Posted on 08/27/2010 6:47:35 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen
Five times this summer, Bensalem police have been called to investigate reports that unattended children were sitting in cars outside the Parx Casino while their parents gambled inside.
Sharon Balek, 35, of Philadelphia, is the latest, police said.
Balek was charged Thursday with child endangerment for leaving her 8- and 15-year old daughters in the parking lot on Aug. 1 while she played the slot machines - for six hours
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Does it really matter where parents are leaving their children unattended?
Duke Santos
She’s a good mother! She only gambled because baby needs a new pair of shoes.
Not that I have much sympathy for the gambling mother, but is a 15 year old not old enough to baby sit an 8 year old even in a parking lot?
Child endangerment? Really?
If you don't see that, you've got problems I can't help you with.
Only luck prevented those kids from being killed or worse. The saddest part of this story is yet to come: she'll probably be allowed to keep custody.
So I suppose a 15 year old taking a little brother or sister to the mall is child endangerment too?
I think it is just where they were left that was dangerous. I had babysitting jobs growing up. I kept kids until 2am all the time. Lots of them were babies. This was in the late 60s. I was only 14 and I was told to spank them if necessary. Not the babies of course.
Yes.
It wouldn’t be here, at least during the day. It probably would be some other places.
“for leaving her 8- and 15-year old daughters in the parking lot on Aug. 1 while she played the slot machines - for six hours “
I reject the idea that a 15 year old can’t care for an 8 year old.
People start babysitting at 13 routinely.
Unless the 15 year old is mentally deficient, this is completely bogus.
Leaving a 15 year old with an 8 year old AT HOME isn’t a problem. Leaving them in a car in a parking lot, is.
A parking lot generally has a paucity of facilities for dealing with foreseeable needs of the little one (food, potty, etc.).
“A parking lot generally has a paucity of facilities for dealing with foreseeable needs of the little one (food, potty, etc.).”
The little one is 8. Not knowing the whole story, I’ll reserve judgment, but, I just generally don’t think leaving an 8 year old with a 15 year old is in any way child endangerment.
Unless you left them in a alligator infested swamp or in a burning building or whatever, basically anywhere you couldn’t leave a kid with an adult.
Of course that parking lot could really run the gamut. They could have had blankets and pillows in the car, cheeseburgers, blankets and pillows, gameboys, cell phones, access to a nice toilet, or, they could have been huddled and miserable in a drug infested kind of wasteland.
The circumstances make all the difference.
I wouldn’t want to have a non emancipated teen caring for a preteen for a longer time than a shopping trip in a place where the toilets are all public toilets. At a private home would be a different story.
Exactly right.
If I was someone looking to pick a couple of kids, where would I be trolling?
A. A racetrack parking
B. A mall parking lot
C. A playground at the city park
D. A school just at the end of the day
The racetrack parking lot is probably the safest. Like Dillinger said when he was asked why he robbed banks: because that's where the money is.
Now, as for myself I would probably consider the gambling itself to be more morally questionable and an endangerment to the kids if she was gambling away the family's grocery money, but gambling is still not unlawful in this case.
Do you understand the difference between a mall and a racetrack? The difference between the afternoon and one o’clock in the morning?
Do you understand where perverts will go to pick up kids?
They will go where they are most likely to find them and that is not a racetrack parking lot.
If you think your kids are safe at school or the mall at any time of day, you are sadly mistaken.
Does that make you guilty of child endangerment when you put your kids on the school bus or send them down the street to walk to school?
I don’t think so. Maybe you do.
“in a place where the toilets are all public toilets.”
That would depend, for me. A teen girl with a young girl in a good mall? They can enter the bathroom together. I’d be ok with it.
Or a teen boy with a young boy, obviously.
Different sex is a worse question, you have to let them go in by themselves. My husband took my little girls to the ball game and waited outside. But it is such a busy bathroom, it would be hard to hurt a child in there.
In any event, I wouldn’t go so far as to make the charge of child neglect. That is a heavy duty charge, like leaving three year old home alone or refusing to feed your kids. I don’t think it’s neglect anywhere near those type of problems.
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