Received Wednesday, August 13, 2008.
Today at 11:30 AM, I was horrified to see a little boy (about three or four years old) on a scooter go right into Prospect Park West and 7th Street and cross the street. I screamed. Following about 15 feet behind was the nanny-an elderly woman with another child in a stroller. She says "I told him to go ahead the light was green." I was shocked. I said "I am glad you are not taking care of my kid." I said "What if a driver were on a cell phone or ran the light?" I didn't add that the child would be dead. She said "I wouldn't watch your kid".
If this description fits your nanny in Park Slope you need to get rid of her fast. She was angry and nasty. I should have taken her picture.
Wednesday
Prospect Park West and 7th Street - Park Slope
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27 comments:
Do you have a better description of the nanny, besides elderly? Tall, short, thin, overweight, grey hair? Thanks!
That is really scary! I can't think of any parent or caregiver that would let a 3 or 4 year old cross the street on his/her own. And on a scooter?!? That nanny is lucky the boy didn't get hit by a car. Hopefully it won’t take a tragedy like that for the nanny to learn a lesson.
She was an elderly gray haired (African American or Caribbean) woman, thin, with glasses.
You are angry because a child, whose age you assume, crossed at the light. I live around there and I have seen children, cross at the light.
I dunno where this place is, but I never let kids cross alone.
They are harder for cars to see... they are smaller than adults and even adults get hit, at crosswalks, when the light is green for them.
It's just common sense safety.
Angel, you don't understand. Prospect Park West is a very busy street with cars constantly whipping around and making crazy turns and it is extremely unwise to let a small, young child go darting out there without an adult accompanying him, regardless of whether they have the light or not. I worked at a preschool and we would ALWAYS wait until we had the light and have a teacher stand in the middle of the street while the other teachers walked alongside the kids when they crossed. Learning street safety is really important, and it doesn't sound like the kid was old enough to know to look both ways or anything like that, and a driver might not have been able to see him. OP's sighting was totally, completely, 100% valid and worthy of concern.
Oops, sorry Angel, I missed the part in your comment where you said you lived nearby so you obviously do know PPW, but I really do think OP was perfectly capable of judging whether or not the kid was too young to cross the street alone.
Are you just jealous that you can't afford a nanny?
I work in Park Slope and I would never let any child under the age of at least 10 cross the street by themselves. Even then I would try my darndest to be crossing right next to them, because that IS my job, hello? The nanny in question was dead wrong (pun intended)! You should have taken a picture OP.
I don't care where you live, you should never let a child cross the street alone. It doesn't matter how old the kids are, accidents happen. Even today I was walking in my neighborhood and a truck that was speeding out of a parking lot almost hit me!
Hello, this is the original reporter. The nanny was no where near the corner when the kid sped across, she was still down the block, had not even reached the building line, nevertheless the curb. All I saw as I was walking was a little little kid speeding across the street. While we had our heated conversation, the boy was all alone on the parkside, she was so angry with me that she totally ignored him.
well, if she was 15 feet behind, then she was crossng with him. and if she was behind him she was watching him too.
come on, imagine the room you are sitting in. it is probably longer than 15 feet.
i know why she was nasty with you. i can't say i blame her.
Yeah she was watching him. And its just dumb luck she didn't watch him get run over by a car! Preschoolers don't belong in the street if they are farther than arm's length away from a competent adult. Period. Personally, I held my kids hands in parking lots and while crossing the street 100% of the time. Little kids sometimes dart off in unexpected directions.
I wouldn't watch your kid either. You SCREAMED while a kid old enough to competently control a scooter was crossing the street WITH the light? And you get rude and officious with a woman with a baby in a stroller? I have a five year old who is kind of a slow mover, so I always make sure we are together when we cross, but there is no point in teaching physically adept kids to be unduly dependent and fearful.
so you said this lady was elderly? well back in the day, and granted i'm only 20, but when i was little I was allowed all over the place, as my friends were. I don't remember adults looming all over the place. So in this case, maybe the lady had the mind set that this world is still the safe place it once was, however it does seem slightly risky.
I would be offended to if some stranger came up to me and told me off. But at the same time, its too risky to do that with someone elses children.
how do we know this lady wasnt grandma?
Lizzie, doesnt matter if its grandma, nanny, mom , whoever . Point is whoever was responsible for the child and was not very good at it!!
I can't believe anybody is defending this irresponsible behavior.
mom,
I don't know if you remember my telling you but I volunteer on the weekends and one time two of the children's parents asked me to drive them home since they couldn't make it to pick them up. When we were crossing the street to get to my car (it's in a busy city) I made them hold my hands! They were pissed, being 9 and 10 year old girls but I didn't care! I still made them! (they cheered up when I bought them donuts on the way home.)
You cannot be too careful crossing the street with children, I don't care how old they are!
Umass, I do remember you writing about taking the kids home. Good for you for sticking to your guns with the girls. Kids are always embarrassed about everything at that age.
Call me crazy, but "probably ok" is not an acceptable standard when dealing with children...because it leaves too much room for the potential of a very tragic, "Oops, but maybe not."
I just never considered my kids as "expendable." Odd, huh?
mom, I am with you. When my son was 8 he asked if I could please stop holding his hand when we crossed the crosswalk at school? He said "he was too big for that now".
Sure, I understood. I just made sure to always be on the side nearest to the cars.Then about 3 months later, we were at the Las Vegas airport, getting ready to cross at the crosswalk and go into the terminal. My son reached over and grabbed my hand. After we crossed, I said, "I thought you were to big for that now." He said"yeah, I am, but mom these guys drive like maniacs"
Kids need guidance and just because they know the rules does not mean you should not be there to protect them from some of the idiot drivers in this world who don't.
Not to mention drunk drivers,preoccupied drivers or drivers in lifted cars/trucks that cannot see the crosswalk clearly.
Hey Butt Looks Big! Long time no see! I'm glad you're back.
Isn't it sweet how sometimes the kids balk at the rules because they want to be "big," but then when they are feeling small and vulnerable sometimes you will find they want the security of some of those rituals to make them feel safe again. That seems to be especially true with boys. I think boys are pushed socially to act more grown up sooner than they are ready for it. Make me sad.
Hey BLB, been missing you! :)
Usually about 7-8 y.o. is when kids are just learning that they would rather die than hold moms hand. But if its any kind of intersection with cars zooming by, they'll just have to get over it, because they're going to hold my hand, too!
Hi mom,Hi cfg..sorry,I don't stay up as late as you guys or else I would have acknowledged your hello's.Back at ya!
OP,something I did not mention earlier. Right here in our residential area parents/nannies,while out for walks or bike rides,constantly let their kids cross the at street corners just as you described.(while mom & dad or nanny are a few driveways behind)The problem with that is we have some teens in our neighborhood that drive really crazy, as well as their friends that come to pick them up or drop them off. We have seen so many close calls at the corner stop sign on our street.The street that leads to that stop sign is only a quarter of a block long, so by the time a car comes around the corner, mom&dad can yell all they want but their kid is already out in the street and here comes a car barreling toward the stop sign with loud music and 5 kids piled in it not paying attention.The driver has every intention of stopping but usually ends up half way into the turn before stopped.
Parents/nannies should always be ready for the unexpected when near any street with children. Being back a few driveways or 15 feet is just not close enough if a car hops a curb or runs a light or stop sign!
I, and my friend, were hit by a car while crossing directly in front of our elementary school when I was a child. (Not seriously...only scrapes and bruises.)
A little two year old girl in our neighborhood, a couple years later, was hit by a car while crossing at an intersection...and her two teenage babysitters claimed to each be holding her by one of her hands when it happened. (never could reconcile in my mind how that actually happened....where she was demolished and they were completely unhurt whatsoever.) She was dragged on the asphalt and half her face was ground off. You could see by the intact half of her face that she had been a a beautiful little girl...but the other side of her face I doubt will ever resemble a human face again.
In 7th grade, the boy who sat next to me in math was killed by a car while walking home from school one afternoon. Here one day, gone the next.
My cousin, age five, was hit by a car while crossing a street in her residential neighborhood...and thrown 20 feet in the air. She survived, but at age 40+ still suffers the effects.
I turned my back on my 18 month old for literally 30 seconds in my own front yard, in a quite residential neighborhood. When I turned back around he was in the street, with two cars coming directly at him from opposite directions. Thank God they either saw him or heard my screaming, because both stopped just short of hitting him.
One day my three year old took off running across the grass at our park...toward a busy road. When he kept running after I called him to stop, my friend and I took off running as fast as we could and she caught up to him before I did...just short of the street. When I asked him WHAT he thought he was doing, he replied that he was "Going to push some cars like the Ninja Turtles do." OMG!
Kids and streets don't mix!!!! period.
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