Stumble It!
The other day, Mike and I pulled up to a red light. He glanced out of his window and said, "Oh my god, tell me those kids are not standing up."
I look to my left and in the minivan next to us was a woman in the driver's seat with two small children - one boy and one girl - perhaps three and four, climbing all over the seats, and standing between her seat and the passenger seat. Jumping. Climbing.
"How STUPID can you be?" I wanted to yell at her. "These are your BABIES. If you get hit by another car, they will FLY THROUGH THE WINDOW and be DEAD. Your BABIES will DIE because YOU are stupid. How is that fair!?!" I imagined getting out of my car and screaming at her through her window.
I did nothing. Mike did nothing. When the light turned green, she made a left onto a busy highway and we pulled onto our quiet street with our two babies strapped in their $300 LATCH five-point harnessed car seats.
"Should we have done something?" he asked me.
"What can we do? The only thing we can do is get her license plate and call the local police, right? Maybe we should have done that." I imagined those kids getting in a car accident, flying through the window, and blaming MYSELF because I did nothing.
"Yeah, maybe we should have."
But we didn't.
I could use the argument that they aren't MY kids. Just like when you see a parent using a discipline technique different from yours, it's not your place to say anything. Short of someone hitting their kids in front of me, I say nothing. They're not MY kids. I'm not their parent.
But when the safety of innocent children is at stake, at what point do we abandon that notion and DO something? Why didn't I get her license plate and call the police? Those poor kids don't know any better but their adult mother should. Why are we so afraid of getting involved? Have we as a society really become that complacent? That I let two babies drive away in a minivan STANDING UP?
Have you been in this situation? What do you do?
Monday, November 2, 2009
Where's the line?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
23 comments:
I WILL holler through the window. I have done it before and the lady glared at me and buckled her kid in with a seatbelt. I would ABSOLUTELY call the cops, even if I didn't feel comfortable saying something directly. Those children are in danger and no matter how solitary the lives we choose to lead may be, it's still a community that we live in, and we should still try to keep the babies safe.
I most definitely would have gotten her plate and called the police. I've called before about drivers who seemed to be drunk or were just driving erratically. If I were in the situation you wrote about, I probably wouldn't be able to help myself and would have said something to her. I'm pretty obsessed with car safety. Especially for children. It's such an easy thing to do and it prevents you from possibly dying in an accident. I don't get people like that. How could you not want to make sure your children are as safe as possible?
I'm always saying "I should have gotten their plates" and as much as I wish that I did I haven't. Maybe you've inspired me to actually go ahead and do that.
I don't know where the line is, but I've become nosy enough since becoming a mom that I've called. I called the police for a truck/trailer that was swerving erratically all over the road as we followed it into town. The driver was clearly intoxicated, and I couldn't breathe sitting in my car several hundred yards behind. Madeline wasn't even in the car, and I couldn't stop thinking about what if she was?
So yeah, I would have called and given the plate number. I would never pull up alongside anyone to yell, though - that's too dangerous now.
Saying some prayers for those babies - what an idiot they have for a mother. There is NO excuse for that. NONE.
Ugh I know the feeling and I dont even have kids. People are idiots and that's why two little ones were hit this weekend for Halloween because the mother pulled up to the houses for them to trick or treat and got hit by a car. They were not strapped into a seat and bolted out of the car door to get to the house. A car was coming and hit them. It is now under investigation because I dont think she had safety seats. They were only around 5.
Ugh... You've touched on one of my parenting bugaboos. I don't have very many, but this is one where I'm temporarily insane when I see these things. Unfortunately, I'm also frozen. There are so many who drop their kids off at school "just going a couple of blocks. Uhhuh. Will you be passing *any* other cars? Going through *any* crossings? It just takes one *other* idiot on their cell phones or texting (or just not paying attention) to fly through that intersection. Or maybe it's YOU, turning to yell at the kids squabbling in the back!
Kids in the front seat, too. Even belted in. Hello! Airbags anyone! *Short* people are killed by them!
The scariest for me? MY kids in someone ELSE's car! Mine *know*. Seatbelts (& booster). Every. Single. Time. When another parent says "meh, it's burried in the seat and it's just a couple of blocks", what are they going to respond to that? (it's happened. Twice.) I've told them they MUST insist and then call me or dad to pick them up. But is that *really* going to happen with another grown up saying "Nah"?
Double. Fucking. Fines. For not restraining kids. Triple. BRING IT ON.
I don't know either. The other day I was picking up B at preschool and there was a woman picking up a kid and she put him in the front seat with no car seat. Now her school only goes up to Pre K so this kid could have been no older than 5 at the most. I was about to freak out.
And yet I also did nothing. Well, I gave her a dirty look but that's the same as doing nothing.
There's a chick in my complex that drives from her building to the front gate to meet the bus. With her MAYBE 2 year old in the front seat or SITTING ON THE CHICK'S LAP WHILE SHE DRIVES.
Yes. It's a private road with a 15mph speed limit. I get that.
AND I STILL DON'T GIVE A SHIT!
A neighbor is a State Trooper. I mentioned to him one day what I see daily. The following day, he wrote her for whatever it is.
And I would flip her in in a heartbeat.
The Friend lives, literally, 300 yards from me. When the weather is sucky and Morgan and I are going up there, I will drive. I WILL strap Morgan into her Britax like we're going to the store or on a 300 mile trip.
IT'S THE LAW! IT'S WHAT KEEPS MY BABY SAFE!
Parents/people that don't follow this INFURIATE me.
Morgan is 3 1/2 and rode for the first time with my in-laws two weeks ago. She's NEVER ridden with anyone but Jimmy or I. I don't care if people think I'm stupid, she's my baby. Unless I see you put her in your car and I KNOW you KNOW how to not be a douche while driving, she isn't going.
Wow. I need to shut up.
Sorry!
I would call. We face that problem a lot down here in the summer- not with unbuckled kids but with kids left in the car when it is 900 degrees outside.
EVERY summer children die here from being left in the car. Literally EVERY SINGLE YEAR- at least one. Just in my one city.
I call. I call and call and call. Even if it is just the gas station and they have possibly just gone in to pay for their gas.
Thankfully I haven't seen this, because while I like to think I'd call the police, I might just sit there dumbstruck, like "WHAT? I can't have just seen that! No way!" My kids are in the $300 Britax seats (even though Alex is technically big enough for a booster, NO WAY!) and I buckle them up even if I'm just driving across a parking lot. I don't care how careful a driver you are, there are OTHER CRAZY PEOPLE ON THE ROAD! No one plans on getting in an accident.
I have followed the car to give an EXACT location to the cops. So yeah, I call for sure. It's a law, not an opinion is how I justify it.
That's a crappy position to be in, but, if you ask me - grab her plates and call the police. I can't imagine why she would want to put her kids in danger like that, and just think - that's just the car ride. My baby cousin (3 yrs. old), died this August in a rollover accident and WAS strapped in. I don't wish that pain on anyone, even morons like that mother who clearly needs to be reminded of her RESPONSIBILITIES.
you have to forgive yourself that you didn't do anything. it isn't easy to step in. interestingly enough, i wrote a post concerning the welfare of someone else's children yesterday. i did say something. and it was not pretty. but i can only hope that those parents thought about what i said later that day, or even the next.
if you'd like to read about my experience, here's the link. i hope you don't mind me leaving it here.
http://simplyfeather.blogspot.com/2009/11/letter-to-infuriated-stranger.html
Your responsibility is to your children. That is it.
You can actually call 911, report the license plate and vehicle location. I have done it before!!
I would have been like you - I would be infuriated and indignant...but would not have thought to get her license plate number until later when it was too late. Thankfully you've reminded us all, and now I WILL remember if faced with this kind of situation. You continue to help me remember to be a better, kinder person. Thank you!
I'd like to say that I would do something for those kids - and really I want to do something - but I'd probably just click my tongue and do nothing more than lip service.
It is so hard to know what to do. I'd probably be like you the first time I saw something like that -- think after the fact, "I shoulda, coulda, woulda...".
Perhaps though, having read this, I'll remember to be quick and be proactive.
It is really hard to know what to do, I feel fearful of the reaction I might get if I say anything to a stranger... but then again, it used to "take a village" to raise a child, and sometimes if we're mindful on the behalf of others, we may help "raise a child", or protect one at least.
I wouldn't beat yourself up over this, it's so hard to think so quick, I'm glad you posted about it though as a reminder to the rest of us to pay attention and make a snap decision if we need to.
I agree with Russ.
I agree with Russ. I wouldn't have called and I won't in the future. I'd be just as outraged, but that's where it would end.
I have also seent his happening on several occasions. Sometimes I have called and sometimes I have not. The times I haven't were mostly because I didn't see what was happening soon enough to follow or get the plate.
I honestly do not feel we only have a responsibility to our own children. People NOT stepping up has caused SO many kids to die that shouldn't have. ie the neighbors who see the parent strike the dirty and sickly looking child repeatedly and dont ever report the concerns it and the later the child is dead. Neighbor says in an interview "well I saw x,y and z but didnt think I should have said something." The kids need people to protect them. Especially if the parents aren't doing it.
Also think of it this way...While I think most of the time the parents are just irresponsible and don't care - sometimes there is extenuating circumstances. Maybe the mom can't afford the proper restraint...you calling the cops and them talking to her could result in her getting info on where to get seats free or dicounted.
Sorry to be so long winded...
I once watched a woman get into a car with her baby in her arms. The back seat where she was sitting was full of groceries and junk- no car seat AT ALL. I got the plate number and memorized what the car was and I called 911. I would have gotten back into my car and followed her until the police caught up, but I had my son with me and by the time I got back to my car and strapped him into his car seat it would have been too late anyway. I was shaking when I called.
Vehicle/ car seat/ seat belt safety is one issue I do not bend on. I see the act of not properly securing your child into a car as abuse and neglect. I will call 911 every time I see this in the future.
I hollared at an idiot in the library parking lot just the other day. As I was pulling into the lot, I almost ran over two children who were being allowed to play in the street at the entrance of the lot, which is off of the busy main road in town. The ONLY reason I didn't hit them, and they were probably 3 and 1.5, was because the turn into the lot is a 90 degree angle, and there was a car parked on the street right next to the entrance, so I had to almost stop to be able to see where the turn was. Not only that, I actually had to sit there for a good ten seconds until the mother, who was hugely pregnant again, smoking a butt and on her cell phone, noticed that I was about two feet from her kids. She wasn't alone, either - her dreadlocked boyfriend and three other hippies were with her (I'm serious, they were doing the full white-kid rastafarian thing) - and not one of them moved. I was shaking when I parked, and as I walked by, I stood and debated what to do, since I knew they weren't the type to care, since they had let the kids go RIGHT BACK INTO THE STREET. As I stood there debating, another car came along and did the same thing I almost did. That was what it took for me to open my mouth and let them HAVE IT. They didn't even look at me. I am still enraged and horrified that I was way more interested in these strangers kids than the poor girls' guardians were. It probably would have been better if I had turned around, gotten back into my car, and driven off, scooping the girls up on my way past. The morons probably wouldn't have noticed, anyway.
So, next time, I will not wait. Those kids could have been killed while I stood there and wondered if I wanted to deal with the inconvenience of their parents' probable rude retorts. I will never do that again. If they had been run over in front of my eyes, I would never have been able to forgive myself.
Post a Comment