I think two twelve-year-olds can easily take care of an 8, 7 and 3 year old. It sounds like the two girls were responsible (trained in babysitting class) and well-instructed by their mother. I don’t see any problem with her tone in the essay, if anything she should be angrier at the Macy’s employees and police officers for treating the kids so shabbily.

I can not even read her article. I keep trying, but I get bored and angry with her lengthy justification. I agree that a 12 year old makes a great babysitter. But not in a public place, and particularly not in a mall (aka 12 year old Mecca).
If she wanted a rest, she should have called a babysitter.
Criminal charges? I kind of like it. She was putting all 5 kids in a compromised situation. Bad things happen in “safe communities” all the time. She wasn’t intentionaly endangering her kids, but should be called out for a pretty big lapse of judgement.
Also? As a former family built-in (and somewhat resentful) babysitter of my 3 younger sibs, I wonder if her 12 year old is somewhat relieved.

Two twelve-year olds taking younger kids to the park for a walk, sure. But to the mall with 3 younger kids? Sounds like recipe for disaster to me. But not a crime. Since when do we need to punish everyone for bad judgment?

Agreed–spectacularly bad idea but not a crime. I babysat regularly at that age–a fact that boggles my mind now–and no one seemed to blink twice then.

Totally not a crime. I think the mall people over-reacted. But what’s really interesting is the whole bit with the county attorney who’s pressing charges. In her report or whatever, she’s all bent out of shape because the accused mom is a college professor and all educated and stuff. She, the prosecuting attorney, said the mom lacked judgment because she had her head in books and derisively (and awkwardly) makes reference to the mom’s “major education.” There’s something bigger going on with the charges, probation, etc. The kids in my crappy neighborhood are always pushing around really, really young kids in strollers all hours of the day and night, going to the park (where a gang member was recently stabbed), etc., etc. They’re just fine. I think this is something that NYC subway mom, the free-range kid mom, should weigh in on. I’d love to know what she thinks.

I was babysitting at age 12 too, and our favorite sitter was 13 when we started having her come by (in a MUCH bigger and far less sleepy town than I grew up in). But as many of you have said, it was in a HOME, not a mall where the environment and who’s around is much less controlled. And watching three other kids is a lot to handle even in their home environment. I am more than 3 times those girls’ age and my two are a lot to handle sometimes!

OK, I read the mother’s article and Judith Warner’s. I have one big issue with the fact that they are stating that this woman was treated unfairly because she was educated and affluent. I would think that a mother who was poor and, let’s be honest, a minority, would have been treated at least as badly. It is true that people with money often “get away” with things that poorer people never would. (I actually do not think this should be treated as a crime. However, imagine the same event with an African-American mother of low-income who had a relatively large number of children, who sent them to the mall instead of watching them herself.)

I can see how being an educated woman vs. an educated man is different. But I can’t believe she thinks she would have been treated better if she was not educated. People that say things like this make me feel like they really have no concept of reality.

Also, this is all from one point-of-view. I would like to hear from the other side. As much as I hate to admit this, educated people in professional jobs often do think that those in academia have no sense of reality. Is this what the attorney meant? (The city attorney, being an attorney after all, was not exactly uneducated.)

Also, the notion that women in academia are lacking common sense is just ludicrous. This reminds me of the public school teacher who railed against the notion that a PhD might be just as able to provide preschool and kindergarten skills to her homeschooled child as a professional. She threw every kind of cliched “ivory tower” invective against me and any other PhD she could. Well, low and behold, a few weeks later a scientific study came out proving that children of highly educated mothers lose out by going to school instead of being with their moms. She didn’t exactly come back to eat crow. Getting a Phd doesn’t mean you cease to live in the real world, you know? It doesn’t mean you suddenly get servants who do your grocery shopping and wait in line at the DMV for you. She trusted her older daughter and her older daughter screwed up. The comments the city attorney made about the mother valuing books more than parenting were just wrong and offensive.

Stupid. Not criminal. Let the state butt out of people’s lives. If her kids got kidnapped or molested, she’d have to live with that. Most likely, they would not have. Reading her piece in Brain Child makes me more sympathetic, I have to say. Reading Judith Warner, I just roll my eyes.

Would it be OK if the same mom dropped off just the 8,7 and 3 year old at the mall without the two 12 year olds? I think most people would say “no”. But the two 12 year olds left the 8,7 and 3 year olds alone! Any way you slice it, an 8,7 and 3 year old were left alone in a mall! “but my girl is responsible!!!” Evidentally not so much. So who should be responsible? yep, the mom. many people here claim that a 12 year old babysitter is ok so why isn’t it ok here… but I say what if you hire a 12 year old babysitter to come to your house and watch your 8,7, and 3 year old and she just leaves them alone? who should be responsible? i say the mom who hired the sitter. so, absolutely it is a crime. She even plea bargained when she realized that she would lose the case with a jury of her peers. So, the cops thought it was a crime, the judge thought it was a crime and her mock jury thought it was a crime. The judicial system interprets the law. In this case it was interpreted and the mom was on the wrong side. Remember this is Bozeman, MT. The laws there are different than where you live. The question is: did she “knowingly endanger the child’s welfare by violating a duty of care, protection, or support.”
I think she obviously did.

I used to babysit several kids at once at 12. My mom let my 8 year old sister and I take our one year old baby sister to the store several blocks away when I was about 10 years old. We watched her often. I just dont see anything wrong with sending two teens and a few kids to a suburban mall alone for a couple of hours. It is not as if they walked along a busy highway.

Where I live, I wouldn’t send my 12 year old alone to a mall or with a friend WITHOUT the responsibility of watching younger ones. I don’t know what the climate is like in Bozeman. Apparently, this woman doesn’t either. She sounds pretty stupid to me, though I do feel a little sympathetic after reading her article. She just doesn’t seem very in touch with the community in which she lives.

Laure68 thanks for your response. I can see what you mean about the dangers of phrases like “real world experience”. (I also can use this as an excuse to correct “low” to “lo,” heh). In the homeschooling case (it’s a very popular “bad parent” article on this site), I don’t know if the woman was against homeschooling in general, but she was really, really angry at the suggestion that someone with a PhD might be able to home school their child. It really was all about some kind of hatred of people with higher degrees.

And to sheelanagig, she may come off “haughty” in her brainchild article (though I don’t agree) but importantly she had NEVER exchanged a word with the attorney before the attorney started accusing her of being more interested in books than her children. This was baggage the attorney was bringing in.

There’s a long tradition of town vs. gown, that is, small towns hating and resenting the universities located in their cities: both for the “uppity” professors and for the chaos undergrads bring with them.

So if the mom is not responsible for the neglect of the the 3 younger children left alone, then is it okay to prosecute the 12 year old for child neglect for leaving her siblings alone? 12 is old enough to babysit, but does she become legally responsible for them? My mom is big on the idea of teens (and even preteens) babysitting, but she’s not okay with them doing so at a mall. She (and I) agree that it is too distracting an environment, especially when a young friend to hang with and impress is thrown in. Also, I’m sure if the 3 year old had been accidentally injured the 12 year old would not have been found responsible, the mall would have. If that is true, then the 12 year old isn’t the babysitter, the mall is…and malls don’t generally advertise “Drop your kids off! All our employees babysit for FREE!”

Question: So if the mom is not responsible for the neglect of the the 3 younger children left alone, then is it okay to prosecute the 12 year old for child neglect for leaving her siblings alone?

Answer: Here’s a novel idea: how about nobody gets prosecuted? Twelve year olds can and do watch younger kids, even, amazingly, in public places, with stores and boys and other distractions all around. It’s not necessarily stupid, or bad judgement to allow it. The thing about adolescents is that the only way for them to grow up and become responsible and independent is to, gulp, give them responsibilities and independence. It would be very bad judgement to let two 12 year olds who’d never had ANY experience with younger children babysit. But these two girls DID have experience and even had a babysitting course under their belts. Yes, they did make a mistake, but that is how kids learn. As parents, we have to begin to let the string out with our kids and the only way to do it is to try. Mom was a few minutes away by phone and they were in a relatively safe place as evidenced by the presence of security and the fact that they called the mom. No harm done, imo, but a lesson learned for everyone.