Not even anything that complicated, I’ve been known to raise a lost kid overhead to see if he could find his mommy and the most dangerous part of that is when the kid does, indeed, see his lost parents and tries to run to them, forgetting that the floor is about 5’ away.
Good on you, Shags. Tho I like the idea of calling the cops - cops around here are really nice and encourage us to call for things like this, and it would have done them good to get dressed down a bit. There are uses for shame after all, it’s just that we’ve done a lousy job of applying it.
Good on you, Shagnasty. You don’t owe anyone any explanations. You done a good and proper thing.
He didn’t owe anyone an explanation, but now he’s given one, my confusion has gone, and I have no doubts about the veracity of his story. Whereas to start with, I wasn’t alone in questioning his cautionary tale.
Ouch. Guess I shoulda seen that one coming. Although I perceive a world of difference between my situation and this one, I definitely get your point. Well said!
Fair enough.
My hat off to you, Sir.
Doing the right thing is it’s own reward.
It still seems a bit odd though, to tip our hat, for what really is no more than a civic duty , or am I just being churlish?
Sorry about the ouch, the point is sometimes sharp.
I’m beginning to think a bunch of toddlers strayed into this thread. Why must the game be afoot every 20 seconds on the SDMB? What the fuck ulterior motive would Shag have to mislead us about the events of this story? He observed parental neglect, it pissed him off, he pitted the stupid parents. Why can’t it ever be that simple here?
I too experienced that narrative gap – ‘‘Wait, you couldn’t find the parents but then you took him back to his parents?’’ And because I don’t look for treachery at every corner I naturally assumed I was missing a piece and acknowledged that, even if that piece was never restored, even if I lived the rest of my life without ever knowing what REALLY happened between the epic voyage from parking lot to parents, it had absolutely fuck-all to do with whether or not the story should be taken at face value.
All too often, people really do portray pathological levels of skepticism here. This kind of nitpicking would be obviously absurd and anti-social behavior in any real-life social context.
Good job Shag. I had a little cousin (by marriage) who wandered into the road and was hit and killed by a car. She was half of a set of twins, 3 years old. I don’t know if neglect was an issue or not because I was quite young myself when it happened and don’t remember the parents very well. But that kind of thing does happen, and when it does it’s horrible. So you deserve praise for diverting the tragedy, and the parents definitely deserve the pitting.
And we know the parents deserve the pitting how? Perhaps the child was supposed to be in the care of an aunt who wasn’t paying attention - the parents turned over the care to a ‘responsible’ adult - but decided not to share with Shag those details. We only know what Shag saw (which does look bad, but may be far from the whole story).
And if you never make a mistake raising kids and never loose track of them, God bless you, you are a way better person than I am. You have no clue how difficult it is to keep track of three year old twins or you’d never imply the parents were at fault for what was likely a horrible tragedy.
olivesmarch4th was careful to avoid implying that the twins’ parents should be held responsible for what happened.
-FrL-
Well done, Shags…
Several years ago I was walking through the parking lot of the local supermarket when I saw a stroller behind a parked SUV. “Ok…” I thought, “I guess the parents are loading the groceries in their car and will get the kid when they’re done”. Then the reverse lights came on. I ran over, smacked the side of the car to alert the driver and pushed the stroller out of the way.
The lady got out of her car and was terribly concerned and upset. Understandably so, since I had smacked her precious vehicle. She never said “boo” about the fact that she was about to back over her six-month old.
I’ve since become very glad that I wasn’t a father at the time. Had that happened when I had a full, personal understanding of what goes along with parenthood, I’d probably still be following her around screaming about what a walking fuckup she is.
Regardless of who was responsible for caring for the child, it wasn’t Shag. You totally overlooked my point, which was that it’s absolutely ridiculous to assume he is distorting facts. Him only having one side of the story is a completely separate issue from the kind of malicious ‘‘maybe he’s lying’’ bullshit I’m talking about here.
I didn’t imply that at all. I said
Bolding mine.
“I don’t know if neglect was an issue or not” implied to me that you’ve at least considered neglect as being a contributor and was what was offending me. Why even speculate? Just mention that it was tragic and move on. I’m sorry if I misread your intent.
I said it explicitly to avoid the implication that I was conflating the two incidents. I imagine if I hadn’t bothered to speculate, there would be people coming out of the woodwork to lambaste me for implying that every time a child gets hit by a car, it is the result of parental neglect. Such is the way it goes here.
I did something similar-I was on my way out of a local lumberyard, and spotted a kid in the middle of the road. i dropped everything, and ran out and grabbed the kid. Fortunately, his uncle was nearby, and thanked me for getting the kid.
Shag’s OP: *They gave pause at the table and went on conversing with the other people at the table. I didn’t want even so much as a thank you. I just wanted shock based upon the fact that their son almost died because of their stupidity. *
Where’s the shock from anybody at the table that this toddler had toddled off? Someone at that table was responsible unless there’s another group of family at another table. Someone sure as hell ought to have registered relief at the very least.
I don’t know if the parents deserve to be flamed for it—assuming they were among those sitting at that table I suspect they do, given their nonchalance. But I’d like to think, Dangerosa, that if one of your kids did get away from you and was at risk, you’d acknowledge the gravity of the situation and be thankful to the stranger instead of resuming your conversation.
Maybe the family was feasting at Burger King to celebrate finally getting rid of The Bad Seed and here he comes back ruining their victory over evil. No one would believe that the cute little toddler was The Evil One so they resign themselves to accepting him back and just soldiering on. Grim resignation and holding back desperate tears can look just like not caring.
Wow. She was actually mad at you? People never cease to amaze me. When I’m queen of the world, clueless and stupid people will be the first ones I exterminate.