Three babies have died in the last six weeks in Milwaukee. They were sleeping with someone instead of sleeping in a crib. The city is now trying to convince families that it's unloving to let a baby sleep in bed with its mother. (If I've got the different stories straight, one died sleeping with a grandmother, and one died sleeping with a drunk mother. I haven't heard details about this week's death.) Although there are loads of people who know co-sleeping is usually a safe and healthy practice, our society has lost so much common sense that we now have people saying that it's child neglect/abuse.
And then today we hear the story of a mother who was arrested because she stopped the car, told her bickering daughters to get out, and made them walk home. Some people are aghast that a mother could put her children in such "danger" as to make them walk home. They say it's child neglect. There are other parents who think that it's child neglect to allow the kids to squabble and sass and be unrestrained in their selfishness.
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My mom made me walk twice as a child. I think it depends on the proximity to home that would concern me. I was made to walk about 6 blocks in order to get home and I was within my neighborhood. As for co-sleeping. Thus far the sleeping deaths are not the normal co-sleeping arrangments that most people do with their infants. A drunk parent ... a grandparent. I am neither drunk nor a grandparent to my child, these factors should play a role in good reporting and good legislation.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem sending my kid to walk home. AFTER I spanked them for being naughty! Most parents are good parents - naturally, the news always picks up on the bad ones. As a good parent, you would know that your child could walk home safely from wherever you dropped them off!
ReplyDeleteYeah, and then when we got home we would have to deal with DAD!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I would make 10- and 12-year-old girls walk 3 miles home alone. But that's me. It doesn't mean I think a parent who makes a different call should be charged by the state with child endangerment. I guess it comes down to the particulars of the situation and the people involved. I have naive, sometimes clueless, directionally-challenged kids. If I drove off and left them 3 miles from home I would wonder if I would ever see them again. And with two young girls I would worry about predators. But again, that's me and my children and our situation. And anyway, parents do make mistakes. Does that mean the state needs to get involved every time they do so? If so, I'm in big trouble.
ReplyDeleteI never liked the whole sleeping in bed with us thing. We were selfish. To each his own.
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