Craziness

I’m wonder if yesterday’s post made it sound like I hate children, which actually couldn’t be further from the truth. I like kids, and kids really like me. I’m the Baby Whisperer. You give me a fussy kid and me holding them generally quiets them down pretty quickly (note: this only works on babies who don’t know me very well – I guess my charm is in my newness). I just try not to be all, “Won’t somebody think about the children??” when it comes to a everything. I think that sometimes people give up too much in the name of protecting children, to nobody’s benefit.

Unless, of course, protecting children is exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. In which case, you’d better earn your keep. I just read the most horrific story about Our Little Rugratz, a daycare center in Jersey City that left behind a two-year-old after a field trip to New York City. Are you kidding me? My 19-year-old cousin was in Manhattan on Saturday and wouldn’t even let me leave him in Chinatown, where he was supposed to meet up with his friends.

How is it possible that people in charge of multiple children didn’t count obsessively to see if they had everybody? Kids wander off all the time, so if they’d known that they were missing one child, that would have been more understandable. But they didn’t. They left Emily Grogan in New York, and didn’t realize it until several hours had passed. Oh. My. God. And the first indication that parents Amy and Joseph Grogan had that something was wrong was when Amy went to pick up Emily. I’m so sorry that her parents had to go through that, and completely understand why the Grogans have pressed charges against Iris and Luis Pietri, the owners of the daycare center.