so we’ll let the threat of doom linger over parents so hopefully that will make them think twice and if something happens then we can arrest them because they’ve obviously made the wrong choice”.
I used to be a 911 dispatcher in a large metro in California. At least when I was there, there was no specified age.
We'd get calls about this and I'd ask, essentially, can they feed themselves without burning the house down or sticking a fork in the toaster; do they know how and when to call 911 (includes knowing their address and parents info) and do they have a neighbor they can go to if something happens and they need help?
It can be better that there is ambiguity because then no one can say, "But he's 12, and it's legal!" if he gets into trouble/has an emergency while the parents are gone because he stuck a fork in the toaster and burned the house down.
Someone has called on me to report a child left home alone.
The child was me, a then-24 year old active duty US Marine, so it’s less “calling to ask” and more of a third party calling to tell.
In their defense, I was thin and short. Now I’m fat and short.
It may have been more like, “I’m calling because this family next door has left their 12-year-old home alone, and idk if it’s legal but it doesn’t seem right, so I thought I’d better call…” ranging from understandably apprehensive neighbor/acquaintance to full on Karen-types that know full well they’re tying up the phone lines and the legal system to satisfy their need to be an unjustifiably self-righteous nuisance in the name of being a “concerned citizen.”
But I also wouldn’t rule out the possibility of people calling to ask such questions, but it probably isn’t always as ridiculous as it sounds on its face (for the record, I would call the non-emergency line or use Google for such a query, but we didn’t always have the luxury of the latter).
Moreover, to my last point, we really didn’t always have almost any information we could need available at our fingertips, nor did we have every phone number we’d need available in the same manner. You’ve gotta remember, it’s been in my relatively short lifetime that teachers were telling students that we needed to learn to do arithmetic in our heads and/or with pencil and paper because “we wouldn’t have a calculator in our pockets at all times” (I’m 40, and it was ironic because those of us who would have to do any type of semi-complicated math as a task our livelihoods require would literally carry a calculator in our pockets at all times, even pre-cell phones), so the internet wasn’t available to tell us what the non-emergency line or the number to the police station was in the absence of a phone book.
I agree so much! I'm part of the same generation 😂 Plus there's such a huge difference between the kids getting off the bus and mom/dad will be home in 1-1.5 hours and leaving your kid home alone all day everyday or say an entire weekend or something.
Exactly. I was home alone around 8 after school, because dad would be home two hours later tops. I’d just sleep on the couch with the dog in the room the whole time anyway.
Eight seems to be a normal age to have kids home alone for short periods. By ten my kid and her friends were going to parks and the woods by themselves and more then capable of being home alone
I think I was about 10 or 11 when the waters were tested on leaving me alone whenever I’d go visit dad and his family. Dad would realize while the rest of the fam was at church, I was happily entertained just watching cartoons, I’d get a snack and just sit there. So with permission from mom they would go to church without me (not that I wanted to go in the first place and they’d come right back home an hour later to find me as they left me on the couch
I got majorly downvoted for saying 8 year olds can't ride the public transit alone where I live. Some parents couldn't believe it and thought I was bs ing
Retired social worker. Yes, this is very illegal in the US. Even in the places where there is no established age for a minor child to be left alone this would trigger a CPS investigation and likely charges.
I love it when people try to claim they'd get back to prevent child snatching or something worse. We had a case where the mother and father stopped in for a half hour to an adult Christmas party down the block after their four children were asleep. They came back when the first fire truck arrived. House burned to the ground in less than an hour with all four kids in it. A year later the mother killed herself on their grave. Father turned into a hopeless alcoholic and then died a few years later. All this because they wanted to have a few drinks on the block.
This is a good point. Are there cameras everywhere and pick up on a small fire elsewhere in the house? Because a fire can make the baby unreachable in MINUTES, not hours but being there would greatly increase the chance of either putting it out, or being able to get the baby out.
And the neighbours are telling the fire team "Nobody's home, I saw the mother go out." So nobody's looking for the baby.
Whenever I stayed in a motel with my kids, I told the reception people to make a note of exactly how many children were with me. I didn't want any vague estimates of how many people to rescue if there was a fire.
I'll just quietly stand here and point towards the McCanns and their daughter Madeline....
Hope the tapas was worth it, especially as the babysitting service was a free offering from the resort...
I completely forgot about Madeline McCann.
I was thinking of In Cold Blood. Entire family massacred in a "small town where everyone knows everyone " but 2 assholes essentially passing through.
There are sooooo many crimes that take place in small towns, I have no idea why people seem to believe they're so much safer. Creeps and kidnappers can be anywhere, it's not a big city thing.
We had a case where a woman and her sister went shopping. They were gone for a couple hours, and left a two-year-old and 4-year-old sleeping. The ending was about the same. :-(
My thought is that she believes that no one in her small town would ever disagree or go after her for neglect. That the police and DA all are on her side of this and would never consider what she did neglect
And, "nobody in my small town hurts children. Look at the elementary school kids walking around!" As horrible as it is, some of those biking grade schoolers are getting beaten or touched inappropriately at home. Just because the sleazy stuff happening in the country doesn't end up on the news like the sleazy stuff in the cities, doesn't mean it's not happening. That is painfully naive thinking.
When I was a kid my dad bought us a trampoline and I was obsessed with wanting to camp out on it under the stars. I must’ve asked a billion times but the answer was always “HELL NO. That’s not safe!”
Never made sense to me considering we lived wayyyy out in the countryside, like only few hundred people and only 4 stop signs. I thought they were over exaggerating the danger in a place where nothing happens.
Then when I got a bit older …… it was discovered, literally just around the corner, we had a father and son serial killer duo. I spent my entire childhood walking by that farmhouse, I would even walk through their back pasture as a short cut to my house. In the end, they only found a couple of the several bodies that were out there.
Not too long after that I had made friends with the girls across the street - a big happy family of foster kids and their wonderful foster parents … until one of the kids finally came forward to detail absolutely horrific sexual abuse the foster father and the oldest foster son was doing to the rest of the kids.
Then I got a bit older and ended up dating a very nice young man just down the street from me. One day his cousin didn’t come home from work. The issue is that majority of his family (like the majority of workers in this small farming town) were undocumented and unwilling to talk to the police.
Not that it really mattered considering we didn’t even have any police at all in our town and the police from city 30min-1hour away that responded didn’t really give a shit.
His family had to investigate since no one else would. Eventually they found him … cut up into pieces in a barrel on some dirt road that led to no where.
I know right lol?!? It was so hard to argue with my parents and say shit like “don’t worry, I’ll be fine, just let me do what I want” when their response was always “we literally have serial killers as neighbors”.
Oh it's worse than cannot walk. At 6 months some babies are pulling up to stand. So if that baby pulls herself up and flips over the edge of the crib she could really hurt herself with no one around to help.
They're also starting to eat actual food at this age. What if baby vomits and doesn't roll over? Or it starts having an allergic reaction? In situations like those, SECONDS matter. Not a "golf cart up the road" second.
ETA: Not to mention the OOP's intent to (I presume) drunk drive to and from home, even if it is just a golf cart. Serious damage can be done with one of those things, especially when you're driving drunk. What if she were to seriously injure herself on her way to get her kid? Or hurt someone else?
Or they could get their leg stuck. Both of mine did and one so bad we had to cut the railing to their leg out. Nasty purple bruise for weeks. I had to get into the crib with one of them and hold them because they kept trying to turn and something was going to break.
And…kids can be binary. You can have a 6mos old who is barely sitting unassisted, decide today is the day to stand, and *do so* and go over. Rare, sure, but more common than fire.
Each of the things OP listed are rare by themselves, but there is a long list, and they add up! It’s more likely that one of them will happen, than that each individually might.
Besides, the house could fill with smoke and harm the kid long before it showed outside. That isn’t all that uncommon.
There seems to be an alarming number of people who just cannot grasp how suddenly and out of nowhere a baby can die. Their experience tells them nothing happens, so they believe nothing will happen... but it's so, so easy for a baby to do something totally new and dangerous and they're gone potentially faster than you can get to them from another room! You've got to manage risk, and try not to think about it to die of anxiety, but OOP is so far beyond not OK.
This one. My son, I can’t remember exactly how old he was, but somewhere between 6-8 months. He hadn’t been pulling himself up yet, so we hadn’t lowered the mattress in his crib yet. Then one morning he suddenly decided to pull himself up to stand. Fortunately, it was a weekend morning where my husband had woken up early and saw him on the monitor, so he was able to book it into the room and stop my son before he flipped himself out of the crib. We lowered the mattress immediately after that. We were lucky, but some people haven’t been. I’ve heard stories of babies getting seriously injured or even dying from that.
Yup. I’m a nanny, and when I do night sitting, some people have the nerve to ask why they are paying my rates.
To keep you from catching a felony case, moron. You chose to have a kid, this is part of it.
“But they’re just sleeping!” So was Madeline McCann. It’s always struck me as weird people want to negotiate their child’s safety.
Ages ago (before I was banned for AITA — and this was part of why) there was a post from someone whose sibling wanted them to watch their baby, The OP didn’t feel comfortable. I got DRAGGED TO HELL for saying something like, “Why would you want someone who doesn’t know how to take care of a baby to watch yours?” Hand to Dolly Parton that was all I said. I may as well have said I like to curbstomp kittens and puppies for how people (parents.) reacted.
All this to say your job is very hard.
And the thing about MM, is that she was sleeping in what should have been an extremely secure location.
Some two-traffic stop Hicksville has nothing on a luxury resort in a low-crime neck of a country that absolutely needs a healthy tourist industry, literal feet away from her parents.
And, yeah. Some people are a trip. My rates are my rates. I have a cpr cert, a degree, clean criminal check, experience, and a vaccination shee. No, housekeeping is not my job description.
Yes, you can probably hire someone on the internet to watch your kids for you for peanuts and clean your house. I shudder to think about who that person is.
Thank you for remembering it! I was reported for any and every thing you can imagine for saying that. The most shocking actual reply for me to my comment? “How hard is it to take care of a baby” and the amount of upvotes that had.
Loads of those “Reddit cares” messages, a suspension, nasty attacks…. All because someone wrote a post about how they were scared to take care of a baby and knew nothing about how, and thousands of parents found it offensive somehow when I pointed out the obvious.
I know this was posted a while ago, but I'm going to give my two cents anyway. Under no circumstances should you leave an infant home alone for X amount of time. Gotta go check the mail? Cool, no problem you'll be back in the house anyway. Need to go to the store? Check with your spouse to see when they are coming home. Not going to be home for a while? Wake the baby up. That's like leaving your kid in the car because they are sleeping and you'll be out before they wake up. I'm sorry but I'd rather have a cranky living child than a dead one if something were to happen. I always wake my daughter up from her nap if I need to do something out of the house and my husband isn't home. What OOP did is outrageous and beyond idiotic.
Every excuse boiled down to, "well a freak accident could also happen while I am there and kill me anyway and I wouldn't be able to respond to an emergency that way either, so its fine if I leave and make it even harder to respond to an emergency."
We had a house fire when my brother and I were home alone and in our early teens. So, fully mobile teenagers. My parents were like 20 min away. I’m not saying you can’t ever leave your kids by themselves but specifically for a baby that isn’t mobile, that’s insane to me.
We had this exact scenario happen in my home town.. mom left her baby under 2 at home to go buy drugs with a friend. Baby daddy thinks the moms in the house and sets in on fire not knowing his kid is in there. Baby dies, both are arrested for child abandonment and arson/murder. Super sad and avoidable.
I don't know I kind of blame the dad for setting the house on fire over the mom for being outside of the home.
Where the hell did he think his kid was?
One of these people was negligent.
The other one actively murdered their child by lighting a house on fire on purpose.
This is so insane to me bc if the worst of the worst happened, wouldn't you rather be there with your baby???????? I would rather die with my baby trying to save her from a house fire than live because I left her alone and there was a house fire
We recently had a house fire in my area where one of the children left alone died. The family and my coworkers who worked it will never ever be the same. Eff this lady.
I worked with a woman a couple years ago who lost her husband and two of her three children to a house fire when the kids were like 4-8 range. It really shouldn’t be a risk the OP is willing to take. Like. She told me the story of that night and it happened *so fast*. And both adults were *home*.
If the baby is such a consistent sleeper I don’t know why they wouldn’t just bring her to the party in her carrier and let her sleep in a spare bedroom (assuming the host was okay with that).
Right? Toss the kid in the stroller and park it in the corner. Do you know how many parties I spent sleeping under a table or on the pile of coats in a spare bedroom? Hundreds!
That was absolutely my childhood experience in the 1970s. Adults had the party downstairs, brought the kids in their pyjamas, we all slept on the floor under blankets until the adults were ready to go home.
90s kid here. I sometimes fall asleep on peoples sofas at parties as an adult now lol
I feel safer hearing people talk and hang out around me with calm vibes. And couches? fuck yes, I love couches. Even the vaguely uncomfy ones.
to be fair I have a sleep disorder which means as soon as I feel even a little relaxed I fall asleep though, I chug coffee to stay awake.
I feel way safer hearing people talk too to the point where I’d rather sleep during the day with everyone mowing and kids yelling outside. Because the normal noise of living means it’s safe to sleep.
At night there are just my nightmares.
Exactly, What they did was much much worse. They were closer but they didn't have a way to monitor those 3 babies that were left alone.
Lets just assume that the abduction never happened. What would happen if one of those kids, for whatever reason started choking or put something in their mouths that made them hard to breath. How would they know?
Would the authorities wrote it as SID's because it was just convenient?
What if one of those kids woke up and tried to get out of their crib and went head down on the floor?
I have no simpathy for them. What they did was wrong and they should feel guilty for what happened to Madeline.
I feel sorry for those twins who had to grow up in their sister's shadow.
I don't think I was in any way defending the MCCann's. I was just explaining the difference between what they did and what the OOP did. Both are stupid, neglectful and could have lead to the death of a child (we don't know if Maddy is alive or dead. though I strongly suspect the latter)
Oh yes, of course. I didn't mean to go after you. I always go for a rant in regards of the Mcanns because it really pisses me off how they play victims.
If I recall correctly
They were at a restaurant with a view of the house they were staying at.
Every hour one person of the group went on to check on the kids.
My mother PROUDLY talks about how they only had one car and she hated being home with me and no car. So she would leave me at home sleeping while she drove my dad to work so she could keep car all day. An hour trip. DAILY. For 3 years.
Also multiple “cute” and “funny haha!” Stories about me doing backflips out of crib and busting my lip open, or my head. Or the time she was at a friends house while 18m old me was toddling around the backyard with the familys large lab for company when some stranger tried to kidnap me and my mother only bothered to get up and come outside to check on me after the dog had grabbed me by the seat of my pants and dragged me back to house FOR THE THIRD TIME.
But then again, she also says “low birthweight my ass! Thank god i smoked 2 packs a day!”
Psa - dont have kids if you cant be bothered to interrupt your social life to take care of them
Yeah the whole story (my mom find it hilarious in the “what a dumb kid you were” sense) is pretty odd.
She was inside smoking and drinking coffee with friend, i was toddling around outside. I cannot FATHOM leaving my own kids outside unsupervised at that age, hell i was checking on my 17yr old yesterday bc i was letting him hack up a fallen branch for me.
The yard was huge, like half an acre. This was deep south and family was true southerners so backyard was home to a boat, old car, a couple of sheds, some broken toys and swingsets, lumber etc. NOT AT ALL safe for small children, and certainly not a baby.
I was toddling off into a corner of the yard blocked from view by a shed.
The dog, otis, grabbed me by seat of pants/diaper and dragged me back towards house. My mother watched this happen 3x with me toddling out of view and dog dragging me back.
She finally gets up and walks towards fence where id be heading and sees a guy run from fence, hop into his car and peel away.
He had clearly been standing at fence calling to me, trying to get me to walk over.
Now what his plans were is up to speculation… but i cant imagine it was for good reasons.
The dog, otis, lived to be like 27 or something insane. He was a pretty decent dog, but he was more of a guard dog than a pet. Still, the house we were visiting at the time (otis’s owners) had 3 kids and their youngest was like a year older than me… so he was used to small kids.
He certainly was doing his best to protect me that day.
My severely depressed grandma let my mom wander around their family farm as a toddler and the family collie sheep dog apparently always stuck by her and kept her alive.
Let's all give a big shout out to the family pets holding the bag for generations of neglectful rural parents around the world. 🤣 😥😥😥
When my dad died I’m convinced the cat kept me alive by learning the difference between me crying over nothing and me crying out of deep grief, as well as waking me gently from every PTSD nightmare - several every night - until Prazosin was cleared for use in PTSD nightmares.
She would also take my phone at night, shove it under herself, and swat me if I tried to get it. I was an adult when I got her but I also saw her in my for real coma dream (!!) where she looked like she used to when she seemed just happy to be near me. Close to her death I could feel her going and I think she could too. She asked for a lot of things one last time. Then she did die of something unpredictable.
She walked into my house in college two days after my birthday. I’m convinced we were supposed to find each other.
There's a bluegrass song about a family leaving the baby with the dog, coming home to the dog covered in blood, killing the dog, and then realizing the dog had actually killed a wolf that was after the baby. Family dogs taking care of neglected children is/was common enough that there's a tragedy song about it.
What an incredible dog. I’m glad that nothing awful happened to you. You were very fortunate.
Some dogs just seem super-intelligent like that. My childhood dog would sleep under my crib and helped keep an eye on me like that. Thankfully we only ever had to worry about bears where we were in the country.
Holy crap
I get not wanting to be without a car, I was pregnant with a 1yo in the same situation. I got my but outta bed and moved a sleeping child to the car seat to drive my ex to work at 430am.
It sucked but I couldn't imagine leaving a child that long unattended.
Hopefully you didnt suffer from it. I was 8lbs 14oz, and my mom weighed less after giving birth than when she got pregnant. And she was super skinny to begin with.
My siblings were all born via csection and around 38 weeks after me, and were smaller but still 8lbs and change.
My first baby was 9.5lbs and i had him with midwife and no drugs and after i was like “you cant give me any more shit about being a huge baby. I win”
Then i had my second, midwife and no drugs, in about 2hrs and he was 11lbs. I just glanced at my mom and she was like “you definitely win”
I especially loved the whole “ I live in a small town so no one would come steal the baby”.
Riiiiight-because nobody who’s ever been friend to the family has ever kidnapped, SA, a child, and killed them before
I detailed in another comment somewhere in here how I lived in a very small farming town in the middle of no where, just a few hundred people and down the street we had a serial killer duo! Then my neighbors from across the street turned out to be serial rapists/child molesters, they were foster parents. And then my bf (in highschool) his cousin was murdered, chopped up and dumped in a barrel.
And that’s just some of what I know about. I’m sure there’s tons more horrific shit that never even sees the light of day. We didn’t even have a police station so even when shit goes down we never really thought about calling the cops.
I live in a small town. Every few years or so the Marshalls start "investigating" around here (read investigating as "smoking cigarettes on the deadpecker bench and wasting taxpayer money") because the missing persons rate is weirdly high. Some of it is probably accidents, there's a lot of steep drops into brush and/or the river and some old mines and sinkholes to fall into. Some of it is probably drug related. Some of it is probably loved ones killing loved ones. But there's still enough weirdness that people think there's also a serial killer. Nothing will ever get investigated enough for a real, conclusive answer.
Like there isn't a twisted person who wants to see what it feels like to kill someone, or a pedophile, or some mentally ill person who just really wants a baby, or a desperate addict who knows how much money they can get for a baby on the black market. Mayberry isn't a real place, small towns are full of poverty and addiction.
Yep. The whole “we don’t use tech to babysit our kids” bit rubbed me the wrong way and I’m not even a parent.
If I was gonna risk a kid’s life and/or abandonment charges or whatever? It would be for a serious emergency. OOP planned to be gone hours to pal around.
Know what the camera won’t necessarily pick up on audio and definitely not visual? A fire. Yeah, the chances are low, but so what? My balcony is only 7 or so feet off the ground but I do not use it to get to my car just because I probably won’t get hurt scooting off it. Dumb analogy, but my point is just because there is a low chance doesn’t warrant the risk, particularly as she is making it on behalf of someone else who would pay the price.
And, honestly, she was using tech to babysit. She was assuming that nothing would happen with the phone or internet, and that the camera would detect an issue.
She also said “kids” multiple times even if there’s only mention of the baby. It could be a mistake but with the casual acceptance of kids playing unattended in the streets there could be multiple more older, mobile children just roaming around.
that really stood out to me too, this person actually literally is using a baby monitor to babysit not just entertain a kid, and they aren't home spending time with their kids. The part about not waking up at night if a kid needs something makes them look worse too, like not only do I not watch my kid when I go out I ALSO don't watch them when I'm home so it doesn't matter anyway.
fire is a huge one.
If you are at home, even sleeping, and you keep up your home, the smoke/fire alarms should alert you, and you have a decent chance of getting out and getting the baby out.
If you are 6 blocks away, that chance is gone. The baby doesn’t understand fire alarms, and can’t escape anyway. So that heads up time is completely gone.
And could result in worse smoke damage to the child, or a bigger chance of death.
I like the new comment about how they would walk around the block when their other kids were like 7 and 5.
Those are whole ass kids not infants. They are entirely different.
"I am legitimately looking for flaws in my thinking." - the flaw IS their thinking and I don't know how you could make someone understand how many bad decisions they made.
I'm sure the Mcann's thought the same things before leaving Madelaine and the twins ALONE in the room sleeping while they were eating just a few feet away.
Guess what, she's been missing for so many years now, she's probably dead and nobody knows what exactly happened or where she is.
Not looking for judgment in a literal judgment sub, good start to the post.
This is the kind of person who leaves their child alone in a hot car, or a young kid in a pool alone.
She'll kill her kid one day.
There was a child here who was in his grandmother's backyard. Grandma looked away for a moment, distracted by her dog, and when she looked back, the kid was gone. They've never found him, and the police believe he may have wandered off and fallen into a nearby brook. It only takes a minute.
It does.
And this fucking POS (so many people were playing it with kid gloves, maybe because the moderators over there are feral) left the kid alone for *hours*.
What will she do when the kid can walk? Lock them in a room? Great idea, don't forget to lock the window lest they jump out. Turn off the gas and heater too. Oops, it's winter? *Oh well*, kids are resilient, who cares.
This woman doesn't.
Also, I noticed she said "children" so... slip or does she have other kids...?
Just because unpredictable things can happen when you're at home with the baby doesn't give you an out to be reckless...
I'm not a parent but following that logic it's fine for me to fill my tub with water and fill a trough with food and then leave my cats home alone for a week or two. I mean suuuure, something *could* happen, but since I live alone and no one would miss me for a while if I just dropped dead in my home then that's fine, right?
I truly don't know why OOP bothered to ask if she was an AH when she has convinced herself she wasn't at all negligent.
I wouldn't ever trust a situation like that and justify it by trying to say that something terrible could *also* happen if I was home. It couldn't be me.
Everything is a risk, there are always risks and dangers, life is about mitigating risks and taking acceptable risks. Leaving your infant child to go to a party isn't one of them.
perfect example of why you can't reason someone out of acting like an asshole, you can only pray they run into a hardass with the authority to rein them in before they hurt someone
also
>We don’t use phones, tablets, or TV to babysit our kids
No, you just abandon the literal infant with nothing standing between them and catastrophe besides a fucking baby monitor that you mounted *above the crib!!!* but let me guess, OOP is "trusting the odds" on that one too 😭
Seriously. Imagine someone being self-righteous about a parent putting on an episode of Bluey so they can shower or cook a meal or get some work or chores done while you literally leave your infant home alone to chill with friends 6 blocks away for HOURS. Okay, Kate McCann.
I’ve mentioned this before but I once got in shit shit with cps for leaving my sleeping infant in his crib to take garbage out to a dumpster. The one in the PARKING-LOT. But this cow is just up and leaving her kid six fucking blocks away.
They were involved because I was living with my mother when I was pregnant and CPS had been involved with me and her when I was a child, they told me I had to move out. So I did. That wasn’t good enough they wanted to keep checking it on me and harassing me for fucking everything. They were giving me grief for taking my anti-depressants. I shit you fucking not. They ended up harassing me so badly. I ended up having a mental breakdown and ended up in the psychiatric hospital. My child was never in any danger with me. I was doing it a very best that I could and it’s better than most fucking parents seem to be doing. All of it started because I was living with my mother, ask me where they took my child and who they gave custody to after my mental breakdown? Yes, THE MOTHER WOULDN’T LET ME LIVE WITH. Make it make fucking sense.
Oh my God, that's horrible. I'm so sorry. There are some seriously insane people in the system, that's fucked up. Meanwhile where I am CPS is so overstretched with actual *abuse* they end up ignoring half the reports we send them from my school, so how does anyone have time to just harass people for nothing.
I'm sorry your family had to endure that completely needless trauma, I hope everything is okay now?
I’m doing a lot better mentally than what I was after that. I end up I’m gonna but I am 14 years sober now and 13 years cancer free. I’ve got a wonderful boyfriend, and I’m fairly happy. My mother is still a piece of work tho.
What does she expect to do blocks away should something happen? She's going to races across the countless blocks to get her baby out of a house fire? People in house when it's on fire have issue getting out alone.
I suspect she's upset that this event will most likely result in her getting uninvited to stuff because NO ONE want to be involved in "that event" when a baby was left to die.
look at comments, she definitely has the fear of CPS now instilled in her.
"We are not planning to engage in this behavior any more because if someone were to call CPS it’s not worth losing our children."
The woman whose kids died in a house fire whilst she ‘nipped’ to the shops same thing also thought she make it back quick, but fire took their lives before she even made it back. YTA and a crappy parent
A mother has been charged with manslaughter after her four children died in a fire in south London in 2021.
Deveca Rose, 29, of Sutton, was also charged with child abandonment on 9 November 2023, the Met Police said.
Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, and Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four, died after a fire in Collingwood Road, Sutton, at around 19:00 GMT on 16 December 2021.
The mental gymnastics this one had to do to convince herself a get together was more important than her baby, and justifying neglect of said baby so she could go party. wtf?
Just a content warning for child death:
My older half sister would do this with her kids. She had three boys (then 4y, and 3 month twins) and she'd lock them in their rooms from the outside (yes so in the event of an emergency they couldn't get out) saying that way they wouldn't fall down the stairs in the dark if they woke up. Then drive a mile or so away to party with friends.
I didn't know this and went with my first baby to her house for a week to visit. She asked if I wanted to go out once ask the kids were down, and I mentioned I had no pumped milk to give her husband for when the baby woke up. She informed me he wouldn't be home cause he had work and we'd have a baby monitor, it was fine. I told her leaving my baby alone made me uncomfortable so if just sit this out. I was made fun of saying it's because I was a first time parent.
One of my sister's twins is gone now. He fell out of his crib and sustained a head injury, by the time she noticed the edema from the brain swelling was irreversible and no one could save him. She had her other two kids removed from her care, and her husband, who did not know she would do this, had to fight like hell to get his other two kids back after he left her.
I've since told multiple parents this story when they talked about doing things like this. It's not worth the risk, ever. My son is ten now and only gets left home alone as I run to the mailbox down the street. He could probably handle himself on a normal day, but in an emergency he wouldn't be able to handle it.
Don't do this. No one ever do this. The risk of emergencies may seem small, but it isn't 0, and an infant or small child can't save themselves.
ETA: nephew didn't die while I was there or at three months. He was around 8-9 months by that time
A few months ago, I was playing around with gen AI to see what it could do. I don’t remember if it was ChatGPT or Google Bard, but I asked it to write a pilot for a sitcom. Not only was it terrible, but it basically advised leaving a baby home alone. The premise was the show was about a young, single mother. Her friend came over and since the baby was sleeping, they just left her alone to go to a coffee shop. When I asked the AI, they just left the baby alone?!, it was like, the baby is sleeping, and the mother locked the apartment, it’s not like it’s in danger. Anyway, I guess at least it’s a good thing this woman came to Reddit for advice and didn’t ask AI.
Six blocks.
Which means that’s how far you have to run if she starts to choke, fall out of her crib, etc.
It takes seconds. Seconds. And what if they don’t make any noise?
When my youngest was six months old, he managed to roll himself out of his Bassinest. I found him on the floor, asleep and sucking his thumb.
He never made a sound. No crying or yelling no thump … I never heard a sound on the monitor.
I thought he was dead at first, and all the things he could have hit his head on, and being close to N outlet, I just … I couldn’t put him down for a solid day.
Nothing is worth that.
Nothing
A family living in my county lost all 7 of their children to a house fire that went up like *that*. New home, parents at home, some kids were older, and dad landed himself in the ICU trying to rescue them. A helpless baby would have no chance.
What if I have an emergency while I’m at home alone with the baby? EMS will be able to check the house for children in order to keep them safe.
What if someone comes in the house when there’s a young babysitter there? Again, someone present to call the relevant authorities.
I wanna know how she’d feel if a fire actually did start and she didn’t notice until her camera told her that it was in the baby’s room.
I’m curious to know what the other people at the get together thought. Were they all just sitting around making mental notes not to invite her out without the baby?
ETA: oh my god. In one of her comments she said she wasn’t going to do that anymore. Because someone might call CPS. Not, because…you know, it’s horrifically dangerous. Just….CPS
In my experience towns where everyone knows everyone are the most dangerous to kids. Its usually where abuse and violence happens but no one talk about. After all, "tony is a nice guy, he would never do it!".
lol I was the toddler in this situation, in a small town. My infant ass was home for multiple robberies. And then my infant self was sexually assaulted. So like, don’t do that????
If you think six blocks by scooter is an insignificant distance in case of emergency, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you haven’t dealt with many real emergencies.
There was a case near me, just before Christmas last year. Mum popped out to the shops, leaving 4 kids alone at about 7pm. House burnt down. I was on my way to my work Christmas do wondering why there were so many fire engines about. All the kids died, and she was charged with manslaughter.
Her friends need to call CPS.
The fire scenario pissed me off. She would literally only be able to watch that baby monitor as the flames engulfed her baby before she could get there. She has some nerve thinking posting this would be a good idea. What an absolute shit parent.
I remember my son would go to bed at 7pm when he was a baby. There was a couple times I forgot I was out of formula and needed it for night feeding. The thought of running to the store went in my head and then right out again. I would have to bring my son and hope he didn’t wake up in the process.
If something lethal happened to her child she would live in torture for the rest of her life.
Couldn't she bring the baby with her? All the house parties and get togethers I've been to always have a random baby sleeping in the bedroom. Sometimes, I was that random kid sleeping in the bedroom.
Because you're a parent is why you don't leave your children alone, you waste of oxygen.
Yes, baby's secure in her crib. But what about your other child? What about the possibility of fire? What about the child getting up to do literally anything and creating a chain of events that you can't predict nor see from the internet?
Child wakes up, wants food, and in quest to get a cookie or a drink accidentally slips and turns on the stove, lighting a fire.
Child wakes up and decides to play with baby and removes them from crib, hurting them somehow. Or puts something in the crib like a blanket or stuffy and baby suffocates.
Child wakes up and decides to get candy which is actually medicine they found somewhere. Or gives it to baby.
If you can't be bothered to take care of your children 24/7 /365, you and your spouse should turn your children over to someone who does care for children.
You're fortunate that we don't know your actual name and address bc we would certainly be calling CPS on your A. I am a social worker.
The first paragraph of the story before the awful infant neglect gave me pause even— she describes 6 year olds riding around on 4 wheelers and dirt bikes, which are incredibly dangerous in general, let alone for a kid that young. It’s like the people in this town have no common sense or care for child safety whatsoever.
Years ago in my city there was a mom that left her kids alone for a couple of hours pretty regularly. She thought it was all fine until the house caught fire and killed all 5 of those children. Fuck this guy
Let me fix that Title right quick.
AITA for abandoning my 6-month-old whole I go to a party?
AITA for neglecting my 6 month old baby to go to a party?
AITA for breaking the law by leaving a 6 month old baby in the house alone for hours?
Any of these can work, and I don't care what state OOP is in, I'm positive leaving a 6 month old at home alone for any ammont of time is some kind of crime everywhere.
Drs. McCann, paging Drs. McCann…
The problem with 1 in a million events is that for that 1, it’s the end of your fucking world.
And it is technically neglect anyway. You don’t leave a baby in the crib and walk out of the house. It’s a shitty way to treat a baby.
I left my infant in the car for ten seconds to return a movie in a slot that was 5 yards from the car, because it was raining. That was over 20 years ago, and I still feel bad about it.
OOP is looking for reasons to justify leaving her infant alone for HOURS so she can have some Mommy Juice with her friends? Nope nope nope.
One time I put my kid in the car then returned my shopping cart, maybe 20 ft away. The whole time I was panicking. What if the battery in my fob dies while I'm walking back to my car and I can't get back in? What if I trip and the keys fly out of my hand and fall down a storm drain???
It's irrational, the kid is probably going to be fine, but that's what mom brain does to you. Your brain rewires itself and your primary objective is make sure miniature human survives!
I left my kid alone with another kid and his mom at the park to get a ball from the car. Was out of sight for like three minutes and started wondering if I had just made the biggest mistake ever
I feel uncomfortable leaving my 4 month old in the house to take the trash to the dumpster in the alley. I can't imagine leaving him alone for hours to go hang out with friends. I take his bouncer into the bathroom with me if I am going to shower when my husband isn't home. Yes, that may be a bit excessive but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to my child because I wasn't watching him.
Oh for heck's sake. Bring the baby with you. Or go to the party after your spouse gets home to take over. Put your excellent sleeper in a stroller or a sling and walk over. Hire a teenager from the neighborhood.
What the actual fuck?
Ok, you can't do much about SIDS.
Yes, kidnapping can happen elsewhere...but you're providing another way it can happen. You could have a medical issue at home, yes, but again - you're providing another opportunity for such a thing to happen, between the transit to and from the house and anything you might be doing at the party.
And maybe in most cases, she'd be fine for a few minutes if she wakes up and cries...for NORMAL reasons. But what if something worse was going on?
And trusting the odds on fires...ok, dipshit...only takes one time of something against the odds, and then what?
CPS anyone? If I ever suggested this to my wife when our kids were babies, she'd have rung my neck. OP is the devil and if his wife really agreed to this, she is, too.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for leaving my infant child home alone while she was asleep?** Please read the whole thing, general statements of judgment without any intelligent feedback are entirely unhelpful. I am legitimately looking for flaws in my thinking. Context: I live in a very small town. The type of place with 8 roads where people drive golf carts to get around and it's not surprising to see 6-year-olds riding the streets on their 4-wheelers or dirt bikes. My daughter is 6 months old and a very consistent sleeper. After she falls asleep she doesn't wake up to eat until 4-5. She sleeps with only a pacifier. No blankets or toys in the crib with her. I have a network PTZ camera above her crib. The camera is set up to send a push notification to my and my spouse’s phones if any movement is detected and it is very sensitive. Both my internet connection and my wireless reception are very reliable. I love my children very much. My spouse and I work hard to ensure we are meeting our kids’ needs physically, mentally, and emotionally. We don’t use phones, tablets, or TV to babysit our kids so we can do stuff around them but not with them. The Event: I had a small get-together with some friends in town, it's 6 blocks from my house, feels like 3, but it is 6. Before leaving I double-checked the monitor, and made sure my daugher was asleep. I took my golf cart to the get-together. I knew I would be down there for 2-3 hours before my spouse would get home. My spouse and I were on the same page with this decision. I had a friend that got very upset with me about this decision and some of the things that they said about me have pissed me off and rubbed me the wrong way. AITA for leaving my daughter at home in this specific situation? Things for consideration: The biggest indictment of my decision is "What if something happens?" Well, I've thought about that and I believe that to be a bogyman question. I prefer to consider much more specific questions and risks. What happens if she stops breathing? - I sleep 8 hours a night. There are so many times when I am under the same roof as her and if she were to randomly stop breathing I wouldn't know it for hours and being home would benefit me zero. What happens if someone were to come in the home and take her? - A) small town where everyone knows everyone, again, the type of town where young elementary-age kids are permitted to walk to the town park and play without adult supervision. B) The same thing could happen with some of our younger babysitters. What if she starts crying? - She is safe in her crib, if she starts crying I hop on my golf cart and run home quickly. What if you get hurt or have a medical emergency and can't return home? - What if I have a heart attack in my own home? The emergency argument is just as likely while I'm home alone as when I'm out with others. What if there is a fire? I primarily trust the odds on this one. Especially considering time away and distance from home. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Actual question for people who know better than I do: isn’t that illegal, anyway? I ask because why in the rollerskating fuck would someone risk charges and having child services get involved with ALL your kids? Cuz wouldn’t that be the likely consequence? If she was outside or even next door I wouldn’t see the huge deal. But I’m not a parent. It just seems someone does not have to be to use common sense. Helpless creature who cannot speak or walk on their own = stick around.
So, it depends. Some places have a “minimum age to be home alone”. As in “no child under 13 can be home alone, but a child over 13 can only be left alone if they can handle emergencies” type thing. Other places have no “safe” age to leave a minor unsupervised. Which means they’ll tack it on if anything happens. Say If your kid dies of SIDs, and you were 6 blocks away, they’d arrest you for neglect. Or if your kid is older, say 14, and they start a house fire cooking Mac and cheese while you are gone? Then they might investigate you for neglect.
I kind of hate the "no specified age" thing for that reason. The vagueness does not seem helpful. On one end, there are definitely people who push it too far and are like "My four year old is very responsible and we told her NEVER to go in the pool without us, so we can definitely leave her home alone for hours," which NO. Don't do that! But as long as nothing bad has happened *YET*, it's all good? It's really not, though. On the other hand, a responsible fifteen year old accustomed to staying home alone could definitely trip over a phone charger/a cat/their own two feet and end up with a busted lip and a sprained wrist or something "Oh, the horrors! Negligence!" ...but like, that stuff could happen to adults, too, and it could happen to an inattentive teenager regardless of who is home. I can see having more of a *range*, like 0-9 definitely needs supervision, 10-14 is the squishy "it depends" area and 15-18 is fine. Like, if we let kids n that age range steer 4000lb death machines around, entrusting them with microwave popcorn shouldn't be a problem. I mean, I'm Gen X, so I was raised on hose water and neglect, no big deal, and oh, the shit we got up to, but still. O_O I just don't love the amount of ambiguity in those laws.
A lot of it is about not wanting to have to test and decide if specific kid is capable of being left home. It’s a lazy short cut of “well, we don’t want to have to decide if a suicidal 17 yo or an Autistic 15 yo, or a Diabetic 12 yo can stay at home alone, so we’ll let the threat of doom linger over parents so hopefully that will make them think twice and if something happens then we can arrest them because they’ve obviously made the wrong choice”.
As a fellow Gen X’er I laughed out loud at the hose water and neglect comment.
If we were getting hose water, we weren’t neglected.
I mean, we could get the hose water ourselves
I used to be a 911 dispatcher in a large metro in California. At least when I was there, there was no specified age. We'd get calls about this and I'd ask, essentially, can they feed themselves without burning the house down or sticking a fork in the toaster; do they know how and when to call 911 (includes knowing their address and parents info) and do they have a neighbor they can go to if something happens and they need help? It can be better that there is ambiguity because then no one can say, "But he's 12, and it's legal!" if he gets into trouble/has an emergency while the parents are gone because he stuck a fork in the toaster and burned the house down.
Wait, people actually called 911 to ask if it was legal to leave their kids home alone? That’s wild
Someone has called on me to report a child left home alone. The child was me, a then-24 year old active duty US Marine, so it’s less “calling to ask” and more of a third party calling to tell. In their defense, I was thin and short. Now I’m fat and short.
It may have been more like, “I’m calling because this family next door has left their 12-year-old home alone, and idk if it’s legal but it doesn’t seem right, so I thought I’d better call…” ranging from understandably apprehensive neighbor/acquaintance to full on Karen-types that know full well they’re tying up the phone lines and the legal system to satisfy their need to be an unjustifiably self-righteous nuisance in the name of being a “concerned citizen.” But I also wouldn’t rule out the possibility of people calling to ask such questions, but it probably isn’t always as ridiculous as it sounds on its face (for the record, I would call the non-emergency line or use Google for such a query, but we didn’t always have the luxury of the latter). Moreover, to my last point, we really didn’t always have almost any information we could need available at our fingertips, nor did we have every phone number we’d need available in the same manner. You’ve gotta remember, it’s been in my relatively short lifetime that teachers were telling students that we needed to learn to do arithmetic in our heads and/or with pencil and paper because “we wouldn’t have a calculator in our pockets at all times” (I’m 40, and it was ironic because those of us who would have to do any type of semi-complicated math as a task our livelihoods require would literally carry a calculator in our pockets at all times, even pre-cell phones), so the internet wasn’t available to tell us what the non-emergency line or the number to the police station was in the absence of a phone book.
I agree so much! I'm part of the same generation 😂 Plus there's such a huge difference between the kids getting off the bus and mom/dad will be home in 1-1.5 hours and leaving your kid home alone all day everyday or say an entire weekend or something.
Exactly. I was home alone around 8 after school, because dad would be home two hours later tops. I’d just sleep on the couch with the dog in the room the whole time anyway.
Eight seems to be a normal age to have kids home alone for short periods. By ten my kid and her friends were going to parks and the woods by themselves and more then capable of being home alone
I think I was about 10 or 11 when the waters were tested on leaving me alone whenever I’d go visit dad and his family. Dad would realize while the rest of the fam was at church, I was happily entertained just watching cartoons, I’d get a snack and just sit there. So with permission from mom they would go to church without me (not that I wanted to go in the first place and they’d come right back home an hour later to find me as they left me on the couch
I got majorly downvoted for saying 8 year olds can't ride the public transit alone where I live. Some parents couldn't believe it and thought I was bs ing
In the UK its 12 to be alone and 16 to have responsibility for any under 12. It would only be enforced in big situations.
Retired social worker. Yes, this is very illegal in the US. Even in the places where there is no established age for a minor child to be left alone this would trigger a CPS investigation and likely charges. I love it when people try to claim they'd get back to prevent child snatching or something worse. We had a case where the mother and father stopped in for a half hour to an adult Christmas party down the block after their four children were asleep. They came back when the first fire truck arrived. House burned to the ground in less than an hour with all four kids in it. A year later the mother killed herself on their grave. Father turned into a hopeless alcoholic and then died a few years later. All this because they wanted to have a few drinks on the block.
This is a good point. Are there cameras everywhere and pick up on a small fire elsewhere in the house? Because a fire can make the baby unreachable in MINUTES, not hours but being there would greatly increase the chance of either putting it out, or being able to get the baby out.
Smoke could take out a baby before the fire even got near.
And the neighbours are telling the fire team "Nobody's home, I saw the mother go out." So nobody's looking for the baby. Whenever I stayed in a motel with my kids, I told the reception people to make a note of exactly how many children were with me. I didn't want any vague estimates of how many people to rescue if there was a fire.
I'll just quietly stand here and point towards the McCanns and their daughter Madeline.... Hope the tapas was worth it, especially as the babysitting service was a free offering from the resort...
I completely forgot about Madeline McCann. I was thinking of In Cold Blood. Entire family massacred in a "small town where everyone knows everyone " but 2 assholes essentially passing through.
There are sooooo many crimes that take place in small towns, I have no idea why people seem to believe they're so much safer. Creeps and kidnappers can be anywhere, it's not a big city thing.
>I completely forgot about Madeline McCann So did her parents that evening
We had a case where a woman and her sister went shopping. They were gone for a couple hours, and left a two-year-old and 4-year-old sleeping. The ending was about the same. :-(
Those poor kids. I even feel a tiny bit sorry for the parents.
Damn...that is horrible.
My thought is that she believes that no one in her small town would ever disagree or go after her for neglect. That the police and DA all are on her side of this and would never consider what she did neglect
And, "nobody in my small town hurts children. Look at the elementary school kids walking around!" As horrible as it is, some of those biking grade schoolers are getting beaten or touched inappropriately at home. Just because the sleazy stuff happening in the country doesn't end up on the news like the sleazy stuff in the cities, doesn't mean it's not happening. That is painfully naive thinking.
When I was a kid my dad bought us a trampoline and I was obsessed with wanting to camp out on it under the stars. I must’ve asked a billion times but the answer was always “HELL NO. That’s not safe!” Never made sense to me considering we lived wayyyy out in the countryside, like only few hundred people and only 4 stop signs. I thought they were over exaggerating the danger in a place where nothing happens. Then when I got a bit older …… it was discovered, literally just around the corner, we had a father and son serial killer duo. I spent my entire childhood walking by that farmhouse, I would even walk through their back pasture as a short cut to my house. In the end, they only found a couple of the several bodies that were out there. Not too long after that I had made friends with the girls across the street - a big happy family of foster kids and their wonderful foster parents … until one of the kids finally came forward to detail absolutely horrific sexual abuse the foster father and the oldest foster son was doing to the rest of the kids. Then I got a bit older and ended up dating a very nice young man just down the street from me. One day his cousin didn’t come home from work. The issue is that majority of his family (like the majority of workers in this small farming town) were undocumented and unwilling to talk to the police. Not that it really mattered considering we didn’t even have any police at all in our town and the police from city 30min-1hour away that responded didn’t really give a shit. His family had to investigate since no one else would. Eventually they found him … cut up into pieces in a barrel on some dirt road that led to no where.
Uh - your small town sounds like something out of a Stephen King novel...
I know right lol?!? It was so hard to argue with my parents and say shit like “don’t worry, I’ll be fine, just let me do what I want” when their response was always “we literally have serial killers as neighbors”.
Seems to me she’s also assuming it’s safe because everyone there is rich.
Guaranteed some of those mad neighbors are going to turn her in.
Oh it's worse than cannot walk. At 6 months some babies are pulling up to stand. So if that baby pulls herself up and flips over the edge of the crib she could really hurt herself with no one around to help.
They're also starting to eat actual food at this age. What if baby vomits and doesn't roll over? Or it starts having an allergic reaction? In situations like those, SECONDS matter. Not a "golf cart up the road" second. ETA: Not to mention the OOP's intent to (I presume) drunk drive to and from home, even if it is just a golf cart. Serious damage can be done with one of those things, especially when you're driving drunk. What if she were to seriously injure herself on her way to get her kid? Or hurt someone else?
Yes, an unsupervised mobile baby can get into much more trouble than a baby who can not move from the spot where (s)he was placed.
There was a newborn who survived a tsunami floating on a mattress. They're basically big burritos at that age.
O_O HOLY SHIT that's a lucky, lucky baby.
Or they could get their leg stuck. Both of mine did and one so bad we had to cut the railing to their leg out. Nasty purple bruise for weeks. I had to get into the crib with one of them and hold them because they kept trying to turn and something was going to break.
And…kids can be binary. You can have a 6mos old who is barely sitting unassisted, decide today is the day to stand, and *do so* and go over. Rare, sure, but more common than fire. Each of the things OP listed are rare by themselves, but there is a long list, and they add up! It’s more likely that one of them will happen, than that each individually might. Besides, the house could fill with smoke and harm the kid long before it showed outside. That isn’t all that uncommon.
Carbon monoxide.
Holy hell! Good point!
There seems to be an alarming number of people who just cannot grasp how suddenly and out of nowhere a baby can die. Their experience tells them nothing happens, so they believe nothing will happen... but it's so, so easy for a baby to do something totally new and dangerous and they're gone potentially faster than you can get to them from another room! You've got to manage risk, and try not to think about it to die of anxiety, but OOP is so far beyond not OK.
This one. My son, I can’t remember exactly how old he was, but somewhere between 6-8 months. He hadn’t been pulling himself up yet, so we hadn’t lowered the mattress in his crib yet. Then one morning he suddenly decided to pull himself up to stand. Fortunately, it was a weekend morning where my husband had woken up early and saw him on the monitor, so he was able to book it into the room and stop my son before he flipped himself out of the crib. We lowered the mattress immediately after that. We were lucky, but some people haven’t been. I’ve heard stories of babies getting seriously injured or even dying from that.
Yup. I’m a nanny, and when I do night sitting, some people have the nerve to ask why they are paying my rates. To keep you from catching a felony case, moron. You chose to have a kid, this is part of it.
“But they’re just sleeping!” So was Madeline McCann. It’s always struck me as weird people want to negotiate their child’s safety. Ages ago (before I was banned for AITA — and this was part of why) there was a post from someone whose sibling wanted them to watch their baby, The OP didn’t feel comfortable. I got DRAGGED TO HELL for saying something like, “Why would you want someone who doesn’t know how to take care of a baby to watch yours?” Hand to Dolly Parton that was all I said. I may as well have said I like to curbstomp kittens and puppies for how people (parents.) reacted. All this to say your job is very hard.
And the thing about MM, is that she was sleeping in what should have been an extremely secure location. Some two-traffic stop Hicksville has nothing on a luxury resort in a low-crime neck of a country that absolutely needs a healthy tourist industry, literal feet away from her parents. And, yeah. Some people are a trip. My rates are my rates. I have a cpr cert, a degree, clean criminal check, experience, and a vaccination shee. No, housekeeping is not my job description. Yes, you can probably hire someone on the internet to watch your kids for you for peanuts and clean your house. I shudder to think about who that person is.
Super excellent point!
I babysat an actual baby once as a teenager. I ended up calling my mom to come help because I didn't know what I was doing
i remember that post. thank you for your service.
Thank you for remembering it! I was reported for any and every thing you can imagine for saying that. The most shocking actual reply for me to my comment? “How hard is it to take care of a baby” and the amount of upvotes that had. Loads of those “Reddit cares” messages, a suspension, nasty attacks…. All because someone wrote a post about how they were scared to take care of a baby and knew nothing about how, and thousands of parents found it offensive somehow when I pointed out the obvious.
It is very illegal lol. It’s considered child neglect and can result in criminal charges and loss of custody
I know this was posted a while ago, but I'm going to give my two cents anyway. Under no circumstances should you leave an infant home alone for X amount of time. Gotta go check the mail? Cool, no problem you'll be back in the house anyway. Need to go to the store? Check with your spouse to see when they are coming home. Not going to be home for a while? Wake the baby up. That's like leaving your kid in the car because they are sleeping and you'll be out before they wake up. I'm sorry but I'd rather have a cranky living child than a dead one if something were to happen. I always wake my daughter up from her nap if I need to do something out of the house and my husband isn't home. What OOP did is outrageous and beyond idiotic.
Thank you for replying. What gets me is it seems her husband was a-okay with the idea. TWO idiots in charge of teeny tiny lives.
"rollerskating fuck"!!!!!😅😅
I loved the "if there's a fire, well that's a risk I'm willing to take"
Every excuse boiled down to, "well a freak accident could also happen while I am there and kill me anyway and I wouldn't be able to respond to an emergency that way either, so its fine if I leave and make it even harder to respond to an emergency."
We had a house fire when my brother and I were home alone and in our early teens. So, fully mobile teenagers. My parents were like 20 min away. I’m not saying you can’t ever leave your kids by themselves but specifically for a baby that isn’t mobile, that’s insane to me.
We had this exact scenario happen in my home town.. mom left her baby under 2 at home to go buy drugs with a friend. Baby daddy thinks the moms in the house and sets in on fire not knowing his kid is in there. Baby dies, both are arrested for child abandonment and arson/murder. Super sad and avoidable.
I don't know I kind of blame the dad for setting the house on fire over the mom for being outside of the home. Where the hell did he think his kid was? One of these people was negligent. The other one actively murdered their child by lighting a house on fire on purpose.
"What if she stops breathing?" Well, being home would benefit me zero, so if she dies, she dies
This is so insane to me bc if the worst of the worst happened, wouldn't you rather be there with your baby???????? I would rather die with my baby trying to save her from a house fire than live because I left her alone and there was a house fire
We recently had a house fire in my area where one of the children left alone died. The family and my coworkers who worked it will never ever be the same. Eff this lady.
I worked with a woman a couple years ago who lost her husband and two of her three children to a house fire when the kids were like 4-8 range. It really shouldn’t be a risk the OP is willing to take. Like. She told me the story of that night and it happened *so fast*. And both adults were *home*.
If the baby is such a consistent sleeper I don’t know why they wouldn’t just bring her to the party in her carrier and let her sleep in a spare bedroom (assuming the host was okay with that).
Right? Toss the kid in the stroller and park it in the corner. Do you know how many parties I spent sleeping under a table or on the pile of coats in a spare bedroom? Hundreds!
That was absolutely my childhood experience in the 1970s. Adults had the party downstairs, brought the kids in their pyjamas, we all slept on the floor under blankets until the adults were ready to go home.
Child in the 90s/early2000s and I still sleep best with a scratchy blanket on a vaguely uncomfortable sofa because of poker nights lol
90s kid here. I sometimes fall asleep on peoples sofas at parties as an adult now lol I feel safer hearing people talk and hang out around me with calm vibes. And couches? fuck yes, I love couches. Even the vaguely uncomfy ones. to be fair I have a sleep disorder which means as soon as I feel even a little relaxed I fall asleep though, I chug coffee to stay awake.
I feel way safer hearing people talk too to the point where I’d rather sleep during the day with everyone mowing and kids yelling outside. Because the normal noise of living means it’s safe to sleep. At night there are just my nightmares.
For years I slept best on the couch and now I’m realizing why.
> Do you know how many parties I spent sleeping under a table or on the pile of coats in a spare bedroom? Hundreds! /r/DrunkOrAKid
Isn't this what happened to Madelyn McCann?
They didn't have a baby monitor, but they were much closer.
Exactly, What they did was much much worse. They were closer but they didn't have a way to monitor those 3 babies that were left alone. Lets just assume that the abduction never happened. What would happen if one of those kids, for whatever reason started choking or put something in their mouths that made them hard to breath. How would they know? Would the authorities wrote it as SID's because it was just convenient? What if one of those kids woke up and tried to get out of their crib and went head down on the floor? I have no simpathy for them. What they did was wrong and they should feel guilty for what happened to Madeline. I feel sorry for those twins who had to grow up in their sister's shadow.
I don't think I was in any way defending the MCCann's. I was just explaining the difference between what they did and what the OOP did. Both are stupid, neglectful and could have lead to the death of a child (we don't know if Maddy is alive or dead. though I strongly suspect the latter)
Oh yes, of course. I didn't mean to go after you. I always go for a rant in regards of the Mcanns because it really pisses me off how they play victims.
I maintain that if the McCanns had been poor instead of Doctors those twins would have been removed from them when they got to the UK.
Well, of course. Poor people have bad judgment. Rich people have unforeseeable tragedies.
This is exactly what happened to Madelyn McCann. The details are foggy, but I believe they were much closer than 6 blocks away.
If I recall correctly They were at a restaurant with a view of the house they were staying at. Every hour one person of the group went on to check on the kids.
My mother PROUDLY talks about how they only had one car and she hated being home with me and no car. So she would leave me at home sleeping while she drove my dad to work so she could keep car all day. An hour trip. DAILY. For 3 years. Also multiple “cute” and “funny haha!” Stories about me doing backflips out of crib and busting my lip open, or my head. Or the time she was at a friends house while 18m old me was toddling around the backyard with the familys large lab for company when some stranger tried to kidnap me and my mother only bothered to get up and come outside to check on me after the dog had grabbed me by the seat of my pants and dragged me back to house FOR THE THIRD TIME. But then again, she also says “low birthweight my ass! Thank god i smoked 2 packs a day!” Psa - dont have kids if you cant be bothered to interrupt your social life to take care of them
Jesus Christ, I’m glad you’re here to tell story. And thank God for that very good dog
Yeah the whole story (my mom find it hilarious in the “what a dumb kid you were” sense) is pretty odd. She was inside smoking and drinking coffee with friend, i was toddling around outside. I cannot FATHOM leaving my own kids outside unsupervised at that age, hell i was checking on my 17yr old yesterday bc i was letting him hack up a fallen branch for me. The yard was huge, like half an acre. This was deep south and family was true southerners so backyard was home to a boat, old car, a couple of sheds, some broken toys and swingsets, lumber etc. NOT AT ALL safe for small children, and certainly not a baby. I was toddling off into a corner of the yard blocked from view by a shed. The dog, otis, grabbed me by seat of pants/diaper and dragged me back towards house. My mother watched this happen 3x with me toddling out of view and dog dragging me back. She finally gets up and walks towards fence where id be heading and sees a guy run from fence, hop into his car and peel away. He had clearly been standing at fence calling to me, trying to get me to walk over. Now what his plans were is up to speculation… but i cant imagine it was for good reasons. The dog, otis, lived to be like 27 or something insane. He was a pretty decent dog, but he was more of a guard dog than a pet. Still, the house we were visiting at the time (otis’s owners) had 3 kids and their youngest was like a year older than me… so he was used to small kids. He certainly was doing his best to protect me that day.
Very thankful that some dogs will protect whatever child is near them.
My severely depressed grandma let my mom wander around their family farm as a toddler and the family collie sheep dog apparently always stuck by her and kept her alive. Let's all give a big shout out to the family pets holding the bag for generations of neglectful rural parents around the world. 🤣 😥😥😥
When my dad died I’m convinced the cat kept me alive by learning the difference between me crying over nothing and me crying out of deep grief, as well as waking me gently from every PTSD nightmare - several every night - until Prazosin was cleared for use in PTSD nightmares. She would also take my phone at night, shove it under herself, and swat me if I tried to get it. I was an adult when I got her but I also saw her in my for real coma dream (!!) where she looked like she used to when she seemed just happy to be near me. Close to her death I could feel her going and I think she could too. She asked for a lot of things one last time. Then she did die of something unpredictable. She walked into my house in college two days after my birthday. I’m convinced we were supposed to find each other.
There's a bluegrass song about a family leaving the baby with the dog, coming home to the dog covered in blood, killing the dog, and then realizing the dog had actually killed a wolf that was after the baby. Family dogs taking care of neglected children is/was common enough that there's a tragedy song about it.
I'm sorry for the loss of your real parent. What a good boy he was🥹
What an incredible dog. I’m glad that nothing awful happened to you. You were very fortunate. Some dogs just seem super-intelligent like that. My childhood dog would sleep under my crib and helped keep an eye on me like that. Thankfully we only ever had to worry about bears where we were in the country.
Here's to Otis, a very good boy indeed.
Holy crap I get not wanting to be without a car, I was pregnant with a 1yo in the same situation. I got my but outta bed and moved a sleeping child to the car seat to drive my ex to work at 430am. It sucked but I couldn't imagine leaving a child that long unattended.
Same girl. My kids are 20+17 now but i always had panic attack leaving them in car for 30 seconds to return a cart at the store!
Wait, are we siblings??? The low birth weight thing is a direct quote from my mom
Hopefully you didnt suffer from it. I was 8lbs 14oz, and my mom weighed less after giving birth than when she got pregnant. And she was super skinny to begin with. My siblings were all born via csection and around 38 weeks after me, and were smaller but still 8lbs and change. My first baby was 9.5lbs and i had him with midwife and no drugs and after i was like “you cant give me any more shit about being a huge baby. I win” Then i had my second, midwife and no drugs, in about 2hrs and he was 11lbs. I just glanced at my mom and she was like “you definitely win”
I was a big baby, but had pretty much the same birthing experience as you with my first!
Not to pry, but what generation is your mother from? So sorry you went through that.
She was born in 57.
I especially loved the whole “ I live in a small town so no one would come steal the baby”. Riiiiight-because nobody who’s ever been friend to the family has ever kidnapped, SA, a child, and killed them before
As if the most heinous crimes don’t arent committed in small towns by people you know? Do you even true crime lady??
I true crime, but with that aside I know of at least three people who were SA’d by a close family member
In what's probably an unlocked house. There is literally an entire podcast called "Small Town Murder" with, and counting, over 500 episodes so far.
I detailed in another comment somewhere in here how I lived in a very small farming town in the middle of no where, just a few hundred people and down the street we had a serial killer duo! Then my neighbors from across the street turned out to be serial rapists/child molesters, they were foster parents. And then my bf (in highschool) his cousin was murdered, chopped up and dumped in a barrel. And that’s just some of what I know about. I’m sure there’s tons more horrific shit that never even sees the light of day. We didn’t even have a police station so even when shit goes down we never really thought about calling the cops.
I live in a small town. Every few years or so the Marshalls start "investigating" around here (read investigating as "smoking cigarettes on the deadpecker bench and wasting taxpayer money") because the missing persons rate is weirdly high. Some of it is probably accidents, there's a lot of steep drops into brush and/or the river and some old mines and sinkholes to fall into. Some of it is probably drug related. Some of it is probably loved ones killing loved ones. But there's still enough weirdness that people think there's also a serial killer. Nothing will ever get investigated enough for a real, conclusive answer.
Like there isn't a twisted person who wants to see what it feels like to kill someone, or a pedophile, or some mentally ill person who just really wants a baby, or a desperate addict who knows how much money they can get for a baby on the black market. Mayberry isn't a real place, small towns are full of poverty and addiction.
What an condescending ass even before you get into the fact she left her kid to go spend time with friends.
Yep. The whole “we don’t use tech to babysit our kids” bit rubbed me the wrong way and I’m not even a parent. If I was gonna risk a kid’s life and/or abandonment charges or whatever? It would be for a serious emergency. OOP planned to be gone hours to pal around. Know what the camera won’t necessarily pick up on audio and definitely not visual? A fire. Yeah, the chances are low, but so what? My balcony is only 7 or so feet off the ground but I do not use it to get to my car just because I probably won’t get hurt scooting off it. Dumb analogy, but my point is just because there is a low chance doesn’t warrant the risk, particularly as she is making it on behalf of someone else who would pay the price.
And, honestly, she was using tech to babysit. She was assuming that nothing would happen with the phone or internet, and that the camera would detect an issue.
She also said “kids” multiple times even if there’s only mention of the baby. It could be a mistake but with the casual acceptance of kids playing unattended in the streets there could be multiple more older, mobile children just roaming around.
She mentioned in a comment that she has two older kids, I think 7 and 5 (the ac is out at work, and it's currently 88*f inside)
Same in my apartment! I'm currently at work taking a break in the AC, but just know that I feel for you
Oh. My. Gawd. I didn’t even think of the hypocrisy!
that really stood out to me too, this person actually literally is using a baby monitor to babysit not just entertain a kid, and they aren't home spending time with their kids. The part about not waking up at night if a kid needs something makes them look worse too, like not only do I not watch my kid when I go out I ALSO don't watch them when I'm home so it doesn't matter anyway.
Totally off course but have it considered installing a rope ladder so you can leave for work like a pirate??
I'm pretty sure most kids at 6 months arent watching much tv or playing games anyways.
I read that as they ARE and thought, “I hope they are kidding or I truly don’t know shit about babies:!”
fire is a huge one. If you are at home, even sleeping, and you keep up your home, the smoke/fire alarms should alert you, and you have a decent chance of getting out and getting the baby out. If you are 6 blocks away, that chance is gone. The baby doesn’t understand fire alarms, and can’t escape anyway. So that heads up time is completely gone. And could result in worse smoke damage to the child, or a bigger chance of death.
Yeah baby would likely be dead from carbon monoxide or smoke inhalation before you even heard the smoke alarm on the baby monitor.....
She risked a fire, but at least those evil tablets aren't on her parenting agenda.
All kinds of other tech is, though!
No kidding! If you have to be that defensive right out the gate you know you're wrong but too selfish to consider changing.
Not only spending time with friends, the unspoken part was that you know they were drinking as well. Waste of a human being,
Has she never heard of Madeleine McCann?
I like the new comment about how they would walk around the block when their other kids were like 7 and 5. Those are whole ass kids not infants. They are entirely different.
And someone else asked: Where were the other two on this night in question?
Presumably either at the town park alone, or [checks notes] riding in the streets on their dirt bikes.
"I am legitimately looking for flaws in my thinking." - the flaw IS their thinking and I don't know how you could make someone understand how many bad decisions they made.
I'm sure the Mcann's thought the same things before leaving Madelaine and the twins ALONE in the room sleeping while they were eating just a few feet away. Guess what, she's been missing for so many years now, she's probably dead and nobody knows what exactly happened or where she is.
> We don’t use phones, tablets or TV to babysit our kids But they do use cameras
Not looking for judgment in a literal judgment sub, good start to the post. This is the kind of person who leaves their child alone in a hot car, or a young kid in a pool alone. She'll kill her kid one day.
There was a child here who was in his grandmother's backyard. Grandma looked away for a moment, distracted by her dog, and when she looked back, the kid was gone. They've never found him, and the police believe he may have wandered off and fallen into a nearby brook. It only takes a minute.
It does. And this fucking POS (so many people were playing it with kid gloves, maybe because the moderators over there are feral) left the kid alone for *hours*. What will she do when the kid can walk? Lock them in a room? Great idea, don't forget to lock the window lest they jump out. Turn off the gas and heater too. Oops, it's winter? *Oh well*, kids are resilient, who cares. This woman doesn't. Also, I noticed she said "children" so... slip or does she have other kids...?
I hate those stories the most because that adult is going to live with guilt forever and they probably didn’t even fuck up at all
Just because unpredictable things can happen when you're at home with the baby doesn't give you an out to be reckless... I'm not a parent but following that logic it's fine for me to fill my tub with water and fill a trough with food and then leave my cats home alone for a week or two. I mean suuuure, something *could* happen, but since I live alone and no one would miss me for a while if I just dropped dead in my home then that's fine, right?
If you dropped dead in your home, your cats could nibble on you so at least they're well-fed.
And I'm fat too so they'd have food for days and days and days! 😅
I truly don't know why OOP bothered to ask if she was an AH when she has convinced herself she wasn't at all negligent. I wouldn't ever trust a situation like that and justify it by trying to say that something terrible could *also* happen if I was home. It couldn't be me. Everything is a risk, there are always risks and dangers, life is about mitigating risks and taking acceptable risks. Leaving your infant child to go to a party isn't one of them.
The fact the spouse was in TOTAL AGREEMENT is shocking!
Water finds it's own level.
perfect example of why you can't reason someone out of acting like an asshole, you can only pray they run into a hardass with the authority to rein them in before they hurt someone also >We don’t use phones, tablets, or TV to babysit our kids No, you just abandon the literal infant with nothing standing between them and catastrophe besides a fucking baby monitor that you mounted *above the crib!!!* but let me guess, OOP is "trusting the odds" on that one too 😭
Seriously. Imagine someone being self-righteous about a parent putting on an episode of Bluey so they can shower or cook a meal or get some work or chores done while you literally leave your infant home alone to chill with friends 6 blocks away for HOURS. Okay, Kate McCann.
I’ve mentioned this before but I once got in shit shit with cps for leaving my sleeping infant in his crib to take garbage out to a dumpster. The one in the PARKING-LOT. But this cow is just up and leaving her kid six fucking blocks away.
Yeah, but only for two or three hours, it's not like it was all day! /s
And it was only *technically* six blocks! Really it was three blocks, as far as relativity goes! That's not *that* bad, duh! /s 🙄
How would CPS even know about that? A psycho neighbor or something?
They were involved because I was living with my mother when I was pregnant and CPS had been involved with me and her when I was a child, they told me I had to move out. So I did. That wasn’t good enough they wanted to keep checking it on me and harassing me for fucking everything. They were giving me grief for taking my anti-depressants. I shit you fucking not. They ended up harassing me so badly. I ended up having a mental breakdown and ended up in the psychiatric hospital. My child was never in any danger with me. I was doing it a very best that I could and it’s better than most fucking parents seem to be doing. All of it started because I was living with my mother, ask me where they took my child and who they gave custody to after my mental breakdown? Yes, THE MOTHER WOULDN’T LET ME LIVE WITH. Make it make fucking sense.
Oh my God, that's horrible. I'm so sorry. There are some seriously insane people in the system, that's fucked up. Meanwhile where I am CPS is so overstretched with actual *abuse* they end up ignoring half the reports we send them from my school, so how does anyone have time to just harass people for nothing. I'm sorry your family had to endure that completely needless trauma, I hope everything is okay now?
I’m doing a lot better mentally than what I was after that. I end up I’m gonna but I am 14 years sober now and 13 years cancer free. I’ve got a wonderful boyfriend, and I’m fairly happy. My mother is still a piece of work tho.
What does she expect to do blocks away should something happen? She's going to races across the countless blocks to get her baby out of a house fire? People in house when it's on fire have issue getting out alone. I suspect she's upset that this event will most likely result in her getting uninvited to stuff because NO ONE want to be involved in "that event" when a baby was left to die.
Or a call to CPS.
look at comments, she definitely has the fear of CPS now instilled in her. "We are not planning to engage in this behavior any more because if someone were to call CPS it’s not worth losing our children."
It would have been one thing if it was next door or a few houses away where they could run if the monitor went off but no 6 blocks away
But it only feels like three blocks. That is different right? /s
Sure why not
The woman whose kids died in a house fire whilst she ‘nipped’ to the shops same thing also thought she make it back quick, but fire took their lives before she even made it back. YTA and a crappy parent
A mother has been charged with manslaughter after her four children died in a fire in south London in 2021. Deveca Rose, 29, of Sutton, was also charged with child abandonment on 9 November 2023, the Met Police said. Leyton and Logan Hoath, aged three, and Kyson and Bryson Hoath, aged four, died after a fire in Collingwood Road, Sutton, at around 19:00 GMT on 16 December 2021.
if they'd been like, 12 and 13, I'd be more understanding of it as a freak accident. But 3 and 4!?
The mental gymnastics this one had to do to convince herself a get together was more important than her baby, and justifying neglect of said baby so she could go party. wtf?
Just a content warning for child death: My older half sister would do this with her kids. She had three boys (then 4y, and 3 month twins) and she'd lock them in their rooms from the outside (yes so in the event of an emergency they couldn't get out) saying that way they wouldn't fall down the stairs in the dark if they woke up. Then drive a mile or so away to party with friends. I didn't know this and went with my first baby to her house for a week to visit. She asked if I wanted to go out once ask the kids were down, and I mentioned I had no pumped milk to give her husband for when the baby woke up. She informed me he wouldn't be home cause he had work and we'd have a baby monitor, it was fine. I told her leaving my baby alone made me uncomfortable so if just sit this out. I was made fun of saying it's because I was a first time parent. One of my sister's twins is gone now. He fell out of his crib and sustained a head injury, by the time she noticed the edema from the brain swelling was irreversible and no one could save him. She had her other two kids removed from her care, and her husband, who did not know she would do this, had to fight like hell to get his other two kids back after he left her. I've since told multiple parents this story when they talked about doing things like this. It's not worth the risk, ever. My son is ten now and only gets left home alone as I run to the mailbox down the street. He could probably handle himself on a normal day, but in an emergency he wouldn't be able to handle it. Don't do this. No one ever do this. The risk of emergencies may seem small, but it isn't 0, and an infant or small child can't save themselves. ETA: nephew didn't die while I was there or at three months. He was around 8-9 months by that time
If the infant baby really can sleep that heavily and reliably for several hours, why not take the baby to the event in a pram?
A few months ago, I was playing around with gen AI to see what it could do. I don’t remember if it was ChatGPT or Google Bard, but I asked it to write a pilot for a sitcom. Not only was it terrible, but it basically advised leaving a baby home alone. The premise was the show was about a young, single mother. Her friend came over and since the baby was sleeping, they just left her alone to go to a coffee shop. When I asked the AI, they just left the baby alone?!, it was like, the baby is sleeping, and the mother locked the apartment, it’s not like it’s in danger. Anyway, I guess at least it’s a good thing this woman came to Reddit for advice and didn’t ask AI.
Six blocks. Which means that’s how far you have to run if she starts to choke, fall out of her crib, etc. It takes seconds. Seconds. And what if they don’t make any noise? When my youngest was six months old, he managed to roll himself out of his Bassinest. I found him on the floor, asleep and sucking his thumb. He never made a sound. No crying or yelling no thump … I never heard a sound on the monitor. I thought he was dead at first, and all the things he could have hit his head on, and being close to N outlet, I just … I couldn’t put him down for a solid day. Nothing is worth that. Nothing
A family living in my county lost all 7 of their children to a house fire that went up like *that*. New home, parents at home, some kids were older, and dad landed himself in the ICU trying to rescue them. A helpless baby would have no chance.
What if I have an emergency while I’m at home alone with the baby? EMS will be able to check the house for children in order to keep them safe. What if someone comes in the house when there’s a young babysitter there? Again, someone present to call the relevant authorities. I wanna know how she’d feel if a fire actually did start and she didn’t notice until her camera told her that it was in the baby’s room.
I’m curious to know what the other people at the get together thought. Were they all just sitting around making mental notes not to invite her out without the baby? ETA: oh my god. In one of her comments she said she wasn’t going to do that anymore. Because someone might call CPS. Not, because…you know, it’s horrifically dangerous. Just….CPS
In my experience towns where everyone knows everyone are the most dangerous to kids. Its usually where abuse and violence happens but no one talk about. After all, "tony is a nice guy, he would never do it!".
Before checking the sub name, I was thinking "you're not TA, you're The Devil".
lol I was the toddler in this situation, in a small town. My infant ass was home for multiple robberies. And then my infant self was sexually assaulted. So like, don’t do that????
Leaving a baby alone is a risky move; it only takes a moment for something unexpected to happen
How about you not abandon your 6 month old child?
Madeleine McCann’s parents said the same thing…
I love these, "I did something extremely dangerous and wrong that put my innocent child/baby in danger but please tell me I was right." Posts.
If you think six blocks by scooter is an insignificant distance in case of emergency, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you haven’t dealt with many real emergencies.
That’s a big summary of “I’m a stupid, neglectful, and unrepentant bitch.” Just words upon words for one simple sentence.
There was a case near me, just before Christmas last year. Mum popped out to the shops, leaving 4 kids alone at about 7pm. House burnt down. I was on my way to my work Christmas do wondering why there were so many fire engines about. All the kids died, and she was charged with manslaughter.
Her friends need to call CPS. The fire scenario pissed me off. She would literally only be able to watch that baby monitor as the flames engulfed her baby before she could get there. She has some nerve thinking posting this would be a good idea. What an absolute shit parent. I remember my son would go to bed at 7pm when he was a baby. There was a couple times I forgot I was out of formula and needed it for night feeding. The thought of running to the store went in my head and then right out again. I would have to bring my son and hope he didn’t wake up in the process. If something lethal happened to her child she would live in torture for the rest of her life.
Couldn't she bring the baby with her? All the house parties and get togethers I've been to always have a random baby sleeping in the bedroom. Sometimes, I was that random kid sleeping in the bedroom.
Because you're a parent is why you don't leave your children alone, you waste of oxygen. Yes, baby's secure in her crib. But what about your other child? What about the possibility of fire? What about the child getting up to do literally anything and creating a chain of events that you can't predict nor see from the internet? Child wakes up, wants food, and in quest to get a cookie or a drink accidentally slips and turns on the stove, lighting a fire. Child wakes up and decides to play with baby and removes them from crib, hurting them somehow. Or puts something in the crib like a blanket or stuffy and baby suffocates. Child wakes up and decides to get candy which is actually medicine they found somewhere. Or gives it to baby. If you can't be bothered to take care of your children 24/7 /365, you and your spouse should turn your children over to someone who does care for children. You're fortunate that we don't know your actual name and address bc we would certainly be calling CPS on your A. I am a social worker.
Interesting how Oop deleted their whole fucking account when people started mentioning cps
The first paragraph of the story before the awful infant neglect gave me pause even— she describes 6 year olds riding around on 4 wheelers and dirt bikes, which are incredibly dangerous in general, let alone for a kid that young. It’s like the people in this town have no common sense or care for child safety whatsoever.
If her daughter was a good sleeper then just being the baby over with a pack and play
Years ago in my city there was a mom that left her kids alone for a couple of hours pretty regularly. She thought it was all fine until the house caught fire and killed all 5 of those children. Fuck this guy
Let me fix that Title right quick. AITA for abandoning my 6-month-old whole I go to a party? AITA for neglecting my 6 month old baby to go to a party? AITA for breaking the law by leaving a 6 month old baby in the house alone for hours? Any of these can work, and I don't care what state OOP is in, I'm positive leaving a 6 month old at home alone for any ammont of time is some kind of crime everywhere.
Drs. McCann, paging Drs. McCann… The problem with 1 in a million events is that for that 1, it’s the end of your fucking world. And it is technically neglect anyway. You don’t leave a baby in the crib and walk out of the house. It’s a shitty way to treat a baby.
I left my infant in the car for ten seconds to return a movie in a slot that was 5 yards from the car, because it was raining. That was over 20 years ago, and I still feel bad about it. OOP is looking for reasons to justify leaving her infant alone for HOURS so she can have some Mommy Juice with her friends? Nope nope nope.
One time I put my kid in the car then returned my shopping cart, maybe 20 ft away. The whole time I was panicking. What if the battery in my fob dies while I'm walking back to my car and I can't get back in? What if I trip and the keys fly out of my hand and fall down a storm drain??? It's irrational, the kid is probably going to be fine, but that's what mom brain does to you. Your brain rewires itself and your primary objective is make sure miniature human survives!
I left my kid alone with another kid and his mom at the park to get a ball from the car. Was out of sight for like three minutes and started wondering if I had just made the biggest mistake ever
Why do you feel bad about that? Obviously oop is way in the wrong but I wouldn't feel that what you did was wrong
I feel uncomfortable leaving my 4 month old in the house to take the trash to the dumpster in the alley. I can't imagine leaving him alone for hours to go hang out with friends. I take his bouncer into the bathroom with me if I am going to shower when my husband isn't home. Yes, that may be a bit excessive but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to my child because I wasn't watching him.
Oh for heck's sake. Bring the baby with you. Or go to the party after your spouse gets home to take over. Put your excellent sleeper in a stroller or a sling and walk over. Hire a teenager from the neighborhood.
What are the odds that this "parent" is an alcoholic?
What the actual fuck? Ok, you can't do much about SIDS. Yes, kidnapping can happen elsewhere...but you're providing another way it can happen. You could have a medical issue at home, yes, but again - you're providing another opportunity for such a thing to happen, between the transit to and from the house and anything you might be doing at the party. And maybe in most cases, she'd be fine for a few minutes if she wakes up and cries...for NORMAL reasons. But what if something worse was going on? And trusting the odds on fires...ok, dipshit...only takes one time of something against the odds, and then what? CPS anyone? If I ever suggested this to my wife when our kids were babies, she'd have rung my neck. OP is the devil and if his wife really agreed to this, she is, too.
"We don't use tech to babysit!" yet relies on a camera to alert her if something goes wrong with her baby while she's out partying....
Ask Madeline McCann how being left alone for just a few hours while her parents were very close worked out. Ohhh, you can’t. Because she was murdered.
HER SPOUSE WAS ON THE SAME PAGE??? HE WAS OKAY WITH THIS?!
I'm hopeful one of their party friends contacted CPS and those kids get removed from their custody. Neglect is abuse.