Why would you trust me with your kid, you fruitcake !

The BBQ Pit
1

A woman just called me to ask me if I would babysit for her daughter who is 4 years old.

If I knew this woman and was not otherwise busy, no problem. However I don’t know her at all. She got my phone number from a craft show I did last March, she bought some sweaters from me, mentioned that she lives close by and told me we should get together some time. That’s it !

I never heard from her after that, until now.

I know that I try as much as possible to be a good mommy, but she doesn’t know that ! She doesn’t even know that I have children or where I live or that I’m not a serel killer.

Why the hell would you ask a perfect stranger to watch your child so that you could go see a movie ?

Why don’t people take better care of their kids ?

2

Heh.

When I was very little (about one or two years old), my mother was sitting on the front porch with me. A random lady stopped in front of the house and asked if my mother would babysit her son. She didn’t know my mother from Eve, but apparently assumed that since she was a SAHM that she babysat.

Actually, they eventually got to be pretty good friends. The woman was very nice, but rather naive (obviously). I think eventually she took her son to a daycare (read: someone’s house) that turned out to be really bad–little kids left unsupervised, that kind of thing.

3

I just don’t understand that. I don’t even have kids, but I’m even careful with my NEIGHBOR’S kids (mainly because I adore these kids) - I just told the six-year-old that she needs to play in sight of her house when I went back inside (her mom lets her come over to see me when I come home from work, and her mom or dad are always outside with all three kids). I can’t imagine just asking a total stranger to baby-sit your child. Shoot, I’m even picky about who I let take care of my cats.

Ava

4

Yeah! How dare you trust dragongirl oh wait…

That’s rather strange. I don’t have kids but I wouldn’t ask a stranger to look after my groceries let alone my child. Is this typical for parents?

Even people with children (which might be a sort of litmus test for some) could be icky child molesters (not implying you are of course dragongirl).

5

There is a warped sort of logic here. We all know that child molesters are very rare as a percentage of the population. But we can also imagine that such people would try to get as much access to children as possible, so they might well advertise as child sitters, or day care, or something similar. So by asking someone who you like, but doesn’t advertise as looking after children, might seem safer.

6

Well yeah, but that assumes that molestation is the only danger they could face, as opposed to neglect or foolish accidents.

7

I’ve never actually been asked to babysit by a stranger, but recently I got new neighbors with a verrrrrrrrrrrry friendly 1st-grade daughter.

I did introduce myself on the day they moved in, but aside from a cursory “Nice to meet you”, we didn’t talk at all (I mean, they were busy moving, and I wasn’t about to offer to help–I hate moving–so I went on my merry way).

A couple of weeks later, I got a note in my mailbox from the 1st grade daughter, so I wrote her a little note in return. After that, she took up the practice of waiting for me to come home from work, and asking to come over to my house.

I always tell her that she has to ask her parents, and I assume she does (although usually they’re inside the house, so for all I know she just goes in there, picks her nose a little, and comes right back out) . . .

. . . but I am always slightly amazed when she comes back out to say it’s OK (well, OK, I’m not anymore, but the first couple of times I was).

And it’s the same thing–these people don’t know me from Charles Manson!!!

The first time she came over, even though it was mid-summer and the A/C was cranking, I left the front door open (the screen door was shut), just because I felt slightly uncomfortable with the idea of shutting myself up in my house with the small child of a stranger. I wanted her parents to be able to peek in and see that their child was in no danger.

Since then, though, I don’t bother to leave the door open. If they trusted me then, I figure they can trust me now, or at least that the burden of proving that I’m not a child molester is no longer upon me.

8

This seems to be more and more common - I’ve had something similar happen twice. Now, bear in mind, I don’t much like kids, but there must be something about me that makes me look trustworthy.

The first one happened while I was sitting in the Barnes & Noble eatery. Mom (a complete stranger) drops kid a couple of tables away, points to me, and tells kid to stay put and the “nice lady over there” will watch him til she comes back. I glanced at my watch, pretended great hurry, mumbled something about the “nice lady” having to get back to work, and took off.
The second (again, a complete stranger to me) wanted to set up her entire Happy Meal brigade (5 of them) with me at my table in a McDonald’s. I have no idea where she was headed and why she couldn’t wait til they ate to take them with her, but again, I just pretended a great rush and took my leave with my food.

I just don’t get it. There didn’t seem to be any kind of emergency happening in either of the above scenarios, so what are they doing, trying to drop their kids on total strangers? :confused:

9

About a year ago, I was at the mall with my friends.

  • Me (normal fat chick with glasses type, late-twenties)
  • Bri (BRIGHT orange hair, dressed in hemp-fiber clothes, HUGE orange duffle with him, mid-twenties)
  • My girlfriend (BRIGHT purple hair, dressed slacker-casual in jeans and a well worn jean jacket, mid-twenties)

We were waiting in the food court for my sister to get done at the Sears where she was having a picture taken with her kid. Mind you, we didn’t have any kid stuff with us at all, just our own stuff.

A woman walked over to us (professionally dressed in a fairly expensive suit, early 30s), trailing her three-year-old son. She pushed him forward, and said “would you be so kind as to watch my son, I’ll be right back.” Then turned and left without waiting for us to recover from shock.

We put the kid in a chair and gave him some soda. He was pretty scared, but we assured him that his mom would be right back - even though we had no idea where she went, she left away from the bathrooms - and took turns making sure that he was included in conversations. His name was Andy. He was 3. His favorite color was blue. “Is this blue? No? What color is it?” that sort of thing. By the time she came back 10 minutes later, he was laughing and telling us stories about people we didn’t know.

I sure wouldn’t have left my kid with us. Especially for so long.

10

Gravity, in case the lady didn’t tell you, thank you thank you thank you, for being so kind to that kid. Your story made me feel like crying, to think of that poor kid being left alone with strangers, not even knowing where his mother had gone. Scares the hell out of me to imagine that she may have gone on doing stupid shit like that, and what may have happened to Andy by now. :frowning:

11

I am a stranger. I look like Santa Claus. Kids talk to me all the time. I tell them not to talk to strangers. I hate that, because I really like children, the younger the better. But their mothers often hear this exchange, and usually say it’s OK.

Sigh.

I should tell young mom she is wrong. But, I am a very nice man, and I really like children. So, I talk with them when mom says it’s all right. I give them pirate flags.

I always help kids that are lost, and I always ask them if that really is their mom, or dad, when someone comes for them. I also won’t go away if someone else comes to “take care of the kid” for me, unless it’s a Cop, or the kid says it’s mom, or dad. I can get quite rude about it. I figure, the kid lucked out the first time, (me) why push his luck?

Every kid needs to meet nice strangers in his life. Really needs it. The world becomes a battlefield if you fear everyone in it. But parents need to be there. And every single adult needs to make sure that their own presence represents a limit on how bad it can get for any kid who is there too. Better to get your own ass into trouble you can handle, than to have some kid loose everything, because you were afraid to be “impolite” about something.

Tris

12

While we were negotiating to buy a house in another city, we temporarily moved in with my grandmother. The first evening we were there, grandma had to leave, so hubby and I settled in for a movie and a bowl of popcorn.

There was a knock at the door. Two little girls stood outside. The eldest, about ten, explained that they lived next door and theri mother had sent them over wanting to know if they could spend the night with us because “mommy has a date.”

I was absolutely astounded. I told them that no, we couldn’t host them for the evening. Later, when I related this to my grandmother, she said it was pretty frequent that they were sent to ask. She usually took them in, and the stories the kids told her about their mother’s “care” were horrible.

The eldest said that when she was three (making her younger sister about one) their mother had been giving them a bath when she got into a fight with her boyfriend. He ran out of the house, and she chased after him. When mommy didn’t come home, she carried her sister down the street to a neighbor’s house because they were hungry. Thankfully, this stranger was a kind woman who fed the girls and put them to bed in a spare room. The mother returned the next evening, and looked for her daughters by knocking on doors until she located the right one.

People are just amazing sometimes.

13

Triskadecamus, bless you :slight_smile: . Another Santa look alike really made our day at the bank in August. I was there with my son and he looked at this man and said softly, “Santa!” The man smiled and when we left my son waved at him and said, “see you in December.” He came over and asked if he had been good this year, did he like what he had gotten last year, etc. I thanked him for coming over. We were both grinning happily when we left. My son told me that Santa was getting money for all the toys and that he was in shorts because it was so hot. Also there was no snow for the sleigh so Santa took the bus.

I attract kids too (look silly, I think that’s why) and the neighbor’s kids are always coming over. Now that I work it’s easier to say no but when I was a SAHM there were times that I had to really put my foot down at what amounted to massive unpaid babysitting.

14

Nothing like that has happened to me, thank goodness. I like kids, but I always make sure that their parents / guardians are around when kids who are strangers start talking to me. (this happens quite often… I must have a kid-friendly face or something!)

That said, I wish parents wouldn’t do this to their kids. Sure, a person may LOOK like a perfectly nice candidate to be around your kids… but how do you know they’re not the next John Wayne Gacy? (as I recall, he dressed up like a clown to lure kids to him)

Not that anybody in this thread is the next serial killer who preys on innocent children, but you just don’t know who’s out there!

F_X

15

It sounds to me like some parents are horrendously careless with their children!! I’m real careful about who babysits my kids.

[slight hijack] I read in a parenting book that just teaching kids, as a blanket rule, not to talk to strangers, may not be the best idea. The reasoning behind this is that, if your kid gets separated from you, say in a mall or something, they should ask someone to help them, rather than just stand around looking helpless, which is a signal to all nearby child-harmers that this kid is vulnerable. Instead, the book suggested that you teach your child that if they get separated from you, they should ask a grown woman with children for help. Not that no grown women with children would hurt a child, but statistically, they’re the least dangerous, and asking a low-risk person for help is better than just standing around looking lost. Of course, when my kids were little, I would also point out, in a store or something, what a store employee looked like (vest, nametag, whatever), and tell them, “if you get separated from me, find someone who works here and ask for help”. [/hijack]

16

See, if I were in Gravity’s situation (and BTW Hear, Hear to what DungBeetle said), I’d be inclined to say no–NOT because I would mind watching Andy so much as because I’d be afraid of some sort of liability crashing down on my head or, in a more extreme case, that Mom would turn out to be a total nutjob and return with Mall security, pointing at me (and my friends) and yelling, “There they are! There are the assholes who took my baby!”

You just never know.

But again, Gravity, you rock. :slight_smile:

17

It was a very long 10 minutes, auntie em. Near the end, we were begining to think that the woman had decided to ditch the kid, and we’d have to talk to the cops or something.

Andy was a pretty cool kid, it just sucked that his mom thought that it was ok to dump him off on some weird-looking trio instead of one of the many families-with-children that were eating in the same, very full, food court.

18

Oh, and thanks, DungBeetle. There wasn’t much of a chance we could refuse, though, with her striding off so quick.

…I suppose we could have chased after her or something, but…well, I guess we didn’t want to upset the kid. I can’t imagine what I would have thought at 3 if the ‘friend’ that my mom left me with had chased after her and said “we don’t want your damn kid!” That sort of thing scars you.

19

I am very careful about who takes care of Aaron. During the week, he’s at daycare or at home. I know his providers, and he has an excellent relationship with them.

In the evenings, Aaron stays with his grandmother or his great-grandmother. He’s never been looked after by anyone else. I would no sooner dump him on a stranger as I would mail him to Abu Dhabi. If we can’t line someone up to take care of him, we take him with us (if we can), or we just don’t go, and postpone the outing until we can.

I just don’t understand how people can dump their kids on some total stranger. ::shrug::

Robin

20

I think I would have taken the child directly to the security desk and handed them over to the security officers with an explanation of what had happened. Hopefully, the moment of panic she felt when she saw the child was gone might have made her wake up to what she was doing.