I agree with you on the pool thing. You don’t leave a 7 year old with a 14 year old (who’s prolly having too much fun to properly watch the younger one). I have never seen a hotel with a lifeguard, either. I am more concerned with the drug thing, but the pool thing was a bad decision, too.
A friend of ours Grandpa took him to see a prostitute when he was 13.
13!
Isn’t the bigger point here that the children’s mother is locked in a rather onerous custody sharing agreement? Her ex sounds like the type of ass that would look to cause harm by using these incidents to indicate the mother has unsound judgment and should have less time with the kids.
And just to pile on, grandpa has no right to insist to be present for the birth. Ask yes insist no. Our philosophy was you weren’t involved in the conception you can’t be in the room for the birth. But we didn’t need to worry about that because no one asked and Mrs. Jim went into Labor at 11:00pm.
While I’ve often been in charge of groups of kids at the pool and nobody came to grievous harm, it’s completely different when you’ve specifically flown a long distance to be with those kids and are specifically charged with taking care of them.
What gramps did in the pool incident isn’t equivalent to my mother sending me and my brothers to the pool: it’s equivalent to me dropping them at the pool to go check out the weekly street market, when we’ve been sent to the pool after I haven’t seen them for a year.
That gramps reminds me of my Gramps from Hell, minus the obsexion. My Gramps is another one of those people who can remember “this makes people angry” but not understand why.
- He didn’t “ask” to be at the birth:
INSIST. He doesn’t have a right to insist, much less call other members of the family to complain.
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No, I don’t think kids of that age can/should be left unsupervised, together. I’d actually feel safer if it was just one kid. Several kids start daring each other and next thing you know you’ve got them diving into the shallow end.
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People think it’s OK to give drugs, even a Percoset, to someone else’s kid, without permission? Wow.
I’m not getting at all the posters who think the pool event wasn’t a problem. Unless he had specific permission from the mother to leave the kids alone at the pool, and obviously he didn’t, this was a huge error. Yes, there are scenarios where a 14, 2x12, and a 7 year old can be left alone at the pool. A grandparent who sees them once a year is not qualified to judge if this is such a scenario. The kids are not qualified to judge if this is such a scenario. Only the parent is. Just because there are 14 year olds who can be trusted to watch their 7 year old sibling doesn’t mean this particular one is. Clearly the mother thinks he isn’t, and the once-a-year grandfather is in no position to overrule her.
And handing out prescription drugs to a minor? Are you kidding me? Averie537, good call on never leaving him alone with your kids. He clearly cannot be trusted to actually behave like an adult.
I don’t really have timeto go into ALL of the events in which he has demonstrated and complete and utter lack of the perception of “that’s not OK,” so I’ll just mention this one. He was taking my friend and I to a park/pond to feed the ducks. We were 10 or 11. He thought it was OK to stop at his friend’s house, leave us in the car alone for 30 minutes and go get stoned out of his gourd on the way.
At least now he doesn’t smoke pot (much) anymore.