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]

Well, hit by a car is a definite possibility, as is attacked by a dog. But stranger kidnappings of toddlers are... not really a thing, and it's not because children aren't left unattended. It's because it's just not a very common crime and never has been.

That being said, accidents happen. If LW's husband is mostly an okay parent but once made this oopsie, it's not necessarily the end of the world... though I understand why LW is in panic mode right now when it just happened.

(The real solution here is a gate on the backyard fence, with a latch the kid can't reach and an alarm if it's opened. Good fences make good parents.)

[melannen]

Okay I'm not a parent but I spend a fair amount of time keeping two-year-olds from running into the street and my response to this is: a two-year-old can get "halfway down the block" in about thirty seconds if they want to (and they usually want to.) If your husband really tuned out the kid entirely for fifteen minutes straight, that's deeply worrying, but being distracted for a minute or two and losing the kid can happen to literally anyone who has a two-year-old they don't keep leashed - it could happen to you! If your husband was sure the kid was right there a second ago, then you should be thankful the neighbor found them so fast, not mad at your husband for parenting a two-year-old.

I feel like the truly concerning bits of this story are:

1. Your husband hasn't spent enough time in charge of the kids to *know* that you can't park a two-year-old in a chair and expect them to sit. This is your second kid! Is that the first time you ever let him watch a two year old alone? Either you aren't letting him dad on his own enough to figure stuff out or he's refusing to learn, those are both problems.

2. 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? If your husband did need to watch the grill more closely for just a minute or two there should have been *somebody* at the family barbecue he could have told "make sure they stay there for me please?" - or somebody already engaged with the kid and chatting - and it sounds like there wasn't. If you're hosting the kinds of parties where everybody except you is excluding the kids from the socializing, you need a paid babysitter.

3. The correct response to this is not "I will never trust the kids with their dad again" unless it's part of a much wider pattern of behavior. There's something very wrong with your marriage.

[movingfinger]

1. Aren't there parenting classes?

2. If Justin has no idea that a 2-year-old is not going to sit in a lawn chair with a popsicle like a dog with a Kong full of frozen peanut butter, the solution is to have him watch the children more, not less, with the proviso that they have to be in front of his eyes at all times and within arm's reach.

[otter]

My kids escaped numerous times from a fenced yard and various other times and places, often in the blink of an eye. And I was vigilant. I get how easily this happens with some kids, and most parents/caregivers are looking for them right away.

But I am still upset at my ex for going to bed with a migraine, pillow over is head and door shut, when he was home alone with them at ages 2, 5 and 7. He left the back door open, they got out and got into things. I could have taken them with me to the meeting, but he offered for them to stay home. He was mad at me for over-reacting since none of them had died.

[katiedid717]

This reminds me of two different incidents, one where I was a witness and one where I was the negligent caretaker.

I worked hospital security and we had a missing child alarm; a man had gotten into a car accident and was in the ER, his wife sent their children (14, 9, and 2) to the cafeteria to have lunch. The 14yo let go of the 2yo's hand to pay and he was GONE - ran down the hall, got into an elevator and hit a bunch of buttons. He was found within 5 minutes but the poor 14yo was a mess.

The other time was when I was 18 and nannying three kids (12, 8, 4) for the summer. The 8yo was at a friend's house and the 12yo was taking a shower; 4yo wanted to play outside but I had to go to the bathroom. I told him to sit on the couch while I went and that we would go outside when I was done. I came out of the bathroom 3 minutes later right as the mother was walking into the house with 4yo in tow, screaming at me for not keeping a better eye on her son (I guess I was supposed to bring him into the bathroom with me...?)

Yes it's a problem that the kid was playing in the street, but it could have happened to LW too. It takes no time for a kid to run off

[magid]

I found it interesting how it was all “my son” until the end of the letter. Does he not parent his kids much? Is he a ‘babysitter’ sometimes, rather than a full-time parent?

[castiron]

When Oldest was two, he ran out of the front yard and halfway down the street without me noticing while I was right there in the front yard doing yardwork and frequently looking up to see what he was doing. Fortunately the across-the-street neighbor saw him go and immediately got my attention, so I was able to catch him before he was out of sight.

So I'm not going to judge someone for losing track of a toddler because of thirty seconds of inattention.

I do judge both Justin and LW for not cluing in that managing a grill isn't compatible with herding a two-year-old. Watching a toddler and watching the grill so the food doesn't burn: pick one.

[liv]

My anecdotal impression is that almost all caregivers lose sight of a toddler at least once. And some kids are just escape artists and will find their way out of a safe situation multiple times. It's terrifying, and with good reason because it genuinely can happen that the absconding kid gets hit by a car or drowns. (They almost never get "kidnapped" though, that's not the situation where child abduction happens.) It doesn't mean the caregivers are negligent.

But the way both LW and Justin are reacting raises red flags for me. It's absolutely understandable to be scared that your 2yo ended up in the street. It's not ok to handle that fear by "never trusting him with our kids again". And Justin definitely needs to do more than a token apology and whining that his wife is being "unfair" over an "honest mistake". If the toddler complained it was unfair when he got in trouble for wandering into the street, that's age-appropriate. But an adult should take responsibility for his actions and should also acknowledge his wife's emotions.

They're not acting like a team. A father doesn't "watch" his own kids. I do agree that parking a 2yo in a chair unattended at a bbq isn't a safe strategy, but it worries me that instead of discussing better approaches, LW has gone straight to, husband can never be trusted with the children again. This is how we end up with a situation where women do basically all the work of parenting, because if a male caregiver makes a small mistake, he isn't allowed to learn and do better next time, he's just cut out of responsibility. Assuming these people live together with the kids, their dad should know that his 2yo isn't going to sit still for several minutes without supervision.

I can't tell if Justin has in fact checked out of parenting from the beginning, and this is just the last straw, or if LW has cut him out of being an equal co-parent because of sexism, or if everything was in fact fine up to now and he's just made a one-off error and she's panicked.

(Rereading this I notice we don't actually know for sure that LW is female. But even if we're talking about two dads here, they still need to be partners to each other rather than one of them taking all the responsibility and the other being cut out.)