I’m freaked out. Go to pull out of my driveway. I frequently back out. This affords me a good view in the direction that might be tricky. I’m facing down the road, to the left of my car. The house one over has new neighbors. Mom, Dad, 4 kids. The youngest is about 16 months old. Real toddler- he can walk/stumble around but lands on his diaper a lot.
I back out, look to the left and see two things.
The toddler walking right out of the driveway into the road, which is one lane in each direction with a 30 mph limit.
A car coming from the other direction, straight towards the baby.
I threw the car into Park and opened my door, screaming but I knew I was about 30 feet too far to try to catch the driver’s eye. I hoped he would see the baby OR me or both and stop. Which he did. An older sibling WALKED out, picked up the baby and WALKED back slowly to their driveway.
Do I need to witness a small baby being run over in front of me? No. Does that baby need to freaking DIE because the 3 older siblings cannot keep an eye out? NO !
Fuck man. Watch out for your damned kids or we’re not going to do very well as neighbors. I am now going to go very slowly out of my driveway and look hard as I ease down in that direction, in case the baby is out.
I know, people lose sight of a baby a lot for a few seconds and most of the time the kid is just fiine and they get a hand on them. But this time? I got sick feelings just thinking back to what I saw. Had the driver not stopped, the sibling never would have reached the baby in time, I could see from where I sat the distances involved.
My daughter is 19 months old now. Unfortunately, children are very, very bad and letting you know when they figure out how to do things. One day that can’t do something and there is no risk and the next day, they have figured out how to open two latches, pull open a door and crawl into a dogs crate and gets bitten.
I found out my daughter could open doorknobs by her letting herself out in the backyard (fenced).
However, this is my first child, I’d think by the time I got to the 2nd or 3rd, I’d expect that sort of thing. Right now, I darn near have to glue and eyeball to her whenever she is awake because you just don’t know what she has figured out.
That being said, I’m certain that scared the shit out of you, if I was you, I’d tell the mother because she may not know the kid did that, or even know that they could. (Since they are new to the neighborhood, I’d prolly couch it in the “Maniacs drive down our street and there aren’t many kids lucky enough to be able to play outside much.”)
When I was growing up, we were just starting out on a road trip and going through the nearest town of any size to home. We were driving on the highway, a 4 lane road with a speed limit of 90km/h when this toddler toddles out into the middle of the road.
We stopped and figured out who he belonged to–a house 2 or 3 blocks away. How the hell does a kid who could not possibly reach a doorknob get out of bed at 6AM, dress himself and make it 3 blocks to a busy highway without the parents noticing something?
That is horrible. Are you planning to have a polite chat with the parents, and tell them this story just as you’ve told us? I think most people know that their toddlers can’t be allowed to wander out into traffic, but maybe you should just check that.
I am planning to. Today also brought a property-line incident, and while I don’t give a shit about my trees next to the life of a child, I need to bide my time. I figure I’ll go over there this evening with a bottle of wine, sit down and just chat with them. Their English is quite poor so I will need to be careful with what wording I use. They’re clearly nice folks and I suspect perfectly good parents who sent the kids out to play, and the baby got away for a moment.
I won’t let the incident slide, but know that as a parent, I’d be prickly and upset if someone came at me all wound up. I’ll cool down and sit with them later.
jacquilynne, this news story from last December in Indianapolis, IN is a particularly chilling example of what happens when toddlers go toddling.
You know, my neighbors do that thing where they set the older kids to watch the younger kids out in the yard. And you know what? Those kids are too young to be responsible for younger siblings. They get busy playing, themselves, and the toddlers wander away. I’ve stopped them from heading away from their yard myself. In fact, one day, early in the morning, the two littlest were out of the house, bare-ass naked, playing in the dirt on a very cool morning. No one even knew they were gone. I made them go in the house, and they had to ring the doorbell to be let in because the door had locked behind them when they left. Yes, CPS has been called on them repeatedly, to no avail.
To be fair, the University allowed children on the field. If I were that guy, I’d be bawling my heart out, and let someone try to call me a pansy over it. I’d feel no shame in shedding tears after being a part of that poor kid getting hurt, accident or not.
Even if the university allowed it, I’m sure as hell not letting my little kid anywhere near a football field. The smells, the language, and the possibility of getting clocked in the head with an errant ball are deterrent enough.
I used to stand in the endzone as part of a spirit group at the University of Texas. I learned two things: Lynn Swann is a jerk, and there is no safety guarantee anywhere near a football field. Dumb move by the parent, whether the school okayed it or not. It also puts an unnecessary burden on the player. (“Hey Biff, try to stay in bounds in case there’s a little kid on the sideline!”)
Good call, Cartooniverse, and good luck with your meeting with the parents. I agree that it’s too early to tell if the parents are useless, so meet them and find out!
Good luck, man. I wonder if our old neighbor has moved to your neck of the woods - 4 kids with just over a year between them, several of their fathers were in jail, and the little girl (probably 3 at the time) would wander around in the middle of the street without a care in the world.
Took us a year to convince her that we didn’t really care what her excuse was for letting her huge chow wander the neighborhood, and we never did convince her that she needed to keep an eye on her kids. The poor oldest brother (all of 6 years old) was the most responsible person in that house.
Social services (or child services or whatever they’re called around here) visited them every few months, but that didn’t seem to do any good either.
I sure hope they moved someplace safe but somehow I doubt it.
I was in a strip mall shop about 10 years ago… There was a family shopping (Mom, Dad, 2-3 kids), and the parents were not paying much attention to the kids. The youngest, maybe 2-3 years old, dressed only in a dirty diaper, was wandering around near the front door of the store. The door got opened, and he walked right out the door, off of the sidewalk, and into traffic. I saw him on the sidewalk, and was able to make it to him right as he stepped off the curb into the path of a very close by car. So I grabbed him, and carried him back inside to his mother.
All I got was a dirty look as I explained that he was out in traffic… sigh…
They did, but the parents should’ve known better than to let their child wander there. He’s not much older than my own son according to the side-blurb, and my own gets excited about things and wants to run and join in… I could see a young kid running onto the field at the wrong moment easily.
When he hit the boy and the kid started to cry, I started to shake. He was a lucky kid, getting ran into like that he could’ve been very badly injured.
I’m not saying the parent’s weren’t addled in letting the kids on the sidelines like that. (ALL the parents, not just the parents of the injured tot.) That is a very lucky little boy, to have only needed stitches from that impact. I hope the University wises up, and sets aside a special up-front section in the stands for the kids to be at instead. That would be preferable to letting them be near such a potential for bodily harm.
On the bus home today I saw a young toddler (looked about 2.5. I’m bad with kids though) trying to climb out the damn window of the moving bus. Now, granted, her father was physically restraining her to the extent that she never got much more than a hand out, but it was somewhat unnerving. Especially as she was pouting and whining and smacking her hand against the seat because he wouldn’t let her put her entire head and shoulders out. She was small enough to go right out the window onto the road.
That’s not a situation where I felt terribly comfortable with his attempts to redirect her attention. That’s one where the kid needs to somehow get the message to stop even trying that behaviour. I guess he was just comfortable because he had a good firm hold but it was making me exceedingly anxious in case anything slipped.
I agree they must’ve been addled. I mean, I can think what they may have been thinking “He can go watch up close! It must be safe or the university wouldn’t allow it. He’ll get such a kick out of it.” but I couldn’t imagine letting my son go stand on the field edge.
But then some might say I’m an overprotective parent. Especially compared to the ones in my neighbourhood. There never seems to be any supervision, or else it’s very cursory, and it’s not unheard of to see toddlers running around in dirty clothes inappropriate for the weather with faces covered in snot and dirt, and the tweens and teens… well I did a mini rant just today about it.
World Series, 2002 - Dusty Baker’s 3 year-old son acting as a bat boy was running around near homebase when a play at home happened. Dusty Baker, the manager of the Giants at the time, has been around baseball enough to know that home plate is the scene of many a career-ending injury. A 3 year-old boy had ABSOLUTELY no business being anywhere near that kind of action (or being a bat boy either), but there he was.
I am now going to go very slowly out of my driveway and look hard as I ease down in that direction, in case the baby is out.