Drunks and irresponsiblity make me mad (especially when they are a parent)!!

[tlcmom]

Reading Frontier's mom's post about in laws being hit by a drunk made me want to post about what happened in our town today.

 

My hubby is a landscaper and the garbage man who he knows told him to watch out for several infant/toddlers that were on the loose. I guess their parents got totally drunk last night (they supposedly have a lot of children) and lost the small children. They thought the kids had wandered off but weren't sure when or how. The garbage man found one early this morning but one was still lost when my dh told me about in the late am. Those folks should make me furious!!!:angry::mad::angry:

[j.griff]

And I think that is pretty judgemental. Yes, they've made poor choices- BUT you have no idea what led to them making such poor choices.

[Aunty Social]

My husband and i occasionally indulge in an at home "date night" that usually involves video games and a bit too much to drink, but always well after the kids are in bed asleep, and always with the doors and windows locked. How can a toddler (who is almost always going to head for mom's bed when he gets up), get out of bed, unlock and open a door, and wander into the neighborhood without the parents knowing?! Sure, they can be sneaky sometimes, but that's gotta make noise - especially with more than one. And they're infants and toddlers! What about the safety gate that should be either on their bedroom doors or at the end of the hall? We always had one just in case we did sleep through one of our kids getting up (never happened, but we were paranoid), because at least then they couldn't get into anything and get hurt! Unbelievable!!!!

 

Of course, I'm assuming that the kids were at home. You say the parents "lost" them. Does that mean they had the kids out with them while they were drinking?

 

Bad Parents, Bad!:angry:

 

I just want to clarify - I know that this post is judgmental, but I can't seem to help myself on this issue. I'm not proud of it, but as the relatives that take care of everyone else's kids at any family get together because everyone else is off doing their own thing and totally ignoring their children, I'm not able to be objective. My own issue I need to work through, I know.

And for those who misunderstood "date night", it means that I might have 2 or even 3 (on a really wild night) glasses of wine while we play some games, instead of drinking water. Yes, we drink sometimes. We do not drink until we pass out. We do not drink until we are stumbling around. We have children relying on us for pity's sake! If one of them were to wake up in the middle of the night, we need to be able to function. Quite honestly, a bad head cold incapacitates us more.

So, to those that I offended, I am truly sorry. I don't always express myself well, particularly when I have strong, irrational feelings on the subject. Please accept my apology.

[OhM]

Singularly poor choices there, to cause them to misplace their children!

 

Judgemental maybe, but hearing of children who bear the brunt of adults' poor choices upsets me as well.

[j.griff]

Wow! Kids are not stupid, mine push chairs over to the doors to undo the chain locks, and sometimes sneak out IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY when I am Stone cold sober, for crying out loud! So, say you were to indulge in some excessive drinking AT HOME, and some game playing. Your kids are in bed, fine. Then you go to bed and pass out- dead to the world until you wake up on your own. BUT, you wake up to find your front door wide open and your kids are GONE! Are we supposed to berate you then? Call you a BAD mom for drinking? Call you a bad mom for not hiring a sitter to make sure your kids are 'safe' while you and DH indulge? Stuff happens, sober or not, uptight or not, no one is perfect.

[OhM]

So, say you were to indulge in some excessive drinking AT HOME, and some game playing. Your kids are in bed, fine. Then you go to bed and pass out- dead to the world until you wake up on your own. BUT, you wake up to find your front door wide open and your kids are GONE! Are we supposed to berate you then? Call you a BAD mom for drinking? Call you a bad mom for not hiring a sitter to make sure your kids are 'safe' while you and DH indulge?

 

I guess that's exactly what I'm saying. I may be pretty uptight and over-cautious, but it seems to me that it's reasonable to expect that I, the parent, should be rational and lucid enough to know that my kids have not escaped the house sometime in the night, still to be missing in the morning. If it happened when I was sober (that is, if they were to escape the house without my hearing) I'd feel much the same way about myself.

[finding_sanctuary]

Wow! Kids are not stupid, mine push chairs over to the doors to undo the chain locks, and sometimes sneak out IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY when I am Stone cold sober, for crying out loud!

 

Exactly. I woke up at 6:45 one morning to find my 3.5-year-old boy in the living room surrounded by a pile of toys. The front door was unlocked from dss leaving early for school that day, and from the way ds was happily playing, he'd been there for a quite a while. Considering how quiet the door is, he could easily have gone outside and wandered away with me none the wiser. (And he also knows exactly how to unlock the door if he wants, and will find a climbing object if necessary.)

 

Yes, it was unwise of these parents to get plastered and (I'm assuming) not have someone keeping an eye/ear on the kids. But at the same time, it doesn't take getting drunk to lose your small child. With some kids, all the locks and gates in the world won't keep them in if they want to get out.

[j.griff]

Wow, I take quite a bit offense with that last line. I just SAID it has happened to me, so I feel like you are sucker punching me.

You have NO idea what my life is like, so don't EVEN start being judgemental. How many times have you been in a situation where you are burnt out, have no IRL support available, your DH is deployed for over 7 months, your nearest relative is over 2,000 miles away, and you are exhausted, and need to poop? What do you do?

 

ETA:

FTR, everyone needs a break, I get mine in the bathroom/shower while DH is deployed. I am NOT taking 3 small children into the bathroom with me while I shower/poo. NO one can constantly supervise children of all ages, not everyone has that kind of support system. Our bathrooms and bedrooms are upstairs, with the water running and the fan running in the bathroom, you just don't hear everything that's going on downstairs. Yes, my kids usually stay where I tell them to, BUT sometimes they don't. I have NO way of predicting when they will bolt. It is unreasonable to expect everyone to constantly keep up with their kids 24/7 365 days a year. Have your kids NEVER gotten into something they shouldnt' have? If not, you are lucky, it's not that you are a super parent with awesome parenting skills that I lack. :D

[bkpan]

Wow! Kids are not stupid, mine push chairs over to the doors to undo the chain locks, and sometimes sneak out IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY when I am Stone cold sober, for crying out loud! So, say you were to indulge in some excessive drinking AT HOME, and some game playing. Your kids are in bed, fine. Then you go to bed and pass out- dead to the world until you wake up on your own. BUT, you wake up to find your front door wide open and your kids are GONE! Are we supposed to berate you then? Call you a BAD mom for drinking? Call you a bad mom for not hiring a sitter to make sure your kids are 'safe' while you and DH indulge? S**t happens, sober or not, uptight or not, no one is perfect.

Yes, I would call this negligent. IMO, once you became a parent, it did become irresponsible to drink until you "pass out dead to the world". It is one thing to choose to indulge in adult behavior, but you are still the parent. It is still up to you to make sure that your dc are safe, protected, 24/7. "No one is perfect" doesn't cover the kind of behavior that the OP mentioned. If you want to drink until you are "passed out" , then the dc need a sober adult that will care for them during that time. This has little to do with "judging" someone, it is about being sure that children are safe and cared for.

 

Kim in TN (used to be in NV)

[OhM]

Wow, I take quite a bit offense with that last line. I just SAID it has happened to me, so I feel like you are sucker punching me.

You have NO idea what my life is like, so don't EVEN start being judgemental. How many times have you been in a situation where you are burnt out, have no IRL support available, your DH is deployed for over 7 months, your nearest relative is over 2,000 miles away, and you are exhausted, and need to poop? What do you do?

Feel how you want about YOURSELF, but keep your judgements about others TO yourself, please. Ugh!

 

Wow - I sure didn't mean that to come out as an indictment of what you just shared! I sincerely apologize.

 

I was answering the rhetorical question you posed about how I would feel. Perhaps a bit too literally, but you'll have that with me. (I suppose if you knew me better you'd be able to "hear" that I meant no harm.)

 

(Going back into lurkdom now... much less chance of offending):leaving:

[j.griff]

Forget it. I TOTALLY disagree. Other things make people sleep hard, not just alcohol.

[j.griff]

Wow - I sure didn't mean that to come out as an indictment of what you just shared! I sincerely apologize.

 

I was answering the rhetorical question you posed about how I would feel. Perhaps a bit too literally, but you'll have that with me. (I suppose if you knew me better you'd be able to "hear" that I meant no harm.)

 

(Going back into lurkdom now... much less chance of offending):leaving:

 

Okay, i reread your post, I totally accept your apology and I apologize for overreacting. Don't "leave" and go back to lurking because of my "big mouth". :D I saw on the second reading (I KNOW I shoud not post in a hurry or read in a hurry) that you were replying to the rhetorical situation question, and not directly to my comment about my kids escaping in the middle of the day.

 

I disagree, but that's okay.

[Mrs Mungo]

A couple of weeks ago my son (just before he turned 7) escaped the house with 3 adults and several kids there, in the middle of the day, no drinking involved. I had already searched the house, the park in front of our house, quizzed all the neighbor kids and called 911 before he came wandering in. He had been hiding in my car! GAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

 

When my kids were younger and we lived in Germany my hubby was in the field I got sick one time. I came down with a stomach bug *after* the kids had already recovered from it. We had these lever door handles and no chains or deadbolt. I was basically lying on the bathroom floor when my older daughter told me she couldn't find the 3 year old. After frantically searching I found her at my next-door neighbor's house.

 

ANOTHER time my kids AND my friend's kids escaped my house during a play date because they had decided to run away on an adventure. We realized they were awfully quiet, checked and they were gone. We found them 2 blocks away.

 

And frankly, I tend to err on the control freak, my kids aren't allowed to play outside without me side. If it happens to me, I think it could pretty much happen to anyone.

 

I do agree parents shouldn't be getting drunk to the point of passing out when they have children under their watch.

[PineFarmMom]

Wow! Kids are not stupid, mine push chairs over to the doors to undo the chain locks, and sometimes sneak out IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY when I am Stone cold sober, for crying out loud! So, say you were to indulge in some excessive drinking AT HOME, and some game playing. Your kids are in bed, fine. Then you go to bed and pass out- dead to the world until you wake up on your own. BUT, you wake up to find your front door wide open and your kids are GONE! Are we supposed to berate you then? Call you a BAD mom for drinking? Call you a bad mom for not hiring a sitter to make sure your kids are 'safe' while you and DH indulge? Stuff happens, sober or not, uptight or not, no one is perfect.

 

I do agree with you that things do happen. I have to say, though, that my sympathies would be much stronger if they had not taken steps to lessen their own abilities to be responsible parents. If, say, I go to the bathroom and my child walks out the door, that is a very different thing than me making the choice to get totally shnockered, dropping comatose in my bed, and my small children (who I am legally obligated to protect and care for by the way) walk out of the house and get lost somewhere. I don't think it's judging, it's just common sense and my obligation to avoid getting in a situation that I'm unable to function like the adult that I am.

 

Btw, I am not unsympathetic to those who make mistakes. I just have a very hard time sympathizing with this.

 

Teresa

[nancypants]

Wow, I take quite a bit offense with that last line. I just SAID it has happened to me, so I feel like you are sucker punching me.

You have NO idea what my life is like, so don't EVEN start being judgemental. How many times have you been in a situation where you are burnt out, have no IRL support available, your DH is deployed for over 7 months, your nearest relative is over 2,000 miles away, and you are exhausted, and need to poop? What do you do?

 

ETA:

FTR, everyone needs a break, I get mine in the bathroom/shower while DH is deployed. I am NOT taking 3 small children into the bathroom with me while I shower/poo. NO one can constantly supervise children of all ages, not everyone has that kind of support system. Our bathrooms and bedrooms are upstairs, with the water running and the fan running in the bathroom, you just don't hear everything that's going on downstairs. Yes, my kids usually stay where I tell them to, BUT sometimes they don't. I have NO way of predicting when they will bolt. It is unreasonable to expect everyone to constantly keep up with their kids 24/7 365 days a year. Have your kids NEVER gotten into something they shouldnt' have? If not, you are lucky, it's not that you are a super parent with awesome parenting skills that I lack. :D

 

Okay... but ya gotta admit there is something vastly different about being dead to the world drunk and having to poo. Right? Two people getting rip roaring drunk so that neither one of them knows up from down and losing their children is very very different than a single (or single while spouse is deployed) parent having to go poo or take a shower.

 

There is no really good reason too get drunk, much less when children are in the picture. There is plenty of reason to poo and shower. :tongue_smilie:

[j.griff]

LOL, I get that. But here's what I'm thinking- sometimes if I have a couple of drinks, I sleep much harder than normal. DH NEVER hears bumps in the night, etc. So good grief, if I had ONE beer and then slept WELL for once, LOL, I'd be being a "bad parent" if my kids escaped while I was sleeping, because DH never hears noises, when he's out, he's OUT. For that matter, Tylenol makes me sleep, so if I take Tylenol for pain/illness then I could be considered a neglectful parent, or when I have to take those darn pills to dry up the fluid in my ears so I can walk straight, those REALLY knock me out.

Anyhoo, we don't know the whole story, so I think it's pretty judgemental. Maybe they DID have a babysitter, maybe the babysitter fell asleep, or was talking on the phone, etc. and didn't notice them slip away.

I dont see the difference between having a private party at your home, and having a few drinks- and being medicated. I can see that it may be a 'moral' issue for some, but physically IMO there's not much difference.

[5kidsforME]

When my first ds was 2 years old I was cleaning out my closet and fell asleep sitting up. My thyroid was really really messed up at the time. I woke up to my neighbor calling for me from the front door. He found ds climbing our split rail fence in our front yard, just playing having fun, in the rain, in his Pj's. At the time we lived on a very busy road.

 

I was sick. Sick to my stomcah over it. Actually I was downright hysterical. I even thought maybe I wasn't good enough to be his mom.

 

I called dh and he came home with a deadbolt that we lock with a key and we kept the key were ds couldn't get to it.

 

Mistakes happen and sometimes grace needs to be extended. I am glad my dh extended that grace to me, I can tell you it took a long long time for me to forgive myself.

 

 

I understand this situation could be different but from your OP you are assuming what happened.

[nancypants]

LOL, I get that. But here's what I'm thinking- sometimes if I have a couple of drinks, I sleep much harder than normal. DH NEVER hears bumps in the night, etc. So good grief, if I had ONE beer and then slept WELL for once, LOL, I'd be being a "bad parent" if my kids escaped while I was sleeping, because DH never hears noises, when he's out, he's OUT. For that matter, Tylenol makes me sleep, so if I take Tylenol for pain/illness then I could be considered a neglectful parent, or when I have to take those darn pills to dry up the fluid in my ears so I can walk straight, those REALLY knock me out.

Anyhoo, we don't know the whole story, so I think it's pretty judgemental. Maybe they DID have a babysitter, maybe the babysitter fell asleep, or was talking on the phone, etc. and didn't notice them slip away.

I dont see the difference between having a private party at your home, and having a few drinks- and being medicated. I can see that it may be a 'moral' issue for some, but physically IMO there's not much difference.

 

No, I totally get what you mean... I think I misread you as saying, "You don't know why they decided to get completely wasted." (like maybe getting completely wasted while responsible for little kids was okay if there was a good enough reason.) My bad. And now I realize you were saying more that we don't know that that was exactly the case... and you are so right. It's wrong to immediately jump to conclusions.

 

It's funny because I have insomnia but when I fall asleep finally I fall asleep very hard. My husband falls asleep immediately but wakes up very easily too. I never hear the kids and if I have a cold and take a Nyquil, I am dead to the world and I just pray that there's not a fire in the house that night or anything else that I would need to wake up for. Couple weeks ago my hubby was gone for a week and I had the most awful sinus infection I've ever had and had to take a Nyquil for several nights... I was nervous but I also would have been just as dead to the world the next day when I really needed to be alert. Had to take the risk of being knocked out while my kids slept.

 

Having kids escape is petrifying just to think about. My husband apparently escaped out his window when he was 4 to go play with his friend down the street while his pregnant mom was napping. Scared the living crap out of her. I have known other great parents who have had their little turkeys escape on them too with no sedatives of any kind involved whatsoever so I get ya! :tongue_smilie: I lost track of my 2 1/2 year old for all of 8 seconds the other day at the Science Center and I about had a heart attack because I thought my dh had him and he thought I had him and UGH!

[Mama Lynx]

I once had a 20 month old who escaped from the house under the eyes of both his parents and his adult uncle, all who were sober and IN THE SAME ROOM WITH HIM. (We later found out his helpful 4 year old brother opened the door for him.)

 

He made it down the street to the corner, where some nice young men picked him up, and went door to door up the street to see where he belonged. Until those men knocked on our door, we had NO IDEA that our son was even out of the house. None.

 

I do drink. I enjoy drinking :D But I do not get drunk. I do think it's pretty darn irresponsible to get *drunk* when children are in your care.

[Jenstet]

Just last month I left my husband watching my 2 youngest. 5 and 2. I brought my 10dd to karate class and she happened to forget her weapon. I drove home to get it and pulled into the driveway to find both boys in the driveway in the rain playing. My husband had passed out on the couch after a long week at work. Never heard them exit the door right by his head. I would have been gone 2 hours. Scared me to death. Him too....

[*anj*]

I am not sure that I believe this story. I'm not accusing the OP of making it up, but I'm just saying that her dh talked to someone who told her that he found a kid wandering around and thought there might be other kids wandering and thought the parents had been up drinking all night.

 

Excuse me? Around here we have a saying:

"You know what thought did?" I won't finish it here because it is crass, but you get the idea.

 

I think it's pretty nervy of this sanitation worker to make accusations about people founded on what? His own assumptions? Heresay?

 

I wouldn't get worked up over this. But I would want to tell the sanitation worker that he'd better have his facts straight before he goes spreading unsubstantiated rumors like this because you can ruin someone's life based on what? Gossip?

And if anyone has a real, sincere concern for the children and their parents that person should go forward and offer some kind of real help. If the parents aren't approachable, then maybe even an anonymous note letting them know that people are watching and they need to mind their p's and q's.

[OhM]

I disagree, but that's okay.

 

Yup! That's okay with me, too. And that's why I like reading & posting here.

 

Thanks!:)

 

ETA: Of course, I will still go back to my previous "lurking status" - I'm just not good at this sort of dialogue! (Any dialogue, really!) So to anonymous repper - I didn't actually threaten to leave, just indicated I'd be quiet. I'd have appreciated being able to tell you that personally. As others have said in other situations - leave a name next time! ;)

[Lolly]

My son was an escape artist. He could escape the house as soon as he could walk. I haven't figured out how he did it every time yet. Apart from absolutely never having him out of my sight, containing him was hard. He could undo deadbolts that were out of his reach. We put those child-proof door thingies on the knobs. He turned them easier than I did. Short of making our house a fire hazard because it was impossible to get out, he could escape. After locking him in his room for a nap once (the door knob turned around), he was found by a neighbor and returned home. His door knob was on the ground in pieces. He had simply removed the offending piece of equipment. We are talking about a 2 yo here. Basically, every time he escaped we figured out a new way to contain him, and he figured out a new means of escape. He must have loved the challenge.

 

Keeping your eyes directly on a toddler isn't possible. If you think it is, you have never had to actually do it.

[Remudamom]

Whoa, how did I miss all this fun???

 

I didn't drink when mine were little, and even now I usually don't until they're down. Since the babies are now 14 I don't have the same stuff to worry about.

 

But as so many others have pointed out, *%^% happens in broad daylight with parents watching. Even to big kids. A lady in town watched her older child run off the school bus into a car that was speeding past the stopped line of cars waiting for the bus.

 

There are some cases where a parent clearly is being irresponsible, and others where stuff just happens. I'd rather not comment, because I could sure be next.