why all women should not be mothers....

[LadyAndreca]

8 kids? Simple head count before leaving anywhere should be mandatory.

I have a brother with such a tendancy to wander off (he wandered off in Salzburg, Austria, when he was 4 or so, and got left at a rest stop once when he was 10ish), that my parents used to leash him (actually, they leashed all of us and ignored anyone who criticized them for it), put a bell on him at one point, and finally took to running down the entire list of kids EVERY time we went ANYWHERE.

"Mommy, are you buckled?" "Yes."
"C, are you buckled?" "Not yet..."
"J, are you buckled?" "Yes."
"B, are you buckled?" "Yeah."
"M, are you buckled?" "Yes."
"K, are you buckled?" "Yes."
"C, are you buckled yet?" "Yes."
"And I'm buckled. Okay."

[Kristev]

I am not in the least bit surprised by any of this. Just disappointed. Children are a precious gift. Until they gey ruined by bad parenting . . .

[phantasy]

I have a brother with such a tendancy to wander off (he wandered off in Salzburg, Austria, when he was 4 or so, and got left at a rest stop once when he was 10ish), that my parents used to leash him (actually, they leashed all of us and ignored anyone who criticized them for it), put a bell on him at one point, and finally took to running down the entire list of kids EVERY time we went ANYWHERE.

That reminds me of my mother-in-laws favorite story about my husband. When he was about 4 years old, he went with his family to Machu Pichu in Peru. He managed to run off my himself and get lost in the crowd of people. Since he was so young, the crowd scared him, so he went to find his parents.

Apparently, this process of "finding parents" included just sticking his hand up and grabbing the first adult hand he touched.

He grabbed the hands of a tourist couple who thought this was the cutest thing in the world. They thought he was some native cuzco boy or something, and walked around for an hour with him. His real mother, of course was frantic, and almost hit the tourists when she found her son.

[doogiej]

I have 5 kids (4 of which are under the age of 6). I couldn't imagine being like that mother. I look like an idiot out in public, but I count my kids every few minutes. It works for me and I know I can count to 5, a lot.

I have had kids run off on me, but I usually find them quickly. The biggest problem for us was when my oldest son was 2 or 3 and managed to escape the house every time I wasn't in the same room as him. Extra locks and an alarm on the door didn't deter him. Good thing he outgrew that lovely habit.

[Red_Dazes]

one time a customer wanted our toy manager to be fired b/c he went to lunch while her kids were in the dept.

That made my brain sad....

[Comechatcha]

Houdini child

So going to call any of my hypothetical future children who poof when I glance away this.

[chainedbarista]

"i have 8 kids i cant be expected to know where they all are"

well, madam, while you may have the aspects of the cockroach, the law won't allow your children to be treated as such.

will stop there for fratching based reasons.

[TheComputerError]

"i have 8 kids i cant be expected to know where they all are"

I'm pretty sure Michelle Duggar knows where the 18 of her children that still live at home are when they go on outings. I'll grant that she might not know where her oldest is, but he's married.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I witnessed things like this first hand while hanging out with a friend at her job. People would treat the video store as a form of daycare, dropping their kids off for hours at a time. I know I have read other posts here which sound the same and it is very scary - how can people do this to their children?

Cuz they're idiots? At the pet centre where I worked, people would do exactly that. Cuz said pet centre was in a garden centre, I would just call my supervisor and she'd take the kids to the manager's office. Then, when the parents of the year returned from shopping, they'd have a moment's panic cuz they couldn't find their kids; before I sent them down to be given a bollocking by the supervisor for leaving their kids alone. -.- I wouldn't have minded so much if these had been twelve plus, well behaved kids but it was always six or younger, demonic children who'd run around screeching, banging on fishtanks, opening cages and pulling stuff off the shelves.