Reply #27: I am the mother of a twelve-year-old daughter and [View All]

[LibDemAlways]

have always kept a very close eye on her in public. But there are parents out there who are simply negligent and some who put their children into very dangerous situations.

My daughter used to take a weekly class at a dance school nearby. The school is popular and needed more studio space so the owner created a small studio at the rear of the building accessible only through a door off an alley just beyond a blind curve. My daughter's class met there when she was six. Some of the children in her class were as young as four. Every week I arrived early with my daughter and waited for the teacher to show up. Then I came back early at pick-up time to be there when class was over. I spent a lot of time in that alley, and my daughter was never alone back there.

Some parents, however, rounded the corner, opened the car door, let their little ones out, and took off - leaving their four and five year olds standing in a narrow alley not knowing when or if the teacher was even going to show up. It blew me away that these people cared so little for their children's well-being that they could leave them alone like that. Same thing at pick-up time. Kids would be standing back there waiting for absent parents long after class was over.

If people don't have the time or interest to take good care of their kids, they shouldn't have them. What I witnessed firsthand was nothing less than child endangerment. By the way that back-alley studio was eventually shut down after some of us complained.