*sighs*

[conuly]

So apparently some seven year old... somewhere was with her mom in Walmart, and her mom let her stay in the toy aisle while she went to pick up some produce. While they were separated, a STRANGER came and tried to abduct the little girl, but she fought back and he ran off.

Cue the shocked "I can't believe somebody would let a seven year old do that!" commentary. And one very special comment from somebody who one day saw a three year old walking barefoot down the block, alone, two blocks from her home - she'd slipped out while ostensibly taking a nap. "Every day children are killed or raped or abducted, and even if you try hard something might happen!"

Notice she doesn't say that anything happened to this little girl, which was pretty much what I said. She left us hanging! Finish the story already! Was this girl killed, raped, abducted, all of the above, or NONE of the above?

But my real question is this: What the hell does a three year old leaving her house without her parents knowledge and consent have to do with a seven year old being apart from her mother with the woman's blessing? Quite aside from the fact that most likely nothing happened to the toddler at all, what do the two even have in common?

If people are going to try to use scare tactics to make me conform with them, I'd kinda like it more if they took the time to make sure their little fearmongering anecdotes were at least relevant. If it's that hard to find a relevant anecdote to make in relation to a news story about an attempted stranger abduction, perhaps this says something. And if you think it doesn't, either use google or make something up like everybody else does. Don't be so boring about it either.

Comments

[mc776]

........leaving the kid in the toy aisle while you do your grownup shopping...

...see, I can think of some good reasons ($$$$$) not to do that (disclosure: that's what my parents did. corollary disclosure: I had a fuckton of toys as a kid) but I would not want to have to deal too often with a person brought up by parents who consider that to be a security breach.

[erisiansaint]

Actually, my SO and I once got a late start on a road trip, because we went to a grocery store in a residential neighborhood and when we came out, we found a little two year old girl who'd gotten out while her dad was in the bathroom. We picked her up and knocked from door to door until her dad came running up and claimed her. He hadn't known she could unlick the screen door.

However, there were three other people there, at the same time, helping find her dad. I think that letting your kid go play in the toy aisle without being right there is stupid. But I also think a lot of people are better than we get credit for.

(Of course, at the same time, the entire story you related about Wal*Mart gives me the willies, since I'm of the Adam Walsh era: I was at that Sears the day before he was abducted and my grandma wouldn't let me go to the toy section, just in case.)

[conuly]

I think that letting your kid go play in the toy aisle without being right there is stupid.

If very every other nation in the world feels fine letting seven and eight year old children walk to school alone, I don't see how it possibly could be.

[redbird]

I stay away from those discussions, because I know what I would say, and it would come to no good: "Yes, every day children are raped. Most of them are raped by their own parents, grandparents, older siblings, and other relatives, or by adults those relatives trust, not by strangers. The toy aisle at a big store may be safer than grandpa's living room."

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

This. When I was five-going-on-six, my mother thought it perfectly safe to let me and my little brother walk to Kindergarten alone. A few years later, we were allowed to have our own fleamarket stall at the local town festival (kids under 16 were allowed to sell stuff for free while stalls for grown-ups were reasonably expensive, so this was hugely popular), and one of our parents would just check periodically if we were still fine or if we wanted to go home. We spent hours alone! In the middle of a bustling festival! At the tender age of eight!
This was in the days before cell phones, too...

[conuly]

It's nicer than the way I worded my feelings.

[erisiansaint]

Yes, but as I already pointed out, I get the willies because I was at the Sears that Adam Walsh was abducted from, the day before, and we were the same age. It makes a difference.

There's also one other consideration for not letting kids play unattended in stores: the employees are not the kids' babysitters. Letting one's kids go off and wreak havoc in a store is rude.

[conuly]

There's a big difference between letting your child be apart from you and letting your child "wreak havoc". Adults aren't assumed to be criminals, even though some ARE and DO cause damage to stores, why should children all be assumed to be badly behaved?

[erisiansaint]

I got to spend upwards of 20 years dealing with my mom working in retail. There were some good kids. But the vast majority of kids whose moms turned them loose wrought havoc.

Which doesn't change my point: the store employees aren't babysitters. A person should keep their kids with them in a store, they're not anyone else's responsibilities but the parents'. And yes, I do practice as I preach, and I do so out of consideration for the employees, not fear of what might happen to my kid.

[conuly]

But is anybody ASKING you to supervise other people's children in stores, on playgrounds, out on the sidewalk, in the park...?

Why is the assumption that it's your job to "babysit" any child in your eyesight? Six year old children around the world run small errands on their own. Why can't they do that here?