i know, i know, please don't beat me up. i KNOW. and this is why. but it's just me, i'm all alone, and i cannot stay in my house all day long.
my heart is breaking.
EDIT: when i wrote the above, what i meant about me was leaving my children in the car. i never leave them in the house alone. and i don't want to leave any of them in the car, but quite often i just can't bring myself to wake up a sleeping child, especially a baby. i am quite content waiting in the car, especially if i have a book or my cross stitch, and even if i don't, we do have a tv in the car. but if hiro is awake, he does not want to sit there, even if he has a DVD to watch. and i just can't wake a baby. please be assured that i don't leave them willy nilly, and never for a long time. but even five minutes can make a difference. i know that. but sometimes i really have no choice.
and i *wish* i lived in the us. because then i would have child care choices. i have none here. it sucks. and it's not just grocery shopping, we could have things delivered. it's me keeping my sanity, getting out of the house. but i would never ever leave any of them in the house alone, not at this age. i do feel very sad over the deaths of two small children. but, i can almost (but really, the convenience store? for an hour?) understand.
Kaigenji Temple 78 Kyushu pilgrimage
11 hours ago
8 comments:
are you kidding me? seriously.. are you kidding me? first you admit you leave them alone in a car, now you admit you leave them alone in the house. Good thing you don't live here in the usa because that is illegal.
if you want to leave them alone you need to get a babysitter. period
sorry to be so honest but man....
no no sweetie, i never never ever leave my kids at home. seriously. i was talking about leaving them in the car. but i would never leave babies alone at home.
and there are no babysitters here. which would help explain why this tragedy happened.
I wish I lived closer I love baby sitting! ;(
Its too bad they don't have more of it in this country, I'm sure a lot of high school girls etc would love baby sitting way more than working at a conbini or something.
I salute you for having 3 small kids and not going crazy!
Wow, I get what you mean. In the olden days when my MIL was a young mom, she and many women of her generation did just that! Otherwise, they would never be able to go shopping. I know her husband NEVER helped her with the shopping even though he could drive and he had a car. Otherwise, how could she put an infant and a 2 year old on a bike and still be able to carry a load of groceries. Now, with delivery services and more sensible husbands, life is easier for us, and I am thankful for that.
As for the car, I do leave my baby in the car just to run into the bank or into a convenience store, but only if she is sleeping. And, I do leave the car running and the doors locked, so the air conditioner or heater is on. Here, they do not have drive up ATMs, drive up fast food, drive up coffee, etc., so why wake a sleeping baby if you just run in for 2 minutes. Now, if I am going into a store where I would not have full view of the car and/or it would take longer than a few minutes, I will wait until she wakes up and then go into the store. And, of course, if she is already awake, I would just bring her with me or put off what I was planning to do until a more convenient time.
I have considered asking some of high school students to babysit for me, and I am sure they would love it, but actually, that is not the problem. The problem is that my husband does not want strangers in our house, esp if I am not home. And, he also doesn't want strangers watching our child. This is why there are not babysitters here.
ohhh ok.. whew I was actually upset, and had images of them getting into stuff and I had a hard time writing that comment but I was so saddened.. but happy now!!
Isn't there anywhere you could go for someone to babysit for a day a week or something?? I mean three has to be very hard!!!!
I know you know how I feel. Having been injured in an accident when I was left in the car as a child, I will never be able to tell you that I agree with your choice to leave your kids in the car. But I do understand why you might choose that, and even if I don't get it, I still love you and your kids.
As horrifyingly shocking as it is to North Americans and foreigners here in Japan, leaving sleeping children alone at home for a brief period while you run out is totally acceptable in this country. I am not saying I agree with it, or feel comfortable with the idea of leaving my own children home alone sleeping, but I totally understand why it happens. Unless someone has lived in this country and tried to take care of children here and can truly understand first hand what it is like, I think everyone needs to be less judgemental. Yes, accidents happen, but despite the laws and rules in American things happen to children there too. And many things that parents in America (and other places too) do with their children the Japanese find equally horrible.
I have to leave one of my children at a drop in day care center for about 10 hours later this month. It will cost me about $150 US. To have a sitter come to my house for that time would be about $200. I feel lucky that my family is the situation financially to do this. For many families baby sitters, even if you are lucky enough to fing them are not an option.
I remember leaving my (sleeping) newborn -- who could not yet even roll over -- to dash to the convenience store to buy something. The store was literally 10 steps from our door.
A friend in America called while I was out, and I called her back right away and told her where I'd been -- and she was SHOCKED and HORRIFIED.
So I asked her, "When your baby is asleep, do you wake him up to walk to the mailbox to get the mail? (She lives in a suburban house, with a long driveway.)
She said, "That's different -- I never leave our property."
I asked, "Why is it different? Your mailbox is farther from your front door than the convenience store is from ours -- and you could slip on the ice and break your neck and no one would find you for hours, but if something happened to me, the whole neighborhood knows I have a baby and would check to make sure he's ok."
Different. It's all just different.
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