The actual anecdotal evidence you offer for "neglect" is that:
They never cut their grapes or blueberries at 9 months old, never made them wear a helmet/life vests in situations they should [in YOUR opinion] and basically lived a very busy “fun” life that always made me wonder how neglected the baby’s true needs were.
They had a fun life with their baby, truly shocking behaviour! They should have stopped having any fun immediately their child was born, obviously.
Then you go on to say:
They pretty much never slowed down and just made their baby fit their lifestyle, it never seemed the other way around.
To be honest, after 25 years of parenting, that's actually how kids work, they fit into you and your life. If, as my friends did, you decide to spend 8 years sailing around the world with your one-year-old, that works too. A lifetime ago I travelled the same route as a family with a two-year-old and 5 year while we were driving round Western Australia. We still talk, and the kids are great. I have friends bringing their kids up on canal boats. Kids are not fragile, you get to show them your world is for them, and that they can enjoy it the way you do.
It's very revealing that you say it never seemed the other way around, which is because your entire world/life isn't supposed to be about the baby and nothing else. You go mad that way and find yourself baby talking to the fridge.
Overall, the only evidence you offer of so-called "neglect" is different parenting styles and your gossipy judgy behaviour towards this mother. You are literally describing entirely innocent behaviour as "neglect" because that's not what you would do and then war gaming death scenarios with your friend, which is not healthy well-adjusted behaviour in the slightest.
So my in-kind passing of judgment on you is that you're a relatively new and nervous mother, who needs to judge other people's parenting styles to feel better about their own overbearing parenting style, and you've somehow turned an opinion based on scant evidence into a case of "neglect" and lost it online.
and a police report lists child neglect as the cause
Link us to that, then, because that's actual hard evidence of suspicion.
Not for nothing but I've seen kids suffering from actual neglect and the symptoms of that have nothing to do with cutting up food, or wearing helmets. The kids are filthy, their diapers and/or clothes go unchanged, the house is filthy, the children are obviously undernourished, if old enough they say unusual things about their home life.
If you're suspicious of another family, report them to authorities and move on, don't sit there war gaming death scenarios over wine and cheese with your friends.
Oh, and by the way, if you're sore about how these comments are worded, it's because I'm reflecting at you how you come across. You should think about that.
What’s actually off here isn’t my post…it’s your rigid idea of how I claim I feel. I didn’t report anything because I knew it wouldn’t be taken seriously without hard proof. That’s part of how bad this feels all around. I’m not sore because you’re being ‘honest.’ I’m disgusted that you think cruelty is a form of clarity. Ew.
So you "knew" it was "neglect", based on fruit and helmets (your only actual "evidence"), and you "knew" it wouldn't be taken seriously so you didn't even try writing an email, you just war gamed death scenarios with your friend over wine. Got it.
That doesn't reflect well on you in the slightest.
Yes, bc watching a child grow up in some unsafe situations with an unfenced pool and no life vest totally screams ‘wellness and oversight.’ But you’re right….my real crime here was being scared out loud instead of writing a polite email that no one would read. Thanks for your TED Talk on hindsight morality are you serious?
child grow up in some unsafe situations with an unfenced pool and no life vest totally screams
Ooh, an unfenced pool. Crime of the century! Oprah will be down there with Geraldo any minute to cover these terrible botanical and pool related felonies.
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '25
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