Texas woman charged with abandoning kids...30 yards away

The fear of her kids being abducted for her being careless and stupid should have overridden the fear of being upfront with a potential employer who rushed you in to an impromptu interview. That's what you are being dismissive of... her duty as a parent.

 

It's from her quote.

"She went to Houston’s Memorial City Mall for a job interview but because it was last minute, Browder did not have enough time to find a babysitter."
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My wife had an initial interview for HISD at a Starbucks because she needed to meet before her work day as a nurse started. You never know what kinds of circumstances are at play in situations where you're not provided with the necessary context.

 

Yeah sure. Or like I said, it could be an Internet or common Phone Sales/Marketing type job for college kids where there is no office at all.

Question to you: Did you ever request a "last minute" interview? And if you did, would you allow the person to reschedule? If not, what would your response be to, "OK, I would still love to meet with you, but I have kid-duty today. And too short notice to schedule a baby-sitter." Or if she just arrives with the same apologetic comment, and "They will sit quietly in the table next to us."

I feel for her being young and intimidated enough to make the wrong decision not to say those very simple things versus what she did.

30 yards is unreasonable in a mall, imo. And again, why not get up when the plan failed and security/mall employee/anyone started talking to your kids, if you were watching them.

 

And what would she have said to HISD if she didn't have the nursing job, but had kid-duty that day, especially if they asked for "[the interview] was last minute, and did not have enough time to find a babysitter." Explain that quote to me, in the context of what your wife would have done.

Girl was hiding her kids from the interview for some unnecessary reason, and didn't get up when security/mall ees approached her kids. I don't buy that no one walked up to her kids, first, for her to see.

Something just doesn't seem right about that story.

 

The kid was 2 years old. That's almost a baby.
And anyway this teaches too. Noone is born a great amazing always right parent. This will teach her to not to do such dangerous mistakes again. And maybe will put her in notice of the system to keep an eye on her so as not to repeat such mistakes. It doesn't have to mean that she will go to prison or have her kids taken away from her.

As for busybodies police officers..really? If I saw a two year old alone with a 6 y.o without a parent around in a mall I would call the cops myself.

 

I've left my kids at the table to get them food from the food court, so I wouldn't consider it unreasonable, if I can see my children, I feel comfortable that they are safe.

I've also seen other articles on this story that say it was 30 feet. No matter what, it was her giving the story, not with actual facts about the distance. There isn't enough information to determine if what she did was reasonable or not. We have expectations about how the police would have handled it, but we don't know about that either. There was no follow up story, and no police side of the story.

 

Anyone that would leave a 2 year old and a 6 year old alone in the food court of a mall and walk 90 feet away isn't a competent parent. That's just begging someone to snatch your kids.

 

It might have been 30 feet away, but the real question is if that action is illegal. Whether or not it's "begging someone to snatch your kids" is a question of judgment and parenting skills. You should check the link to the articles I posted on page 1...oh I'll just re-post.
https://reason.com/blog/2015/12/17/verdict-reversed-mom-not-guilty-of-negle
http://www.today.com/parents/maryland-free-range-parents-cleared-neglect-t27901
I'm ok with cops or any person debating/questioning competent parenting, but how far should that power go? I think the stats show that the fear is worse than the actual facts justify. So it's really become more of a social norm thing. Parenting is different nowadays than it was in the 70's in many ways. But are these parents in the articles doing anything illegal? And what about the interview food court woman? Apparently, the cops and CPS think so about the former, and all cases have been overturned by the courts so far. So it should probably be the same thing in the latter. But like I said earlier, this woman probably doesn't have the means that the others have, so she's not going to have a fancy attorney and public fight. She'll probably get slapped on the wrist anyways, but be forced into some CPS monitoring because they don't agree with her parenting and have to power to alter it.

 

But it's not criminal now. It's only criminal in the sense that cops are detaining kids and CPS is strong-arming ignorant parents into signing over power on compliance forms. I honestly can go either way on if it's good or bad parenting because I do believe that parents nowadays can be way overprotective to the point of causing harm to their children. Where their parental power ends and where the power of CPS begins is a gray line. The reality is that power is only successfully exercised towards mostly the poor. So we have this parental state that is effective (not in outcome, but in the exercise of authority) only for poor people, but not for those with money. And I'm torn on this because in my line of work, I've come across a lot of ghetto parents with bad judgment. And I think to myself, a little CPS in their lives might not be a bad thing. And I've seen those docs and met CPS workers. Many of them think the parents they deal with are just ignorant dopes. I'm all over the place on this. I totally get the "free range" well thought-out and statistically backed arguments given by those white folk in the articles, but if I see a poor minority putting their kids through something similar, my default isn't "oh they're instilling the value of independence in their children" but it's "that's pretty neglectful." So I guess I'm pretty biased there. It's hard to strike that balance of government involvement for the welfare of the child vs. parental rights, and in practice, it's just taking control over poor people and forcing them to raise kids the way each state government decides is best.