This is the thread where we judge other people's parenting

Dammit.

Yo Gabba Gabba on Netflix allows me to have a shower before lunchtime Monday to Friday, and use the very rare cot naps (naps are short and almost always during walks in the buggy) to do a bit of housework. TV is on for about 30 minutes a day on top of that, giving me some zone-out time while F plays but he usually doesn't notice it. I'm basically on sole duty from 7.30am until 7.30pm, so while I'd rather we were a telly-free zone I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

JUDGING: a former colleague told me how her son had terrible table manners and no amount of ticking off had resulted in an improvement. So one day, she told him she was making pizza, his favourite, for dinner. She served it up to the whole family, then took a pot of mud from the garden and dumped it on his plate. "That's your dinner, because you eat like a pig." What a bitch.

That's creative...

Did it work?

She didn't say, but her glee when she told me he cried told me that story wasn't really about her son.

My son would've asked for seconds.

sounds like a weird thing my nan or my mum would have done

there is a woman who regularly camps out in front of the Embarcadero BART station with her daughter to spare change. They are there all day. The daughter looks to be about maybe 8 or 9. For all kinds of reasons, I find this deeply disturbing. I have no idea what this woman's story is. I'm sure it isn't pleasant. Sometimes I wonder if I should call child protective services (surely this child should be in school? anywhere but on the street begging for money?) but then what would I say? After all I don't really know what's going on. But I stop myself from giving the mom money because I don't really want to encourage her to continue exploiting her kid as a prop, if that is in fact what's going on. Or maybe she just wants to keep her kid with her at all costs because she's all she has; totally understandable. There's got to be services available for someone in her situation, especially in this city... anyway I'm conflicted between this knee-jerk judgmentalism ("how could anybody willingly subject their child to this") vs. my personal politics which are always to err on the side of generosity/compassion and I end up doing nothing, which solves nothing. >:(

I am skeptical of people who beg with their kids.

I mean you're right, there is absolutely no reason that girl shouldn't be in school. In fact, she might very well be getting free meals at school, so it's hard for me to think that that person isn't just using their daughter to earn more money. I mean desperation is desperation, but there are some lines that seem like they shouldn't be crossed. I feel the same way about people who pretend to be asking for donations for shelters or organizations.

Sry I mean she *would* be getting free meals if she were in school. Probably access to other services too (not to mention education).

Schools want to know where you live, btw, and if you don't have a home address to give them, they probably have a reporting burden to get interested in how you're living pretty fast? I don't know what the levels of removal into state custody are like but it's something I'd definitely be afraid of as a parent.

Plus if the kid's in school, someone has to walk or take her there in the AM and pick her up in the PM and that means two round-trips a day for the parent, which has both $$ and time costs.

My wife has taught numerous homeless kids at her public school. Also IDK how San Fran is but in NYC you're pretty unlikely to lose your kids unless you are actually severely neglecting/abusing them, not just because you are poor or homeless, whereas not sending your child to school actually does put you at risk of trouble with child protective services.

As for transit, there are often services provided by the school district for that as well (not to mention that, even if not, the cost of a BART ride for the child would probably be cancelled out by the cost of two free meals for her child).

I fully respect your effort to give people the benefit of the doubt, but there's a reason you don't see more people begging on the street with their kids -- most homeless families send their kids to school, and even the ones that can't don't usually beg on the street with their kids.

I know for a fact that sf serves homeless kids in school w out removing them from parental care. But you do have to get your kids to and from.

christ our school district requires our 401Ks and utility bills.

i don't feel like judging this woman is justified unless you have a handle on her housing, occupational, psychological etc situation

If she has psychological (or drug) problems that prevent her from getting her child to school or getting her services, that's all the more reason for a social service agency to step in. I used to feel a lot more on the side of thinking that child protective services is this scary agency who takes away poor people's kids as a punishment for being poor. My experiences, via what my wife and other teachers I know have seen, have been very different -- kids saved from regular severe beatings, sexual abuse, extreme neglect, and in most cases not taken away from the parents (there are a bunch of intermediate steps they can take and this is a last resort -- again NYC I am talking about so it may be different elsewhere), although in one case a mother's sexually abusive boyfriend was restraining ordered, and in another case a child was moved from one relative to another (relative caring for him was mentally disabled and not really capable of providing proper care). There are probably still bad cases, but my impression overall has improved a lot.

It's nice to not be judgmental, but if the kid is basically never in school that's not only illegal but the child is losing out on a lot of services she could get as well as any chance of a better future for herself. So without deciding whether the mother is good/bad/doing the best she can with insufficient information, it still seems like calling an agency might be an option to consider.

i used to see a father/daughter pair with signs asking for money on one of the freeway offramps near santa monica. she looked to be about 12 either way. i don't know the truth of it, but it was really creepily staged. he had her front and center and literally holding a tattered doll.

That's great to hear! I hope CPS continues to do the difficult and draining work that they do--every social worker I've ever known has been incredibly patient and hard-working, it's really terrible that their own caring is used to burn them out p much every time, because the system is just not funded or supported the way it should be.

But outcomes in the system look different for different people. There are significant racial disparities in how kids' cases are treated, for instance. Just, you know, pretty much every other kind of way to offer to help this lady is more helpful than being mad at her for not keeping her 8-yo in school.

"Sometimes I wonder if I should call child protective services (surely this child should be in school? anywhere but on the street begging for money?) but then what would I say?"

Believe me they're aware. There have been stories in various local outlets about this woman/child (struggling to find evidence but I find a similar case from 2009 where it looks like a 4 year old kid was taken away by CPS.)

This it?
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/A-better-plan-needed-for-4-year-old-panhandler-3291876.php#photo-2439639

Yes.

Sad story. A little hard to get the full picture from just that column and I can't find others.

this is a different kid, a daughter, not sure if it's the same mom

in other parental judgment news:

motorcycle enthusiast dad who bought his 6-year-old daughter a "junior" motorcycle which subsequently fell on her and broke her leg, requiring her to limp around on crutches for months, I judge thee.

Oh god. We used to have a guy in our neighborhood who zipped around on a scooter with a helmetless kid on his lap.

I get wanting to share your enthusiasm/hobbies with your kids but maybe don't get your child a toy that can literally crush their bones.

Six years old! kid can't read yet, maybe get her a book instead.

there was a kid i knew growing up who, starting in first grade, was riding around on motorbikes and in competitions (sometimes without helmets!)

then in seventh grade he was killed in a rifle accident after he and another classmate had done some target shooting in the backyard.

Not defending it or anything, but the culture where I'm from introduces ATV's and dirt bikes pretty early. I didn't have one when I was 6, but I did have my own ATV around 10. I probably should have been killed at some point, I was pretty reckless and did some dramatic acrobatics off of it at times. No helmet. I thought it was awesome since there wasn't much else to do around the house.

In fact, my father has already bought our 11 month old daughter a small dirt bike! Of course she can't ride it, but I think the idea was to have it there for her when she's ready. Of course, it is unlikely we would ever allow it.

So yeah, keep kids off those.

"this is a different kid, a daughter, not sure if it's the same mom"

I mean Yes that was story from 2009 I was referring.

xp: yeah. Had a fun discussion about that culture a few months agohere. Particular highlight:

Oh man. Don't me started on ATVs. I used to work at a hospital specifically for people with brain and/or spinal cord injuries. Do you know how many patients we had who had tumbled off an ATV? Like, all of them.

― kate78, Sunday, June 1, 2014 9:00 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my friends and i used to play tackle football in a vacant lot near my house. "fondest" memory: me passing to one of my friends and then he got tackled across the middle and broke his collarbone and we spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to fix it so we could keep playing while he begged us to just "push it back into place, i'm okay!" all the while tears streaming down his face.

xpost I can think of probably a half dozen examples from my home area where that has happened, at least with serious brain or spinal cord injuries. I'm sure there are many many more less serious injuries. The worst I ever did was fall directly on my tailbone and that hurt for several days. Oh, also burned my leg several times.

(XP) Collarbone kid should have been a cyclist.

Of the eight or so people I've known to have died in motor vehicle accidents, three of them were on ATVs.

my wife is always astonished by how many people i knew growing up when i was a kid who died in crazy accidents, i always explain that sometimes there isn't much to do out in the sticks except drive real fuckin fast. my best friend, my other best friend's gf, the guy who sat in front of me in english class, the homecoming queen of the class ahead of me...all of them went in car accidents within a couple years of each other.

Yeah we had a lot of car/motorcycle accidents too.

It was awesome getting your own mode of transportation, be it a ATV when you're ten, or a car when you're 16. It was really like the ultimate freedom and required because everything was so far apart. Otherwise you're stuck on the farm.

Now everyone just does meth. Probably less safe than driving.

i'm pretty sure half the people out on the country roads between the NW burbs of chicago and rockford are currently on crank

driving on those straightaway two lane rds with 55 mph limits scares me now

Six years old! kid can't read yet, maybe get her a book instead.

what do you mean, six-year-olds can't read?

i think he meant that particular six-year-old can't read?

so a book would be a good gift

yes

i don't feel like judging this woman is justified unless you have a handle on her housing, occupational, psychological etc situation

― smoochy-woochy touchy-wouchy, (sunny successor)

i spend a good deal of my introspective time (ie not all that much time tbh) wondering how our gang of four would've turned out had someone taken the time to call some kind of services on our behalf in eh say 1992 or so. i've never been able to come up with a plausible scenario where things turned out much worse for anyone involved (tbrr it was rural ireland and the church still had much of their stranglehold, for all i know ppl were ringing about us every week to no avail).

I brought this up on a totally different thread but I have several high school friends/acquaintances who talk about their kids being indigo children and whenever I see it, I alternate between intense sadness and hysterical giggling.

closer they are to fine?

lol I went to click the bookmark link because it's in the same spot as the like button on Facebook

I'm now judging myself