Had a little excitement around Ye Olde Town the other day. When I arrived at the post office, a cop car with lights flashing sat in a nearby bank parking lot.
No, not a bank robbery. As I headed up the steps to the P.O., a woman just ahead turned and in a most accusatory way demanded, “Did you leave a little boy in your car?”
What? Do I look like somebody who totes toddlers around? Me and this silver hair?
“Um … no. Why?”
“Well,” she said with a glint that you really had to see to understand, “somebody did. The little thing was wandering all over the bank parking lot.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I answered. “I can see leaving a child in a car for a minute as you run a quick errand, but …”
“Ohhhh, no!” she snapped. “Ohhhh, no you wouldn’t. That’s against the law! It’s illegal! You’re not allowed to leave a child alone in a car even for one minute! And with all the terrible things perverts do to children these days …”
She continued to rant as she walked to her post office box and I to mine, but I couldn’t tell you anything else she said because I tuned the mother-of-a-canine out.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not in favor of child endangerment. (Well, some children — particularly those who can’t behave in restaurants and on airplanes — could use a little endangerment, but that’s a different matter.) And of course, toddlers shouldn’t be roaming the mean parking lots alone, even in a town like this one (where, I must note, few perverts roam).
But c’mon. Parents have a life. Getting tots into and out of vehicles, especially these days when every kid is required to travel in its own mini-tank, requires major effort. The day was mild, the errand quick, and had the Evil Culprit secured little Rover-boy more carefully while dashing in to cash a check, it would have been no big deal and nobody else’s business, law or no freaking law.
Anyhow, how many times in the real world do adventurous tots wander away from their parents in perfectly innocent ways? If that’s a crime, every parent who ever lived would probably be rotting in prison.
I had the feeling — though I can’t be sure — that Madame Indignation might have been the one to call the cops. And I wondered, whoever called the cops … why didn’t they just take Rover by the hand, walk into the bank, and ask, “Does this little boy belong to anyone here?” Or if fearful of being misinterpreted when touching a stranger’s child, just stay by the kid to keep it from wandering into the street until a parent emerged?
Seems that would have been the neighborly thing to do.
But no. Whether she called the cops or somebody else did, it was pretty clear that this woman loved the drama and self-righteousness of police going after an erring parent. In fact, from her tone and expression I’m guessing Madame Busybody would have liked it even better had Rover been hit by a car or gotten himself carried off by a perv. Then she could have really, really enjoyed her self-righteousness and her superiority. Even better (in what I suppose to be her warped view) if Rover had ended up dismembered or something. She could have gotten years of self-satisfied tongue clucking and personal I-told-you-so glorification out of bloody toddler limbs turning up here and there.
Fortunately, I’m pretty sure the average person in town would have done the neighborly thing. I also doubt that the cop hauled Mom or Dad off to jail — probably just gave ’em a firm, no-nonsense what for. So that part is to the good.
Thank all stars, Madame Law-n-Order remains an aberration hereabouts.
But her howls of “that’s against the law!” brought me up short. She clearly didn’t care about the tot. Or about neighborliness. Or common sense. Or right or wrong. Or the decent thing to do. To her, “the law” trumped everything. If something is against the law, then ipso facto no decent person would ever do it, and anyone who goes ahead and does it anyhow deserves whatever punishment they get.
And presumably, as long as something is the law, then it’s okay no matter how stupid, cruel, or unfriendly it is.
Used to hear that kind of thing a lot — before so many ordinary people finally realized we’re all lawbreakers one way or another. These days … well, I’d like to think people like that woman are a throwback to a more rigid era and mindset.
But I dunno. Not a day later, I was reading Joel’s blog and Tam (the Queen of Snark) threw in a comment that made me wonder if she and I were running into some of the same weirdos.
I’m reminded of the vulgar but oh-so-true three-word epithet in Chapter 8 of George Potter’s most excellent The Woman Who Hitch Hiked With Cats
Heard a news story of a toddler found walking the streets, she got out while dad was sleeping for his 3rd shift job. Dad was charged with child endangerment and probably lost his 3rd shift job. So a family’s livelyhood was ruined because of a curious toddler figured out how to get out the back door. How did this benefit anyone? But that is not the purpose of the law, it’s purpose is to bring in revenue regardless of how many lives are destroyed in the process. I hope the parent was only given a citation for the actions. I am sure that Janet Napalitano would be proud of whoever reported the parent. See and say! Scary stuff.
You pegged it accurately, it wasn’t about the toddler it was about Madame getting her tail feathers flustered because it was “Against the LAW”. I see it all the time, it is an opportunity for people to be self righteous and make themselves feel superior. I have had interesting conversations about leaving my dogs in my truck when running a quick errand. If it is real hot I’ll leave the A/C run for them. My truck alarm eats dog food. My biggest fear is someone will steal my truck and leave the dogs behind.
The lady you mention, and the attitude is part of the societal norm and one of the reasons that our society will have to fight and claw it’s way to freedom. I am sure the nice lady votes regularly, straight ticket, never parks in a handicap spot etc.
I remember a few years back being in a local park and some kids were playing on the playground and I was the only person besides the kids that was around. One of the girls fell off the slide and broke her leg (compound fracture). I ran over and made sure she didn’t move, put my jacket around her, and calmly talked to her to keep her from going into a panic as I knew that would cause shock.
Her little brother was there and I sent him to find the parents who weren’t anywhere nearby. It never occurred to me to report the situation to the cops or to try and rat the parents out when the ambulance came. I just wanted to take care of the little girl and make sure the parents got there to comfort her. If more people did things like this instead of searching for tragedy and opportunities to make a huge drama out of stuff like this we would be a better society.
Tracker — well done!
General agreement all around. Yeah, and Rebekah, very true. Government encouragement via “see something, say something” definitely makes these busybodies scarier than they already are.
I wonder if she realised that she could have been committing assault?
And it’s against the law….
Assault?
Now, that’s interesting. Assault … it takes more imagination than I have to see. But no doubt she (like the rest of us) was guilty of some lawbreaking or another.
Lao-Tzu a Chinese philosopher twenty five hundred years ago made the following statement: “The more laws and order are made prominent, The more thieves and robbers there will be.“
from the legal dictionary by farlex: (googled)
“At Common Law, an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.”
If she was in your face & blocking your path “creating apprehension” it could be assault. It doesn’t require actual physical contact to be assault.
I agree that it’s far too strong a term for this incident, but you would never make her believe she didn’t have the right to vent her rage on you….
“Anyhow, how many times in the real world do adventurous tots wander away from their parents in perfectly innocent ways? If that’s a crime, every parent who ever lived would probably be rotting in prison.”
Two observations:
1. Substitute independent for innocent and it may explain a lot, no?
2. This sort of manic fidelity to “the law”, operating in precise conjunction with the complete abandonment of the “reasonable man” concept (remember that quaint notion?), was chillingly covered at some length by Solzhenitsyn in the second chapter of The Gulag Archipelago, tellingly titled “The History of Our Sewage Disposal System”.
The woman you encountered (who in no way deserves the term “lady” as I mean it) has no idea that she, too, is a podkulachnik, just like the parent she’s never even met but would casually toss under the bus without a second thought. She either cannot or will not understand that her All-Star-Service to the system she believes will protect “us all” means nothing to the system itself. She can’t see that her moral(izing) fidelity to a system which is not only amoral but ridiculously incented toward abuse, will not–cannot–even hope to provide moral fidelity in return. (She appears many times in “The History of our Sewage Disposal System”.)
As for the “rotting in prison” problem: any parent operating today with even the most remote sense of awareness, understands this. (To continue the Solzhenitsyn theme, when the US finally creates its omnibus “Article 58” out of components like the PATRIOT Act, the drug code, and its many smaller wars on its own people, one of the most obvious “new” targets will be parents, not only an enormous demographic in itself but also literally the demographic most capable of changing the status quo, through the raising of independent children.) I personally know a lot–a lot–of parents who quite conspicuously look for ways to promote the independence of their children in which no one else is around to observe. Discussions of what sort of things should and should not be done in “social groups” are everyday events, and not taken lightly. Most are well aware of what seems to be a sharp rise (most likely in response) in official and unofficial sniffing around by the anointed protectors of all things “safe”.
Which is yet another silver lining among all those dark clouds. People know, and are already “living free” in little ways every day, without chest-thumping, by talking to each other directly and making things happen in spite of their “betters”.
As it gets worse, these people will have more and more reasons to come together.
Ugh…another disturbing random encounter with a nanny-state stepford……..
I bet she was the one to call…
Madame Nutcase managed to get involved without getting her own hands dirty, that’s all that was….call someone else to handle what she thinks is wrong…..and in her self serving joy, she decided to drag you into it by “casual conversation” ~ that wasn’t as much to ask you if the kid was with you, it was to let you know she noticed it and she’s outraged by it and she’s “whatever self important point” about the whole subject…..that’s all that was…..
After her first few sentences I would have probably blurted out Well, what did YOU do about it….LOL…..
Shortly after moving to our little town, I was looking out my livingroom window and spied the neighbor girl, who was 2, maybe 3 years old at the time, wandering down the street. Alone. Wearing nothing but a smile. Of course the first reaction was to run out and whisk the kid back home. Then I pictured the worse case scenario. Me, grabbing a naked little girl, who was screaming and kicking in the middle of our quiet little street, because I was a stranger.
I can’t imagine the pummeling I would be in for.
I sent my wife.
When I was living in Germany, the neighbors across the way had 3 kids – one was a little girl about 3 years old. She was often found playing in other people’s yards – stark naked.
When I pointed this out to my kids – who were around 13 at they time, indicating wasn’t it strange that the child was playing with no clothes on, they looked at me as if I was crazy. “She’s just a baby – who cares!”
It was just a very normal thing.
Here in the USA, the parents would be hauled away & prosecuted, the kids takes by “Child Protection Services” and placed in foster homes, and every resident interviewed to establish the case for criminal child abuse.
Sounds like Ms. Busybody is a prime candidate for a good shunning.
Had any random male seen the problem and taken the child by the hand, led her toward the Bank in search of the parents Ms Busybody would no doubt have called the police to report a child abduction. Interacting with children is one of the most dangerous things an adult male can do in today’s world. Sad to think children may be injured because men refuse to get involved, but that is the reality we live in.
I do wonder if that lady ever had kids of her own. When we were
living in Upstate New York, my husbands last duty station before he
retired, we had to put double locks on the doors. One day I was on
the third floor cleaning when I realized that it was a way to quick
in the house. I went downstairs and the door was shut, but the
locks and been loosed. And my 3 year old daughter had taken the dog for a walk in the park. And I could not see her in the park
because of the trees. I just guessed that she was there and thank
God that she was.
But anyway I really had my hands full with this child as you can
see.
Blessings,
Debby
Hoo boy. We’ll be installing those cheap door alarms soon – the youngest grandbaby is a total houdini. And the eldest (they are very close in age) is big on taking stuff apart. Kids DO stuff – imagine that. Though I would not have left my daughter or one of my grandbabies alone in a car – too many experiences with the Mom of the tiny houdini and miniature mechanic – Mrs. Busybody of the Lawww needs to work on expanding her grinch-sized heart. There are no perfect parents.
I wonder what she would have done if, when she accused you of leaving a kid in your car, you had answered in the same tone “Why, did you just put one in my car?!?!”
Part of the problem here, it seems to me, is the endless hysteria about 99%-imaginary child molesters. Back when I was a kid, I’d wander away every so often, and the neighbors would just note my presence and call my mother to let her know where her wandering boy was. No biggie.