Spontaneous Conversation thread

[Rigil Kent]

Do they have any leads on those morons? Any insight into a motive (aside from just being stupid, that is)?

[justTripn]

Again, I'm going to seem like the unfit parent, but . . . My husband and I were away last weekend, gone to North Carolina to see our nephew graduate from college. Left the three boys, ages 16, 16, and 18 home alone. Seemed like they'd be old enouph. And Paris only remembered to tell me this story yesterday. Yes, we'll check into it now.

[Rigil Kent]

How is that bad parenting? Eighteen is considered an adult, and sixteen ... jeez, I was all but living by myself at 16.

[CX]

Agreed, he should be old enough to be fairly responsible on his own at 16. Most states list that as the age of concent and some have charged people as young as that as adults. Plus, 10:30 isn't all that late.

Anyway, how's your son doing?

[TPoptarts]

I don't think it's bad parenting at all well of course I don't know your kids but they still sound old enough to handle staying home alone. My parents would leave me home alone since I was like 6 and I didn't like burn down anything or stuff. For more than 1 day since I was like 11 or 12. So 16 and 18 sounds plenty old enough to handle themselves. Don't apologize

[blacknblue]

I was a latchkey kid. I used to come home from school alone at age ten and fix my own after school snacks, etc. At sixteen I was staying alone for days at a time. At seventeen I graduated high school and went away to college. They were plenty old enough to be alone.

[justTripn]

Thanks guys! Not that there's much I can do about it anyway, what with all of them having bus passes . . .

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Horrible thing that happened. What idiots!

As for being a kid on your own, I remember one summer I spent living with an English family (a language exchange thing) at 14 years of age. A couple of times I went to London by myself and walked around, going to museums, bookstores and things like that. Heh, I even saw Return of the Jedi some months before it opened up in Sweden (I'm dating myself here). No problem and my parents didn't mind.

And I was used to take care of myself. Going home from school I was alone or with my sister before my parents came home from work.

[blacknblue]

It's a sad thing though. Whether US society is actually more dangerous to children now, or whether the perception has changed, many parents don't feel comfortable giving their kids the freedom we had. I notice a lot fewer kids running around in the neighborhood unaccompanied than there were in my youth. People are afraid for their children. Between the predators, the terrorists, and the gang members a lot of parents just don't want to let their children go anywhere except under direct supervision of a family member or a well known friend.

[CX]

That's true. Part of what makes me happy that I grew up out here in the middle of no where, actually.

[JadziaKathryn]

Yeah, the world seems scarier now. I babysat when I was 12, and when I have kids (not in the foreseeable future, since a. I don't have a boyfriend, never mind a husband and b. I'm not really ready to have kids yet) I can't imagine leaving them with a 12 year old and feeling good about it. The world has gotten to be a scarier place, even in the last decade.

[Linda]

Yes, kids were allowed to be happily naive about many things years ago. It may have been a combination of their parents being naive too, and today actually being more dangerous. Just last week a four year old girl here in Milwaukee was killed playing in front of her house when she got caught in a drive by shooting. This is becoming all too common.