Reply To: Watching Children Carefully

Aries, while your idea makes sense, you would be surprised at how many grandparents are super-indulgent with their aineklach. In fact, on my block, it is b’davka the fault of the VERY nice grandmother, that her kids have such a loosey-goosey attitude towards child care. When we moved onto our block and we were all young parents, I saw her kids in the street and she mentioned how she had “moved here from a more rural neighborhood where kids could safely play in the street at all hours (little or no traffic), so this was a real change, but old habits die hard.” This is the same parent whose 18 month old child we found wandering two blocks away from her house, one sukkos and no one at the house even realized the child was gone. She is no different as a grandmother, and has imparted her parenting style to her kids, whose children in turn are ALL over the place, crossing the street at age two, teetering at the top of a steep staircase on a riding toy, at about age 3, etc. etc. I strongly beleive in Lo saamod al dam reiyecha, but where do we draw the line. I would not want a child’s injury (or worse, chalilah) on my conscience.