I agree with Glenn Reynolds one hundred percent: “the ridiculous effort to purge all risks from childrens’ lives” is truly a scourge of modern society.
Unfortunately, no politician (or prosecutor) is ever going to stand up and tell an angry public that there is a certain amount of acceptable risk inherent in our childrens’ lives. It’s obviously, logically true, but as I’ve noted before, logic doesn’t matter when “it’s for the children.”
Sometimes, a tragedy is just a tragedy, not a crime. (Original post here — and be sure to read the comments, they’re interesting.)
The plain truth is that when mommy dearest overprotects, kids will eventually get away and then tend to take truly risky behavior. Even if you’re a believer in completely restructuring society “for the children” overprotectiveness needs to be stomped.
I agree that people often go too far in removing any risk (or even discomfort) from the lives of children, but I don’t see that in play here. I see this as a question of what standards we should hold people who supervise children.
It’s not “Oh child got hurt and thus babysitter must be punished.” It’s “Child got hurt, so we must examine babysitter’s actions to see whether we think he actions amounted to criminal negligence or recklessness.”
The answer to that question could be yes or no, but its worth asking.
I agree that it’s worth asking, I just worry that said babysitter is going to be held to a hindsight standard, with a ridiculous and deeply undesirable result. In other words, if what’s happening is truly a fair examination of the babysitter’s actions — not a skewed “investigation” whose real purpose is to find some way to pin the blame on the babysitter — then great. But I fear for the result; I fear she’ll be made a scapegoat because she’s the only one available to blame, and so the investigators will start their investigation with the preconceived notion that she was negligent. I’m not suggesting a conspiracy, just an aspect of human nature that needs to be strongly guarded against.
In any event, the mere fact that she took a nap, without more, certainly cannot be enough to establish negligence. If the investigation brings something else to light that suggests negligence, that’s another story… but again, I hope the standard isn’t hindsight. And I hope we consider the public-policy ramifications of this, because if the standard imposed is unduly burdensome, the result will be that it’s harder and harder to find a babysitter. The standard should be such that any responsible babysitter (or parent!) would say, “Oh, well I would never do that, so that’s not a problem for me” — not “there but for the grace of God go I.” If the common response is justifably the latter, then we have a problem.
What a tragedy! As a mother of, at one time/age 3 very active children under 4, (One of them a climber), I can sympathize deeply. There is no way that you can always keep an eye on your kids, and prevent every accident (That’s why they are called accidents!) You can learn to avoid/prevent what your kids are most likely to get into, but some things just happen. (And by the way, when he was 2 years old, my son figured out a way to undo those top of the door locks- you are NOT safe with those either!)
It reminds me of a line from a book I read long ago- “The Perfect Squelch”- a young mother with a toddler who was running amuk, asking her auntie how she managed to keep her tables so scratch free with all the kids she had had- what sort of polish did she use? The auntie answers..”In my day, the polish was on the children!”
And perhaps that is part of the answer..
Of course she should be held to a “hindsight standard”! She shouldn’t have been napping! It’s one thing to say “oh what a tragedy but this couldn’t be helped” when kids wander away from their parents and get killed; it’s quite another for someone who was hired to take care of some kids for a few hours decides that she’s going to sleep while alone in the house with two toddlers. Being on a job isn’t the same thing as being at home with your own stuff. For instance, truck drivers are supposed to drive their company vehicles a lot more carefully than their own pickups. This has nothing to do with “nanny statism” and over-protection of children, it’s about job responsibility. If the kid was tired she shouldn’t have been babysitting.
I’ll simply offer that the State of CA requiring 8 year olds, or less, to wear a seat belt and sit in backseat of car, is beyond silliness. I’m one of four boys who grew up bouncing all over folks Ford Country Squire. Hell, no one even knew if it had seat belts. Looking at my young son in backseat so sad I brought him up front to join me. He’s now 10 and a big fan of Chuck Connnor’s “Thrillseekers”…
We might as well strap pillows onto our bodies when we leave the house; although leaving house may be a little risky considering all the variables… ;-)
I’ll simply offer that the State of CA requiring 8 year olds, or less, to wear a seat belt and sit in backseat of car, is beyond silliness.
I couldn’t disagree more. To me, this is a relatively rare example of the effective use of state power to increase safety at little or no cost / inconvenience to the parent. Your anecdotal evidence aside, the research generally indicates that young children (due to size, and while age is admittedly an inexact proxy, it’s pretty useful here) are in greater danger riding in the front seat than the back. So the law requires said young children to be belted in the back seat. The burden on parents is minimal here, I think, and the benefit is quite significant. More laws designed like this would be welcome. I don’t really think it interferes with child-rearing or parenting rights in any meaningful way.
Andrea, do you actually know that this girl was hired to babysit? The news reports (for example, here mention that she was living in the house. That makes it plausible that she wasn’t hired for the job, but was just looking after them to be nice.
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June 2nd, 2007 at 10:04:57 pm
If/When I run for some office (Senator? Mayor? Dogcatcher?) I will clearly state: “I am not here to raise your children.”
Of course, I suppose that I may hurt my chances of winning, but at least I’ll be honest. :)
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:41:55 pm
The plain truth is that when mommy dearest overprotects, kids will eventually get away and then tend to take truly risky behavior. Even if you’re a believer in completely restructuring society “for the children” overprotectiveness needs to be stomped.
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:24:38 am
I agree that people often go too far in removing any risk (or even discomfort) from the lives of children, but I don’t see that in play here. I see this as a question of what standards we should hold people who supervise children.
It’s not “Oh child got hurt and thus babysitter must be punished.” It’s “Child got hurt, so we must examine babysitter’s actions to see whether we think he actions amounted to criminal negligence or recklessness.”
The answer to that question could be yes or no, but its worth asking.
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:32:52 am
I agree that it’s worth asking, I just worry that said babysitter is going to be held to a hindsight standard, with a ridiculous and deeply undesirable result. In other words, if what’s happening is truly a fair examination of the babysitter’s actions — not a skewed “investigation” whose real purpose is to find some way to pin the blame on the babysitter — then great. But I fear for the result; I fear she’ll be made a scapegoat because she’s the only one available to blame, and so the investigators will start their investigation with the preconceived notion that she was negligent. I’m not suggesting a conspiracy, just an aspect of human nature that needs to be strongly guarded against.
In any event, the mere fact that she took a nap, without more, certainly cannot be enough to establish negligence. If the investigation brings something else to light that suggests negligence, that’s another story… but again, I hope the standard isn’t hindsight. And I hope we consider the public-policy ramifications of this, because if the standard imposed is unduly burdensome, the result will be that it’s harder and harder to find a babysitter. The standard should be such that any responsible babysitter (or parent!) would say, “Oh, well I would never do that, so that’s not a problem for me” — not “there but for the grace of God go I.” If the common response is justifably the latter, then we have a problem.
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:07:23 am
What a tragedy! As a mother of, at one time/age 3 very active children under 4, (One of them a climber), I can sympathize deeply. There is no way that you can always keep an eye on your kids, and prevent every accident (That’s why they are called accidents!) You can learn to avoid/prevent what your kids are most likely to get into, but some things just happen. (And by the way, when he was 2 years old, my son figured out a way to undo those top of the door locks- you are NOT safe with those either!)
It reminds me of a line from a book I read long ago- “The Perfect Squelch”- a young mother with a toddler who was running amuk, asking her auntie how she managed to keep her tables so scratch free with all the kids she had had- what sort of polish did she use? The auntie answers..”In my day, the polish was on the children!”
And perhaps that is part of the answer..
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:21:35 am
Of course she should be held to a “hindsight standard”! She shouldn’t have been napping! It’s one thing to say “oh what a tragedy but this couldn’t be helped” when kids wander away from their parents and get killed; it’s quite another for someone who was hired to take care of some kids for a few hours decides that she’s going to sleep while alone in the house with two toddlers. Being on a job isn’t the same thing as being at home with your own stuff. For instance, truck drivers are supposed to drive their company vehicles a lot more carefully than their own pickups. This has nothing to do with “nanny statism” and over-protection of children, it’s about job responsibility. If the kid was tired she shouldn’t have been babysitting.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:00:01 am
I’ll simply offer that the State of CA requiring 8 year olds, or less, to wear a seat belt and sit in backseat of car, is beyond silliness. I’m one of four boys who grew up bouncing all over folks Ford Country Squire. Hell, no one even knew if it had seat belts. Looking at my young son in backseat so sad I brought him up front to join me. He’s now 10 and a big fan of Chuck Connnor’s “Thrillseekers”…
We might as well strap pillows onto our bodies when we leave the house; although leaving house may be a little risky considering all the variables… ;-)
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:28:14 am
I’ll simply offer that the State of CA requiring 8 year olds, or less, to wear a seat belt and sit in backseat of car, is beyond silliness.
I couldn’t disagree more. To me, this is a relatively rare example of the effective use of state power to increase safety at little or no cost / inconvenience to the parent. Your anecdotal evidence aside, the research generally indicates that young children (due to size, and while age is admittedly an inexact proxy, it’s pretty useful here) are in greater danger riding in the front seat than the back. So the law requires said young children to be belted in the back seat. The burden on parents is minimal here, I think, and the benefit is quite significant. More laws designed like this would be welcome. I don’t really think it interferes with child-rearing or parenting rights in any meaningful way.
June 4th, 2007 at 12:47:23 pm
Andrea, do you actually know that this girl was hired to babysit? The news reports (for example, here mention that she was living in the house. That makes it plausible that she wasn’t hired for the job, but was just looking after them to be nice.