[blparent] What's up with people anyway?

Wed Mar 7 20:36:25 UTC 2012

I'm sure I'll get in trouble for telling other people's kids what to do once 
in a while in the future, too, because I couldn't in good conscience let 
anybody's preschooler do something as dangerous as Sydney was, even if it 
gets me yelled at by her mom.

Jo Elizabeth

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, 
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of 
the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of 
these."--George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, American scientist

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Melissa Ann Riccobono" <melissa at riccobono.us>
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 12:37 PM
To: "'Blind Parents Mailing List'" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blparent] What's up with people anyway?

> Wow, this is totally crazy!  I thought what she was going to tell you was
> that you obviously weren't watching her daughter since she was attempting
> something so dangerous...  Even though you were watching and preventing 
> her
> from doing it...  In some ways I'm glad I was wrong because obviously she
> knew you were watching...  I think it's actually more disturbing though 
> that
> she asked you to leave because of your actions.  This world can certainly 
> be
> a crazy place, and it's very sad that people can't watch out for each 
> others
> children anymore.
> Melissa
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Jo Elizabeth Pinto
> Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 1:12 PM
> To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
> Subject: [blparent] What's up with people anyway?
>
> Sarah and I were outside yesterday--nice day, in the seventies, today it's
> thirty-five.  Anyway, we were over at the house of one of Sarah's friends,
> playing out in the front yard.  The mom had gone inside for a quick 
> shower,
> which I felt good about because I was thinking it meant she trusted me
> enough to leave me with her daughter for a short time.  Maybe she would 
> have
> gone anyway, even if I wasn't there.
>
> So the deal is, her daughter wanted to climb up in a tree.  The branch was
> too high for her to reach, so she dragged a toy picnic table over and 
> stood
> on it.  The branch was still too high.  The next thing she did was get a
> chair and put it on top of the picnic table.  She intended to climb onto 
> the
> table, then onto the chair, and finally up to the tree branch, which hung
> out over the sidewalk.  I told her that would be dangerous and she better
> leave tree climbing till she was bigger or could find a tree with lower
> branches, or till she had someone strong enough there who could boost her
> up.
>
> The words were barely out of my mouth when her mom yanks the front door 
> open
> and tells me, "Well, I guess you can just leave then!"
>
> I was shocked.  Apparently she didn't like me telling her kid what to do.
> But for God's sake, if I wasn't around, I would want somebody to tell 
> Sarah
> not to do something they thought would be dangerous.  I felt like saying
> that next time, I'd just let this woman's daughter fall on her head on the
> sidewalk, but I didn't figure that was a constructive thing to say, so I
> kept my mouth shut.
>
> When I was growing up in this same town, any neighbor could have told me 
> not
> to do something unsafe, or not to do anything at all, for that matter, and 
> I
> would have listened.  It seems that the "don't tell my kid what to do"
> mentality has taken over, even where safety is concerned.  It worries me a
> little because sooner or later, and not much later at that, I'll have to 
> be
> letting Sarah go out on her own a bit.  So if she decides to balance a 
> chair
> on a picnic table and then try to climb up, nobody's going to say anything
> to her because it's against the social rules to caution other people's 
> kids?
> It's not like I yelled at the kid, or told her she had a stupid idea, or
> anything like that.
>
> Sorry, rant over, I just haven't been able to get the incident out of my
> mind.
>
> Jo Elizabeth
>
> "How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young,
> compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant 
> of
> the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all 
> of
> these."--George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, American scientist
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