It was soooooo cold...

[Tobus]

We are getting soft.

Yes, to the point of idiocy.

I saw on the news last night that a woman (in the Dallas area, I believe) is in trouble because she dropped her kids off at school in 30-degree weather and they actually had to stand outside for a couple of hours because school was delayed in opening. They had jackets, but no hats or gloves.

I'm sure it was no fun for the kids, but is this really something the mother should face charges over? That kind of thing was normal when I was a kid.

Another woman on the news is in trouble for leaving her young kids in the car while she went in for a tanning booth appointment. The weather was in the 30s and she was inside the salon for a total of 18 minutes, I believe. Is this really the kind of thing that constitutes child endangerment these days?

[beloitpiper]

Yes, to the point of idiocy.

I saw on the news last night that a woman (in the Dallas area, I believe) is in trouble because she dropped her kids off at school in 30-degree weather and they actually had to stand outside for a couple of hours because school was delayed in opening. They had jackets, but no hats or gloves.

I'm sure it was no fun for the kids, but is this really something the mother should face charges over? That kind of thing was normal when I was a kid.

Another woman on the news is in trouble for leaving her young kids in the car while she went in for a tanning booth appointment. The weather was in the 30s and she was inside the salon for a total of 18 minutes, I believe. Is this really the kind of thing that constitutes child endangerment these days?

Is this really the kind of thing you'd call parenting these days?

[piperdbh]

Alright, here goes...

One of the reasons that school is canceled is because of the "end-of-the-world" weather forecasts that we receive. If snow and ice are prophesied, then school boards want to get the children home safely before the storm hits, which is only right. The trouble is, often the forecasts don't come true. "Better safe than sorry" is the motto for such decisions.
Fear of litigation is another factor involved here. If a school bus were to slide off into a ditch (or something worse), and a litigious parent were to see a little patch of ice on the road nearby, then the school district would be sued, tying up valuable resources in court and settlement charges.
I agree that society is turning children into overprotected hypochondriacs, but when there's a threat to the safety of other people's children, the adults in charge have to make decisions, and the rest of us get to pick those decisions apart.

As far as the story of the woman leaving her children in the car while she went to get a tan, I'm not in favor of leaving children unattended in vehicles. And besides, who gets a tan in the winter?

[auld argonian]

In Chicago, the public schools get a certain dollar amount per student per day of attendance in the form of federal grants. Guess who will never have a snow day even if it snows a bastard and even Sgt. Preston of the Northwest Mounted Police and his brilliant lead dog, Yukon King, couldn't get through?

Best

AA