By Sarah Police
Staff Writer

I remember a time when I was about 7 or 8 years old and I was angry with my parents for not letting me ride my bike to school. We only lived a couple of blocks from my elementary school and I never understood why I couldn’t just grab my hot pink girl power bike and go.

Ten years later, I now understand why. When you’re as young as I was, everything is hearts and rainbows; you don’t see what the world is really like. My parents were only trying to save me from becoming the next child on the milk carton.

As I listening to the news one night, I realized that the majority of the bad news was about children. Some stories are tragic car accidents while others are ridiculous scenarios that you can’t help but wonder how it happened.

One particular story about a toddler who drowned in the washing machine caught my eye. It got me thinking; I wondered if the parent just didn’t look inside before they turned it on or if they had no clue where their child was. This story sparked my thinking gears into wondering how this possibly happened, and then I realized situations like this might not be as rare as I thought.

Some parents may not realize that not paying attention to a child can be just as dangerous as letting them cross the street alone. Parents need to focus less on other things like work and more on their children. I’m not looking down on anyone; I speak from experience, and I understand how easy it is to just leave for a second and come back to something bad that has happened to the child.

Based off my experience with my friends’ parents there are two types of parents, the ones who are overbearing and the ones that don’t have a clue as to what their child is doing.

I am unable to comprehend how a parent just turns the other way when they see their child doing something wrong. How does a parent not notice the smell of alcohol when their teenager comes home? How does a parent let a 6-year-old child walk home from school by themselves?

I have never been able to understand the parents who just don’t seem to care about their child’s whereabouts. Parents have brought a child into the world and then cared for the child for years, putting in time and money to have what happen? The child getting hit by a car because someone wasn’t watching them? It just seems pointless.

Some might say they are worried their child will resent them for being overbearing. Truth is, they probably will, but as a parent it is your job to find the right balance of being protective of your child.

Children are irrational and until they have learned from experience that crawling into a washing machine or getting into a car with a stranger is bad, they will be curious. It is the job of the parent to guide the child; the job doesn’t just stop when the parent leaves the house.

I am not suggesting that these parents are bad people or should be publicly humiliated. Nor am I telling parents they don’t know how to do their job. I am simply suggesting parents need to keep a better eye on their children, because let’s face it, most parents are micromanagers. Life is busy and sometimes fitting a child into the mix can be hard, but it has to happen to ensure the well being of the child.

There needs to be a program that informs parents what it is OK or not OK to do. There is a distinct difference between an unsupervised child playing outside in the street and an adult watching the child, making sure they are OK.

It may seem tedious and ridiculous to have a constant eye on the child but there needs to be sacrifices to ensure child safety. The most important thing should be child safety, no matter what.