Posted on 09/02/2009 5:45:31 AM PDT by GoldStandard
A Gwinnett County man is in custody Wednesday accused of slapping a stranger’s crying toddler in a Stone Mountain Wal-Mart.
Witnesses say that Roger Stephens, 61, warned the mother of the child that he would “shut up the crying child if she couldn’t,” WSB-TV is reporting. Stephens is accused of slapping the 2-year-old multiple times in the face and then walking away.
A bystander held Stephens until store security came to assist, according to the story.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Besides, the mother is the one that needed slapping (no, I'm not advocating that either).
Well I meant that the man could escape the kid and the mother could not, I wasn’t necesarily talking about location.
Before I felt like I needed to hit a stranger’s child, I would remove myself because I am a sane person.
No we’re still in the realm of fact. If you’re in such strung out shape that you just can’t muster up the energy to care why the kid is crying so long as there’s no blood you’re in bad enough shape that you could actually get a ticket for being behind the wheel. I recognize that feces occurs and you can legitimately get stuck doing multiple nights without sleep even without kids in the house, I also recognize that part of being a useful member of society means not letting your issues put others in danger. Anybody in the condition you described should not be driving, ever. And if they had a kid in the car while they were driving in that kind of shape they’re a much worse form of bad parent than just the ones that let their kids cry in stores.
I wouldn’t hit a stranger’s kid. But I wouldn’t inconvenience myself for their problem.
I find you to be as arrogant as most people that do not have children. If you have never “been there” it is arrogant to think that you know “how it should be” as opposed to someone who knows the reality. You keep imagining that you have all the answers, that you know what it’s like to be a parent. I am done with you.
Not sure if you're an experienced parent or not, so I'll just add that most formulas need to be consumed within 2 hours of mixing, or refrigerated for a max of 24 hours before they are no longer viable. That may depend on the type of formula, which can be entirely dictated (and usually is) by what a given child will tolerate. In most cases 2 year old children (or even 1 year olds for that matter) are not drinking formula or any prepared milk type foods, they drink whole milk, which tends to go rancid fairly quickly at room temp.
Obviously stolen can be subjective even when you have ziploc bags - consider that anything can be removed from any package food-wise (at least reasonably sized food items you would give a 2 year old child anyway), so those could indeed be stolen, although it would be much less obvious that they were (the initial outward assumption of most people would be that they were not stolen), so that point is well taken, but not necessarily a panacea to the initial fear.
"When it came time to teach me a lesson mom would just take me home, all plans canceled, time to go. Of course that’s a beyond 2 year old thing, they need a bit more language skill before you can run that chain of association of how we’re not going to do this thing they wanted because they were a pain at some other stop."
That's the option I have as well. Quickly finish shopping and go home if need be. Most often; no matter what, I have to get what I initially went for regardless of how badly my child is behaving. I lay down the law, strap her into the shopping cart, move quickly and try to ignore the crying and finish the task at hand (some people would perceive that as ignoring my child), but I would've already disciplined her and moved on. How are they to know that occurred? Is it my responsibility to them to persuade them that I had already dealt with the situation as best as I could and she has already been punished/disciplined/dealt with? I think that's the crux of the problem - a lot of people make a lot of assumptions based only on what they immediately see. They don't stop to consider that some of the people they perceive as ignoring their children are actually following up on disciplinary action already taken. Sometimes the best way to deal with unruly behavior is by not feeding the behavior with further unwarranted attention (be it positive or negative), especially if the behavior has already been, or attempted to have been corrected (why belabor the point with a child that won't get anything out of further reprimands?).
Sorry for the long-winded reply...
There’s nothing arrogant about it. This isn’t about “being there” or experience. This is about simple reality. You said a parent could be 3 days without sleep and so tired that all they’re interested in when the baby cries is if they’re bleeding. I’m pointing out that a person 3 days without sleep is having micro-naps (falling asleep without warning or ability to prevent it for upwards of 30 seconds), and somebody having micro-naps is unsafe to drive. Period. That’s not imaging answers, that is a simple scientific reality, next time you’re driving count off 30 seconds and think of what would have happened if you’d been asleep during that time. That’s how Herb Brooks died.
“Officer I was in fear for my childs life when this man attacked him/her”
“I want to speak to a lawyer”
“Gramps” has some serious anger issues and one day his luck may run out.
I want to speak to
His looks are not going to gain him any sympathy points.
That is not what I said.
Have a nice day.
When I was such a pain that my mom pulled the plug it was an all stop, leave the cart in the aisle we’re done. I remember going hungry once because there was no food in the house and the explanation from mom was pretty straight forward: grocery store was supposed to happen after where you had your temper tantrum, so there’s no food, too bad. And that was in the days before 24 hour grocery stores, so breakfast had to wait too. With both parents former Marines the boundary lines at home were starkly defined and strictly enforced, I’m tempted to say brutally enforced but that brings up images of spankings and those didn’t happen too often. Which is probably the big source of my impatience with undisciplined behavior in kids in public, so often I see kids doing stuff that would have gotten a world of hurt landed on me and the parent’s just cruising like nothing is happening. Maybe I’m jealous of what they can get away with ;)
Whatever. Once again you made it personal because you wanted to get angry.
Sometimes you just have to sigh and get on with your life.
There wasn’t a single screaming child when I went to the Food Lion for a cabbage ;-).
Cabbage? What ya making?
Well I can’t say that I’ve not felt like doing this a few times to kids that seem to start as soon as their mOthers hit the door and kept it up all the way through the store. I swear some parents just tune their kids out! Though telling the parents that their kidsare driving everyone nuts would probably be much better. I did have one woman scream at me for her kid running into my cart as he was running through the store. I just stood their and laughed at her which seemed to really p*ss her off but then the others standing around started doing the same thing right along with me and that made her stomp away! LOL
This guy needs a new permanent home in a psych hospital. Why do we waste taxpayers’ money on criminal trials for people like this? He’s dangerously mentally unstable, and that’s all we need to know. There were witnesses, physical evidence, and an admission in front of police officers and witnesses. We really need to learn to fast-track cases like this. Instead, he’ll be out on bail almost immediately, with a promise to visit a shrink (unenforceable, and also serving no protective effect for other crying tots), and he’ll be roaming around for months before he gets a trial date. In the meantime, lawyers will be gathering reams of documents, references to prior case law, concocting preposterous defense theories, etc, all at great expense to society.
There’s no law against *wanting* to . . .
Can we send this guy to visit Nancy or Harry?
Yeah but on FR, you can't joke about it. My post was clearly labeled a joke but several people got their panties in a bunch.
NO ONE is defending slapping a 2 year old let alone a stranger's child. It's child abuse and a crime. But, those who piously claim that a squalling kid doesn't annoy them, are nominated for sainthood.
My wife would do that too - pretty sure nobody went hungry though! And they NEVER got to buy any treats at the store. Although there might have been a treat waiting at home if things went well.
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