I know this isn’t on the caliber of most of the “tsk tsk” pit threads about child abuse, but still. This happened last week and it still bugs me.
I work in a Salvation Army thrift store in a quite unsavory downtown location. Most of our clientele are great, but we do get the far nasty end of the spectrum daily (for example, if a customer tells us someone shat on the wall outside, we are just glad they didn’t do it in the dressing room.)
Last week, my assistant manager and I noticed three small children in the toy dept. ripping apart the shelves and banging on a toy drumset. They weren’t being particularily destructive, we just want all the kids supervised.
We went up to them and asked them where their parents were, and they just stared at us as if they couldn’t tell what we were saying. I left my assistant manager watching them and went around asking whose kids they were. One of the first women I asked answered in Bosnian (maybe Russian, we have a huge population of both around here, keeping the town from going down the shitter completely, but I digress), and called over a teenage daghter to translate. Turns out, they are her kids, so we tell her to keep them with her in the store. end of story, told you it was mild.
After the family left, though, I started getting the shakes- I mean, here are 3 young kids who don’t speak English (native toungue here) with a mother who doesn’t, either. any random adult could have grabbed one or all of the kids and walked out, and none of us employees could have understood that the kid was screaming “You’re not my daddy!” (or whatever), since screaming kids get dragged out of that joint every day.
I just don’t understand how someone strong enough and with the presence of mind and fortitude needed to uproot her entire life in her home country to come here for a better life would risk leaving her kids alone in public at all, much less somewhere where she could not communicate except through her teenage daughter.
People have kids, it’s rather easy but parenting… NOW that’s rocket science.
These idiots don’t care and they make me ILL! Don’t have kids if you can’t guide them, teach them, LOVE them the way they are supposed to be loved, taught, guided! I never let my angel out of my sight anywhere we go, you just never know if your child may end up a statistic. People are evil and cruel. I just don’t trust anyone anymore.
Is it possible that this woman just didn’t realize that in the U.S., people tend to view children as small annoying insects who should be handcuffed to their caregiver lest they irritate someone else, or be snatched by some sicko out on parole? I don’t know about Bosnia or Russia, but when my sister was stationed in Palermo one of the first things she noticed was how much the children were loved and watched out for; strangers would come up and hug and chat with her then 4 year old daughter, and there were constantly kids playing everywhere, supervised by any adult within eyeshot or earshot; there wasn’t all the suspicion and paranoia that we in the U.S. have towards people we don’t know, or at least she didn’t notice it if there was. I’m thinking the woman in the OP may be from some small area where a person could walk across a store without their kids, confident that if a problem came up, another adult would be able to handle it and even chastise the child if necessary, not realizing that around here, most parents will go ballistic if you dare to suggest their Widdle Pwecious might have done something untoward, which discourages most people from getting involved.
My husband tells me that back in the day (60s), he knew that if he misbehaved downtown, he’d be told off by about 12 different people before he got home, and the news of his antics would reach his house before he did. He was allowed a lot of freedom in his small town because his mother knew he would be watched, and he knew if he acted up she WOULD hear about it. Kids aren’t free to explore these days because we can’t trust our neighbors anymore; I think that’s sad.
I would chalk this one up to cultural differences before I started screaming about negligence.
Good point, Marlitharn.
I guess my main problem was with the fact that the kids couldn’t talk to us. If they had been in trouble, we wouldn’t have known, and that’s what bugged me. I’m not one of those “Learn English or get out of my country” assholes, but it seems to me that I fyou don’t know the dominant language you would want to be extra vigilant.
At 11 years old, I think I’d mind him being in the ladies’ room.
He’s old enough to be developing the kind of interest that makes his presence there unwelcome.
However, it doesn’t seem the OP was talking about kids being a few feet away from their parent in a store, or even being allowed outside to play unsupervised.
The OP referred to kids who couldn’t communicate distress, who were possibly being destructive to merchandise, and that the OP couldn’t tell if their parent was even in the store at all. That, I think, would bother me in a store, especially one located in a bad area.
My mother would let me walk to and from the store in my hometown (about a quarter mile each direction) alone when I was five or six years old, but she never would’ve let me wander around the Homestead Giant Eagle (grocery store) alone because it’s in a high crime area.
My son is also 11. I stopped taking him in the ladie’s room a long time ago.
If I’m using the bathroom, he’s instructed to wait outside the door, he know all the safety rules. If he has to go, he uses the men’s room and I wait outside the door.
An 11 year old boy in the ladie’s room would probably make me uncomfortable too.
I would mind a 10 year old being in the ladies’ restroom. If I saw it in a public place, I would probably make a complaint to management. And I would have to be pretty disturbed by something to make a complaint.
Oh, come on! There are stalls in there. I can’t remember the last time I went to the restroom and saw someone’s unclothed body parts.
I could see where it would be inappropriate to take a daughter into the men’s restroom. All those parts flinging around and all. The only thing I have ever seen in a woman’s restroom is women washing their hands and fixing their hair. That’s hardly unsuitable for a boy to see.
If Vanilla feels more comfortable taking her son in, then more power to her. I’m sure she gets in and out fairly quickly.
I respect her for being more concerned for her child’s safety than what others think.
vanilla, can’t he just wait outside the ladies’ for two minutes? I’d be quite disturbed to see a boy over about five in a women’s restroom. I understand your concern, but really, that’s going a bit too far.
You say ‘I’m not one of those learn our language or get out kind of people’ but that sounds like the sort of thing someone who deep down really feels that would say.
My mother would say 'I’m not racist but…
Sorry but my mother IS a racist.
I don’t think I agree with vanilla taking her son into the ladies’ either, but bluethree, this is absolutely uncalled for and really more than a bit bizarre. “Most likely assume he’s retarded” - huh?
Oh for pete’s sake, I’d be more pissed by seeing a little boy hanging around outside the ladies’ room, obviously waiting for his mom and vulnerable than to see him standing there by the sinks looking uncomfortable. What’s he possibly going to see or do in the few minutes it takes Vanilla to do what she needs to do and wash her hands?
I am hell about unattended kids. Not only because things can happen to them, but because of things that they can do. I would far rather a parent use their judgment, knowing their child, and do things which seem to be overly protective than to see more situations like the one referenced in the OP.
No it’s not. I would probably make a similar assumption if I saw an older child in the rest rooms. Most kids go to public toilets by themselves by about the age of 6 or 7. I would be puzzled by an 11 year old and probably think that the child had some disability that prevented him being left alone/attending to his own toileting needs by himself.
Gee wiz, a fifth (sixth?) grader in the ladies’ room? I wouldn’t consider that a “little boy.” Honestly.
As for the OP, I think your concern for the children is definitely founded, and I didn’t read it as having a learnourlanguageorgetout!!! attitude at all. Perhaps the family in question simply has yet to pick up on the generally accepted practice of keeping a close watch on children in public - Marlitharn’s point about different cultural attitudes towards children is a very good one.
For the record, he doesn’t “hang around the sinks”, he has a smaller bladder than I and has to go too, so he goes in a private stall and goes.
I go too and try to beat him (why do guys take so much quicker!???)
Some don’t even see him at all.
Also, its not likethe restrooms are packed (unless its a theater)