The Idiotic Parent Rant

This is, for those of you who do not like to read rants or posts with harsh language, just such a thing. If you decide to read anyway, I don't really care if you hate the language and kindly ask you not to bitch about it.

Early this week, my sister and I realized that Alo had never been to Chuck E. Cheese. When we've taken Kaia, Alo always stayed home with his nurse. It was safer that way. Chuck E. Cheese just screams of germs and illness and Alo is one little guy who has had quite enough of that in his nearly 3 years. But after that realization struck and the guilt set in, we decided that there was nothing for it but to load them both up and take them.

I don't know how many of you have ever been to Chuck E. Cheese, but when you walk in, they stamp your hand. If your location has vigilant employees' manning the door, they then check your hand before you leave and ensure that any children you're carrying out belongs to you.

Even with the safety precautions they take, I still adamantly refuse to allow Kaia out of my sight. In truth, if I can't reach out and lay a hand on him, he's wandered too far for my comfort. Sis feels the exact same so one of us invariably chases him all over the place while the other points and laughs. Since Alo still can't walk and refuses to crawl anywhere near strangers, keeping up with him today wasn't such a big deal. He's a hip baby all the way and you have to have serious issues to lose a child who's firmly entrenched on your hip.

At any rate, as we chased Kaia around today, I began to wonder if we are the only ones who keep the kids in reaching distance at such places. Everywhere I looked there were kids running around with no parent in sight. I'm not talking 8, 9 or 10 year old kids. I'm talking 1, 2, 3 year old kids.

I decided though, that it was none of my concern since there were police officers standing guard and the door was being manned by one of those vigilant employees, so after chasing Kaia around for a couple of hours, we grabbed ice cream and headed home to try out the set of bases we bought for him on Friday.

We loaded Alo up in his walker, spread blankets on the ground for sis, and Kaia and I started putting bases down and discussing the rules. We weren't out there five minutes when this tiny little boy comes bursting out of nowhere and runs up to us. I stop and look around for a parent, an older child or whoever was responsible for this little boy and I find no one. Sis and I exchange glances and I invite him to join us. He tells me no and proudly shows me his blue ball.

Kaia and I play baseball while Alo keeps both this little boy and sis running after his tiny little ball that he gleefully throws from his perch in the walker. I keep my eyes peeled for whoever is supposed to be watching the child while we play. When Kaia gets tired of the rules and starts running around screaming "bases, bases" half an hour later, I've yet to see an adult so I ask the little boy his name.

"Neko," he tells me and grins.

I grin back and ask how old he is.

He holds up two fingers.

"Two?"

He nods an affirmative and scurries off to play with Kaia.

I flop down next to sis and ask her if she's seen anyone coming to check on this little boy.

She hasn't.

She hasn't seen anyone looking out any of the windows of neighboring apartments, hasn't seen anyone open a door and peek out, nothing. I get up and wander around while she keeps an eye on the kids. I find no one and come to the conclusion that this little baby is outside by himself. I don't know where he belongs so decide that if a parent hasn't come for him soon, I'm going to call the police and let them sort it out.

Just as I'm getting ready to head in to retrieve a telephone, his mother finally comes for him. She tells him to take his blue ball inside. He waves bye to Kaia and darts across the courtyard to an apartment. She waits outside for him, gathers him up and ushers him to the car. I'm absolutely infuriated by this time and start to follow after her to ask what the sam hell is wrong with her. Alo starts hacking and clawing at his trach so I turn around to check on him. By the time Khourtniey and I are certain that he isn't going to need a trach change, this woman and the kid are long gone. But it is far from over. The next time I see the idiotic woman, I'm going to let it fly.

I don't at all mind keeping an eye on someone else's child when I know the person and have been asked. But what in the Sam hell is wrong with people? Neither sis nor I have ever met this woman before. We have never seen this child before. For all she knows, we're cracked out prostitutes with a history of child abuse. She never once came and checked on the kid, never once came over to talk to me and Khourt to see if we minded watching the little boy or to ensure we weren't raving lunatics. Nothing.

It's bad enough seeing tiny tots running around Chuck E. Cheese while parents rock out to the character band in the little party room and pay scant attention, but it's an entirely different matter to leave a child unattended outside with strangers. Even had she been checking periodically from a window, it wouldn't have been acceptable. It doesn't take any time for someone to grab a child and make a dash for it. It doesn't take anytime for that child to make his own dash for it.

This woman had no clue if sis and I were the type of people to stay with the child until someone came to claim him or if we were the type to gather up our things and leave him out there alone and she never bothered to come and check.

Had it been the first time something similar had happened, I probably wouldn't still be so worked up over it. But it isn't and I am! It's happened more often than I care to count since Kaia was born. The last time we were all outside, we ended up keeping up with another child that didn't belong to us.

We have a pool in the center of the courtyard. It's fenced in, but the fence bars are just far enough apart that a small child can squeeze through them. The last little boy did so and ran straight to the freezing cold water. My heart stopped when he dove through those bars and headed for the water as fast as his chubby little legs would carry him. I demanded he get back between those bars before I climbed over after him. I meant every word of it. He wasn't mine, but there was no way I could have stood there and said nothing while he did something so dangerous. He listened and dove back through those bars just as quickly as he had gone through them.

The little boy was three and his mother, I soon discovered, was sitting on her couch playing video games. When I returned the child to her, I not so kindly informed her that she needed to keep an eye on her children before something happened to them or they were taken away. I then told her about him climbing between the bars of the pool and running for the water.

She turned immediately to him and started griping at him. I just gaped at her for a long minute before I turned on my heel and walked away. Had I stayed, I would have had no qualms about smacking some sense into her. I called CPS instead. It was less than what she deserved, but I try not to murder people with children present.

I wanted to strangle her then, I still want to strangle her now and the woman from today has now become a part of that fantasy as well. Parents like that absolutely disgust me.

I mean, how the frick do you fuss at a child for being a child when you're too fucking busy sitting on your ass on the couch playing video games while a complete stranger watches him for you? Perhaps the little boy would have known better had he had a parent with any freaking sense and some decent priorities. But no, she didn't and neither did this woman today.

And it really pisses me off to no end that people like this are blessed with children when they quite obviously were not blessed with the good sense to raise said children. I don't care what else may be going on in life, you do not allow such a young child outside without your supervision. I don't care if your yard is fenced, you live in the boonies or know every neighbor in a 5 mile radius. A two or three year old has no business being outside by him or herself. I don't care if there are 10 other adults outside. If you don't know those people, you don't leave your kids under their supervision.

If you don't have the sense to know that, you have absolutely no business having children and those children deserve a better parent than you. And I, for one, sincerely hope that someone has the sense to call the police or child protective services to report your sorry self for being so utterly ignorant. I've done so twice in the last handful of months and I will gladly continue to do so.

Kids deserve better than that and it's a damn shame they aren't getting it because the parents who were smart enough to engage in the activity that lead to their birth aren’t smart enough to know how to keep them safe.

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