[QUOTE=fessie]
That’s kind of what I was thinking. I’m not neutral here - I tend to admire Dangerosa rather extravagantly, she’s said so many wise and witty things.
My kids are just now getting old enough that I tell them not to touch things simply because they are not theirs, whether in our house or not.
Now, I do “confiscate” handbags, and have ever since the great Effexor incident (my Mom should NEVER have emptied her purse on our kitchen floor, I can’t imagine WHAT she was thinking). Everyone who visits knows purses and meds go up high, and cameras and computers need to be put in the spare bedroom (which the kids do not frequent).
But still, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect kids to keep their hands off of things simply because they’re not theirs. I much prefer that they leave a lot of MY stuff alone.
Maybe there’s something I’m not getting here?
[/QUOTE]
I suspect what you are not getting is that I think the sitter was stupid to leave a cellphone sitting around in a bathroom with a full tub close enough for a person of any age to reach the cellphone. If its close enough to reach, its close enough to get knocked in. From experience, cells and water don’t mix (neither, by the way do cells and cans of paint - there is a reason my phone is insured - I’m not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree myself when it comes to cell phone care and have knocked my cellphone out of my holster in to all manner of substances - some which its survived, some which it hasn’t). And now the sitter expects me to pay for her stupidity in setting the cell phone there. To me, this is part of the risk you undertake carrying a cellphone - you’ll bump it off your waist in the Target parking lot while you are loading up diapers and get run over by your car - they are disposable electronics - and if they aren’t, should be insured. Don’t want the risk, don’t carry the phone.
(I should mention I’ve been carrying a cell or pager for…twenty five years now - so I’ve had plenty of opportunities to drive over them, flush them, lose them, and drop them in paint. My previous one fell out of my holster on an airplane in April).
My kids occationally take their gameboys to school. We’ve told them that if the Gameboy goes to school and gets broken or stolen, its their problem. Yeah, no one should steal their gameboy. And yeah, their friends should play with it in such a way not to break it. But they are choosing to expose their gameboy to a high risk environment. Ever since my daughter temporarily lost hers and it became obvious that Mom and Dad weren’t going to replace it (nor were we going to throw a fit in the direction of the little girl who had it last but didn’t remember what she’d done with it), they don’t take gameboys to school. (It showed up in a pocket of my daughter’s backpack - the little girl who borrowed it stuck it there).