Are those who condem certain parents, also parents themselves?

Question

I asked a question earlier regarding if you have ever left your child alone regardless of how long.
Most were very honest answers saying yes they have.
Remember I said REGARDLESS of how long

So with that should a parent nipping to the post box ( as one honest person told me) be charged with neglect?
Should someone who needs to go into the garden for some reason leaving their children ALONE in the house also be charged with neglect
After all leaving your children alone for any amount of time is neglectful.........or is it?

captain buggernuts
I agree!!!

Do you remember the girl who was snatched whilst she was in the bath?
Her mother just went into another room, just for a second and she was gone
snatched by a man who crept into their ground floot flat

My point is it doesnt matter how long you leave your children for bad things can STILL happen
It amazing one set of parents can be labelled neglectful but im wondering if the mother of the little girl, snatched from the bath, should also be charged with neglect
She did after all leave her child
And in the words of so many on here 'thats neglect''

im well aware of what the difference is, but a few just cant grasp the point im making!

Any parent who leaves their child is taking a risk arent they?

Answer 1

I have two kids and I would never leave them home alone for any amount of time. It shocks me how many people seem to think this is acceptable. The lady whose daughter was snatched from the bath did nothing wrong. Unfortunately these things can happen to anyone, which is why you should never make the risk greater by deliberately leaving your children alone and vulnerable.

Edit: Leaving a child above toddler age to play in the bath while you pop to the next room is not neglect. If it was every parent under the sun would be guilty of it. There is a major difference between doing that and leaving your very young children completely alone while you go to the restaurant down the road for dinner with your mates. To suggest otherwise is really clutching at straws.

Answer 2

I can honestly say I have never left my child alone ever and I never will....My child comes everywhere with me whether it is to the garden, to the post box etc...i guess it depends on the age of the child though, by little boy is only 2yrs so i am hardly like to leave him anywhere.
This need to be taken into account when the word neglect is being used, for example would you leavea six year old in a secure garden while you are cooking the tea, the answer would probably be yes but this wouldn't be considered as neglect yet that child could be abducted from the garden....a difficult question to answer and a very interesting one..have a star..

Answer 3

I answered your question, and I said that if she was left alone in a room, then I was in the next one, and all the windows in her room were shut so nobody could get in. I have never left her alone in the house, and even though I am not a parent myself, I am still responsible enough to know that a child should not be left alone in the house. Neglect is not nipping into the back garden, neglect is leaving your children alone in an insecure house while you put your wants before their needs.

Answer 4

I gave an honest answer! if my kids played in the garden i would be out there with them maybe hanging out washing or doing some gardening and if i needed to put some petrol in the car i would do it when the kids were at school or carry the relevent baby in their carry seat into pay for the petrol with me! I n response to the poor girl who was brutelly attacked the poor darling! mum did make an error of judgement in leaving her in the bathroom for a few minutes, she could have slipped in the bath causing a nasty injury or have drowned!! B ut don't you think that poor mother is going to regret leaving her like that for the rest of her life!! my heart goes out to her! we can all make mistakes in life but you have to evaluate every situation and decide on the best and safest course of action, i am a very instinctive person and this has proberbly helped me in my judgements. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but people need to judge what may or could happen if they acted in a certain way. I just try and eliminate any possible dangerous scenario- why chance it?

Answer 5

Well, leaving any child in an unlocked apartment in a strange place, surrounded by thousands of strangers, night after night, certainly is neglectful. Hell, I myself wouldn't want to sleep in an unlocked holiday apartment, never mind leaving my kids in one.

And yes, I have three children, and when they were little, I never took my eye off them while they were under my care, and my husband was the same. My boys, for example, were allowed to cycle right down our road while I watched, but until they were 10 or so, they weren't allowed to turn the corner out of my sight.

Sorry, but once your child reaches the crawling stage, you take him/her everywhere with you, even to the toilet. It's just too risky not to. And if you want to go out for the evening, every sane and responsible parent knows that you hire a babysitter. Nobody has yet managed to work out why the McCanns didn't put their hands in their huge wallets - it's not like they couldn't afford it! I don't see how anyone can reasonably defend them on that point.

Answer 6

Neglect is when you plan to go out and leave your children alone as a result of your own selfishness. I never would do this and it is entirely different when they are playing in a familiar boundry. If you can't look after children 24/7 don't have them. And going to the post box is neglect if your children are not with another adult.

Answer 7

Leaving the room, is a very very different thing to going out to eat and drink for up to three hours EVERY night of a holiday. That is wrong on every imaginable level. And no, I have NEVER left my child alone, not even to do that. My doors are always locked, and if i have to leave the bathroom, my partner watches him.

Answer 8

Oh come on. You can't be serious.
Surely you can understand how different it is to leave a kid alone for one minute and leaving them for half an hour.

I'm sure every parent at some point had to have their eyes away from their kids, because they either had to go to the toilet, go to the post box as you said or get something from the car...
But that is *miles* away from going out to dinner and leaving your babies home for at least 30m at a time.

Answer 9

I always make sure that someone I can trust is with my kid if I am not able to be there and that means my mom or my sisters. In these times you just can't afford to leave you kid alone ever. Thats part of being a parent. Look after them.

Answer 10

the case where the little girl was snatched from her house that's completley different compared to leaving your child night after night in a foreign country for drink and a meal with your friends.

it shows that you are not even safe in your own house farless in a strange country....then again they didn't just 'nip' to the post box or were they 'in the garden'.

and yes, i am a single parent.