There must be something in the water this week.\u00a0 I’ve been reading some interesting posts in the blogosphere.\u00a0 First, was Shannon Stacey’s from October 23rd.\u00a0 She had an “Extra” kid from the neighborhood at her house.\u00a0 When she asked him if he needed to call home or anything, and he said he didn’t, Shannon was pondering how parents could not care about the whereabouts of their child.\u00a0 She related some experiences she’d had where other people’s children didn’t come home and how horrible it was.<\/p>\n
Then, day before yesterday, I was reading Motherhood is Not for Wimps and she’s explaining why there are so few people on her safe list, and I got it.\u00a0 Finally.\u00a0 I’m usually\u00a0 hesitant about parents who refuse to just get a babysitter and go out for the evening.\u00a0 But, as is so often the case, Elizabeth drives her point home.\u00a0 I reflected on her statement, “The greatest risk we parents take isn\u2019t in exposing our children to a gathering of strangers we have told them are not safe.\u00a0 It is in leaving them in the care of adults we have told them to trust.”<\/em><\/p>\n That’s when the little light bulb went on for me.\u00a0 Most kids are molested or harmed by someone known to them.\u00a0 Someone the parent they trust to look out for them has told them is “safe.”\u00a0 Unfortunately, the parent assumed they were safe, probably because they just didn’t “look” like a pedophile or a rapist or a murderer.\u00a0 But seriously?\u00a0 What to “those” people look like?\u00a0 They look like anyone else, because they are<\/em> anyone else.<\/p>\n I’ve chosen not to have children.\u00a0 But I’ve listened to parents discuss their concerns about people they know and have considered (or not considered) leaving their kids with.\u00a0 And, through a strange twist of fate, I’ve recently caught just a hint of what that might be like.\u00a0 You, see, Roxy, a stray cat I recently adopted, had kittens, and I can’t believe how protective I’ve felt for them and their long-term well-being.\u00a0 I’m hesitant to find homes for them, because I don’t want them to find themselves in a bad situation.\u00a0 If that’s the way I feel about four kittens, I can only barely imagine what a responsible parent might feel for their child.\u00a0 I know people do it because they have to somehow.\u00a0 And I also understand some parents can’t afford to do the diligence on the “safe” list like Elizabeth — does that mean they don’t care or they’ve had to make a best they can do choice.\u00a0 I’d suggest most of them have had to take a chance and hope their kids are ok.<\/p>\n Me?\u00a0 I don’t know what I’m going to do about the kittens yet, but hubby seems anxious for me to find them (and Roxy) homes.\u00a0 I think Roxy will be a great cat where there are no other cats in the household.\u00a0 Since we brought her into the house in July, she has relentlessly stalked and attacked Ajax and Natasha.\u00a0 That just isn’t going to work.\u00a0 We’ll have to see how this works out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There must be something in the water this week.\u00a0 I’ve been reading some interesting posts in the blogosphere.\u00a0 First, was Shannon Stacey’s from October 23rd.\u00a0 She had an “Extra” kid from the neighborhood at her house.\u00a0 When she asked him if he needed to call home or anything, and he …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[45,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-not-silly-stuff","category-pets"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2363"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16097,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363\/revisions\/16097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}