Not mentioned in the article is how they came to be charged for it. Did the kid call 911? Screamed out the window “HELP! I’M TRAPPED IN HERE WITH A SHITBUCKET AND PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY!” The dad and girlfriend felt so bad afterward that they turned themselves in?
NFL games are only blacked out in the local viewing market if the game is not sold out. Packers games are never not sold out. The game was on TV…why they went to the casino to watch it is beyond me.
Agree. With all the possible bad things that can and have been done to children, this hardly even rates a mention. I was home alone many times at that age. Take out the senasationalism of the bucket for a toilet and locked in the room- if he had the run of the house, would anyone have given it a second thought? Leaving a seven year old home is borderline not a good idea, but it happens all the time I would think.
If this warrants nine months in jail, the parents from the Home Alone movies should’ve gone to Death Row.
People are comparing this to being left home alone. But this kid was locked in his room. If there had been a fire, he could not escape. If his parents didn’t make it home for some reason, the kid would be trapped. If he had injured himself, he would not be able to reach a phone.
-FrL-
Cervaise, you are one sick puppy. May I worship you from afar?
I can’t believe I’m going to argue this point. :smack:
In Home Alone, he was accidentally left behind, and as soon as the parents realized what happened, they moved heaven and earth to get home.
(That said, could they not have phoned a neighbor to go over and check on him while they were flying back from Paris?)
What is the charge here exactly, anyway- certainly this doesn’t qualify as abuse does it? And doesn’t neglect have to be for an extended period?
Glad that job ended.
This seems completely excessive to me. I know people who leave children alone after school regularly and no one’s sending them to the pokey. There may be more to the story, but at face value, I don’t see the big horrific deal.
I don’t know why people keep comparing this to simply being left home alone. That’s one thing, but in this case the child was locked in a room, unable to even access the bathroom. Yes, it’s easy to latch on to the sensationalism of the toilet bucket aspect, but all the same, there’s no reason why the kid should have been subjected to that. Why should he have been locked up in his room for so long? As others have said, if there was an emergency, he was fucked.
Well, I’m not saying they’d get Parent of the Year awards, but “good” parents do this kind of thing all the time. They should be attending parenting classes or doing community service. Maybe a weekend in jail if they simply have to throw the book at them. Months of jail time is excessive.
No. No, they don’t. Good parents, especially good parents who can afford it, hire a fucking babysitter to take care of their 7 year old when they’re going to be out of the house for 4+ hours. They do not lock their 7 year old in his room with a bucket and no way to deal with an emergency. It’s ludicrous.
The judge makes it seem like the locked in the room part was a punishment- my guess is this was done to ensure the kid wouldn’t get out in the house and cause a fire on the stove or something. This was actaully one of the only things they did right in the situation, IMO, assuming the bedroom had a window. And unless the bedroom had no window, I would think the kid would be bright enought to jump out of it if the house had caught on fire. If this had been a master bedroom with adjoining bath, and instead of a locked door there was one of those dog gates, would the judge have called this abhorrent? I doubt it, and it would be the same basic thing, without the specter of a bare floor dungeon with a slop bucket and crumbs of bread on the floor. And where the hell did they get the “the kid was expected to clean the bucket when they returned” part anyway? I doubt the parents added this little gem.
Send me a list of “good” parents that do this please.
Go ahead and cc it to the Department of Child Services while you’re at it.
Thanks
Actually, no. Part of the plot was that everyone in the neighborhood had left town for the holiday and the bad guys were just going door to door.
Please don’t ever reproduce.
Look…I wouldn’t leave my kid in the house for 30 minutes at that age, and I don’t think they handled it properly. But parents leave their young children unattended ALL the time. This is not rare by any stretch. What do you think single parents who can’t afford after school care do?
Hey fuck you.
Him and every latch-key kid in America.