Care & Feeding: Wandering Toddler

[minoanmiss]

I Left My 2-Year-Old Alone With My Husband for 15 Minutes. The Aftermath Might Haunt My Marriage Forever.



Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband “Justin” and I have a 4-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son. Last weekend, my husband did something so negligent I’m not sure if I can ever trust him with our kids again.

The weather was finally nice in our area and we were hosting a barbecue in our backyard with about a dozen friends and family members over. At one point, my daughter spilled an entire bowl of chili on herself. I left Justin to watch my son while I took her inside to get cleaned up. About 15 minutes later, I had gotten my daughter’s clothes changed and we were about to return to the backyard when the doorbell rang. I opened up to find a neighbor holding our son. He handed him to me and said he was driving home when he spotted my son wandering around in the street halfway down the block from my house.

Justin’s excuse was that he had given my son a popsicle to eat to keep him busy and left him sitting on one of our lawn chairs while he kept an eye on the grill. I told him that if he wasn’t able to watch him, he should have said so and I would have asked someone else to do it. Even though my husband apologized, I no longer feel comfortable having him watch our kids. Until our kids are several years older, I plan on taking them with me when I need to go somewhere rather than have him watch them. If I am not able to do that, I’m going to send them to my parents’ or have one or both of them come over. Justin says it was an honest mistake on his part and I’m being unfair. I don’t think I am. Our son could have been hit by a car, kidnapped, attacked by a dog, or God knows what else. Right?

—No More Chances

Dear No More Chances,

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That must’ve been absolutely heart-stopping. The image of your toddler wandering down the street is terrifying. I’m so relieved your neighbor found him and returned him safely. So many things could have gone wrong! Alhamdulillah, nothing did. I’m honestly shaken just reading about it.

Let me be as clear as possible: What happened was scary, preventable, and totally irresponsible. Your husband made a potentially dangerous mistake. Parking a 2-year-old in a lawn chair and expecting they’d stay put? Come on.

That said, throwing your husband into exile might not be the answer here. Instead of asking whether you can ever trust him again, ask whether this behavior reflects who he is, overall, as a parent. Does he usually keep the kids safe? Is he engaged? Does he understand that parenting can’t be paused? If the answers are yes, then I’d bet this shook him too. Unless this is part of a larger pattern of inattentiveness or dangerous carelessness, I’d argue that this incident, as awful as it was, is a wake-up call.

You’re not wrong to feel like your trust was broken. He absolutely should’ve said no if he couldn’t fully watch Jacob. But I’d also bet he said yes because he wanted to help, not because he didn’t care. That’s not an excuse—it’s just a starting point for a real conversation.

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So have that conversation. Sit down and calmly establish some non-negotiables for when either of you is on solo kid duty. Make a plan for chaotic moments like what to do if one kid spills chili on themselves. Be honest about your limits. If you’re juggling too much, say so. And make it clear that this isn’t about blame or punishment. It’s about keeping your kids safe and making sure neither of you ever has to live through that kind of fear again.

Parenting requires vigilance, yes, but it also requires growth. Give him the opportunity to grow from this. He won’t forget this moment. Neither will you. Thankfully, your child is safe. As terrifying wake-up calls go, this one came without lifelong scars or consequences. That’s a gift. Use it.

Comments

[conuly]

Nobody else at the party noticed the kid leave either. Especially if *nobody* can give you a straight answer about how long the kid was missing. Again, this is a two-year-old, they're escape artists, and it was your husband's responsibility. But you seem to have had a fairly large group of adult family members and friends hanging out around the grill - was literally everybody completely tuning out the existence of the kids?

That's the least surprising part of all this. In my experience, the more adults there are, the more likely there is to be a little mishap. Even in a setting where every adult is in theory watching their own child, somehow more adults = fewer eyes.

[melannen]

Maybe it's because of the families I grew up in, but every family party there were always people from multiple families who had at least half an eye on all the kids at all times. If only because part of the reason they're at the party is to see the kids! They're not going to catch it immediately if a little one runs off maybe, but they'll notice if one disappears for fifteen minutes. (And again - even if not, Husband should have been able to say to Auntie or Grandpa "hey can you keep an eye on *kid* while I'm at the grill for a couple minutes?" and trust them to do that.)

If LW's family are the only ones that have kids, I can see this just not being on their radar - but again if the only kids are the host's kids and it's a grown-up party (or even if there's multiple families of kids but it's a grown-up party where the kids aren't going to be participating), we always had a designated babysitter. And you could definitely tell the difference in vibe between "family-oriented get-together" and "grown-up party".

"Sit in that chair with a popsicle for fifteen minutes" doesn't happen at family-oriented ones to start with, if you're a good host you wouldn't let any other party goer be alone in a chair with nobody talking to them either! That only happens if the kid's not really a part of the party.

Like, it's a two-year-old, this could happen even at a party where the kids were the focus of everyone's attention. But I got a distinct vibe that this was a party where the kids were being actively excluded from the action. A grown-up party is like needing a sitter when you're WFH.

[katiedid717]

In my family, everyone keeps a casual eye on the kids in general BUT a parent with a child 3 or younger will make sure someone specific is watching their kid (with verbal confirmation) before leaving the room.

[melannen]

Oh yeah, you need both especially with the younger ones! But this felt distinctly like a party where everyone is *not* keeping a casual eye on the kids generally.

[dissectionist]

Yep. Everyone wants to take a break from their kids and everyone assumes someone else is watching the kids, and it ends up that nobody is. This is precisely why parties with backyard pools are so dangerous; it only takes a second for a child to end up in the pool and often the adults don’t notice for awhile.

(We could easily have had one of those tragedies ourselves. My husband was with our kids at a wedding that had a pool nearby, and he was the only one that noticed our small child suddenly dart in the direction of the pool, away from the other kids he was playing with. My kid walked onto the surface of the deep end as if he thought he was Jesus, and disappeared straight down without a sound within a couple seconds. None of the other fifty-odd people there happened to be looking or noticed. My husband jumped in the pool, yanked our kid out, and all was fine other than our kid gagging up some water. But if not for my husband’s attention and random chance - my husband didn’t happen to glance away at that second while talking to someone or distracted by something else - it could easily have been a tragedy.

And there was another time at a pool party in my own backyard when I was the only one who recognized, out of all the other adults there, that a child was in trouble in the pool. Thank goodness I chose to get lifeguard training when we had a backyard pool installed, because I was able to recognize that that was a kid desperately flailing to stay above water, not a child splashing and having fun. And thank goodness I’m a bulldog about keeping my eyes on everyone in the pool any time it’s in use. Too many parents just assume their kids will be fine in a backyard pool. I threw the kid a preserver, pulled him out, and all was well. But had I not noticed, he would eventually have sunk and then drowned, unable to call for help because when you’re fighting for breath you don’t have the ability to call out.)

PSA: If people don’t know how to recognize the signs of someone in trouble in the water, there are a lot of good Youtube videos. It isn’t how it looks in the movies, where people are screaming for help.

[conuly]

When the kids were little I took that religiously into account when hanging out with people at the children's museum or wherever and counted all the children over and over again to keep track of them - consequently, all their playdate buddies were misplaced by their parents at least once, but the only time it happened to me was when the kid was exactly where I thought they were, I just couldn't see them.

(I continued counting the kids whenever we went on outings until they were in their early teens. Because children are terrible, they and their friends used to relentlessly shout random numbers at me, but hey, at least I never lost one!)

[mrissa]

I was so trained to do this that I do it with adult friends. I don't yell numbers, but I always count the group multiple times on the outing.

[joyeuce]

My mother led a pilgrimage of just over 40 people (including OH and me) a few years ago. She numbered us all at the beginning and had us shout out our numbers in order every time we got on the coach. We mocked our Glorious Leader like crazy, of course, but it worked.