Whatever happened to people watching their children? Next thing you know, it will be impossible to buy homeowners insurance if you have a child for whom you may buy a kiddie pool!!!
You are right on!!!!
I have to buy a fence cause I buy a pool for my children and other children I allow in the poool!?! No thank you. Personal responsibility is a good thing and parents are responsible for their own children.
So if I build a fence around my pool and a kid climbs over the fence and drowns in my pool who is to blame? Me…the fence should have been higher, more secure, as a matter of fact I should have provided a safer environment by hiring round the clock life guards. Any other suggestions…Wait a minute how about children obeying authority and respecting my wishes to not enter on to MY property without my permision!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any child that is cabable of drowning in a 24 inch deep, kiddie pool should not be left unsupervised, especially outdoors. All the statics on drownings in kiddie pools are probably stupid parents that left their child unattended.
While I do not like the idea of being told I have to put up a fence (I live in a subdivision that does not allow any old kind of fence) it is neighboring children that I am afraid for, not my own. My children do not understand why I will not buy a \’kiddie pool\’ for them…it is because other people may not be as diligent in watching their children as I am watching mine.
I wonder how I ever made it through a childhood of kiddie pools, going to the pool without my \”Mommie\”, playing on concrete at the playgrounds, playing outside until dark, riding my bike without a helmet, getting hurt (and not suing anybody), etc., etc.
I grew up in a time when you could actually enjoy your childhood. I pity children growing up today.
In our ever politically correct world we must have a rule about everything. Now when I was a kid it was a parents responsiblility to keep an eye on their 5 year old child. Why are 5 year olds rooming the neighborhood by themselves? Maybe that is a better rule to have. Don\’t let 5 year olds out by themself. No instead let\’s make everyone pay to put up a fence to keep them out. Doesn\’t really matter because when the 5 year old\’s 10 year old brother helps them over the fence you\’re in trouble anyway. So why not make a law that now you need an armed guard at the pool at all times. After all no one is ever responsible for themselves or their children. It\’s everyone elses job to make sure thier kids are safe.
Melanie, I agree completely with you. However, the reality is that when the 5 year old kid or younger drowns in the kiddie pool in my yard, I (my insurer) will have to pay. Like Grr, it is a wonder that I survived to adulthood!
Sam,
What is amazing to me is that in my state RI, there is not age restriction for leaving your child home alone. I found that out when I took my daughter to a \”home alone\” seminar put on by the police department in our town. When I asked the question what age is it legally ok to let a child stay alone, I was surprised to find there isn\’t one. The officer just responded, \”well if we show up and a 3 year old is alone we\’d have a problem with that\”. He actually thought 8 or 9 was old enough to stay at home alone. My cynical nature tells me the real reason for the fence law is that the towns will make some cash off the building permits needed to put the fence up, so let\’s make a law. Yet no cash is coming in from the little kids left home alone, so no need for a law about it.
You might be surprised in the near future…people are beginning to understand the foolishness of some laws that are designed to protect fools, but fools are made by choice, and no matter what laws are written a fool will still be a fool-cause he makes foolish choices. Sam don\’t punish your kids, let them enjoy swimming in their own yard. Do not live in fear of what if\’s..
I think you hit the nail on the head!!!!!
Fences for kids it even has a nice ring to it. But these fences will need to be made of rubber as to not hurt or injure the children of fools.
I understand the frustration many of you feel with laws that, on the surface, seem over protective. But think about if for a second. None of us are prefect parents. While as parents, we do our very best to keep track of our kids at all times. Who us would admit that we\’ve never lost track of our toddler at times. Even if only for a few seconds.
Children love dogs and are attracted to them. If you owned an aggressive dog, wouldn\’t you contain it so that little children would not get injured? Or would you let it run in a yard open to children?
Wading pools are just as attractive to toddlers…and potentially just as dangerous. It only takes a moment…to answer the phone, or to check on what\’s cooking, for attention to be diverted, for disaster to strike.
All I\’m saying is…don\’t be too quick to condem our lawmakers. Greed may not have been the motivator for the law. And if we don\’t like a law, we have it within our power to get it changed.
Kaso
You seem to think an intelligent person cannot train a stupid dog. You are wrong. If you think it is more important to answer a phone than to watch over your children you should not be a parent. If a fool has children the fool needs to pay the costs for a fence to protect their own chilren not me.
Also good intentions do not make good law. Fools are fools by choice and choice alone. No law will protect them from themselves.
It doesn\’t take a village to raise a child it takes responsible parenting. If you can\’t watch your children don\’t blame me!!!
How about a law against gravel driveways. My toddler tripped on gravel in a driveway and hit her head on a car, can I sue? how about a law against glass windows, they might break the glass and cut themselves, how about law against trees in your yard, they might climb it and fall. How about a law against flowers they attract bees and might get bit. Or the fresh cut grass that might give them an allergy. It is not a risk free world and in an effort to make it one we are crossing the line with a law for everything. You just can\’t fix stupid no matter how many laws you make.
It is not about being perfect it is about responsibility.
No one else is responsible for my children but my wife and I.
Not you, not my neighbor, not uncle sam, not anyone.
And just as important I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR INABILITY TO TRAIN A DOG!!!!!!!
> If you think it is more important to answer a phone than to watch over your children you should not be a parent.
I have to confess that I laughed out loud when I read this. No parent I know has the following internal debate: \”Phone is ringing…I\’m watching my toddler…phone, my child\’s safety…phone, my child\’s safety…\” Parents, like teachers and construction workers and management consultants and everyone else living, make decisions every minute based on assessments of risk. You can answer the phone AND watch your toddler. Otherwise parents, nannies, childcare professionals and others would be incommunicado eight to ten hours a day. (Or, more accurately, parents would be permanently barred from answering a phone until their children had moved out. Appealing some days but impractical in the long run.)
Most sensible people would agree that the pool-fence law is a stupid law.
What if the law instead required that all water-filled inflatable pools had to be supervised at all times?
Two benefits of a law like this:
* \”Sorry, honey, I can\’t come back in. I\’m hard at work out here with a gin and tonic supervising the pool.\”
* When people weren\’t using their pools, THEY WOULD DRAIN THEM. No water, no drownings. (As well as no mosquitos breeding, another major benefit.)
But yes…a fence around each child might also work.
Clearly, I\’ve failed to communicate the message I was trying to get across. I, too, think the fence law for wading pools is over reactive. I was trying to point out that the law may have been passed in an attempt to solve a real problem. I never meant to imply that people should put answering a phone ahead of watching their children. But the fact is, they often do. We read about it every day in the papers. Usually with tragic results.
Incred…I like your suggestion of a law saying a wading pool should be drained when not in use. It\’s logical. It would help reduce the problem. Sure, some people would still disobey the law. But at least they would be more aware of the potential danger associated with their wading pool.
Again, I apologize for failing to communicating clearly. I was simply trying to use the absured to illustrate a point and to prompt an intelligent discussion. It appears that all I did was to prompt a tirade.
Yes you can watch children and answer a phone. But how does someone not watching their children force me to build a fence. Even more ludicrous is the number of new laws we all discussed to address this. (I understand many were in fun) YOU DO NOT NEED THE GOVERNMENT TO TELL YOU HOW TO BE RESPONSIBLE! It is real simple…be diligent, train YOUR children. IF ONE WOULD HAVE TO EMPTY A WADING POOL DOES ONE ALSO HAVE TO PUMP OUT PUDDLES IN THEIR YARD FROM RAIN THESE HAVE TO BE JUST AS DANGEROUS! MAYBE WE SHOULD ALSO EMPTY THE GREAT LAKES AND ALL RIVERS…YOU NEVER KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok so you have the wandering little 5 year old trotting through the neighborhood alone. Here comes the big bad unfenced attractive nuisance kiddie pool. Lucky for them they managed to dodge the cars on the road, rot wielders and pit bulls also wandering, pedophiles, clotheslines, ditches, drain pipes, and pond or lake, before they found that pool. Isn\’t this much like the closing the barn door after the horse gets out. You just cannot remove every potentional risk in life by legislating it. Maybe instead of handing out condoms we could teach kids to not have sex, maybe instead of giving drug addicts clean needles, we could help get them off the drugs. Our society has become enablers. Look how well the public assistance system works. I just love a third of my paycheck going to help others enlarge their families. People need to be responsible for themselves and their actions and know that those actions have consequences, some tragic. Heres a novel thought, how about better childcare training in high school. Let\’s take some lessons from our grandparents. We all managed to survive without the car seats, perfectly spaced crib bars, triple reinforced strollers. Let\’s get back to making parenting a treasured privilege and not a test to see how stupid you are.
The reason we are seeing more and more of these types of idiotic lawsuits and laws is because we have legislated out the basic tenets of Darwin\’theory. By making the world a safer place, the dumb people manage not to kill or maim themselves and therefore reproduce. Sharp metal objects, unwatched pools & motorcycles exist to weed the idiots out of society. This law will only produce more idiots that we will have to protect down the road!
I have a 2 yr old, and I have 2 different kiddie pools, one is inflatable, one is a rather large plastic (the kind with the molded in slide). When not being used, the inflatable one is drained, deflated, and put up (after being hund for a short period to dry). The plastic one has the drain plug removed and it secured standing on it\’s side with the plug removed. Sure, it\’s a little trouble to set them up and fill them, but my son is not replacable, and neither are my neighbors kids.
There are enough things for my little guy to hurt himself on without me leaving a pool of water around filled with water.
Regarding the earlier post about the abilities of anyone drowning in 24 inches of water, all it takes is a slip in the pool and a bumped head, and just a few inches of water would do the trick.
I do agree that it\’s ridiculous that this has to be legislated. That parent should already have had the pool protected without having to be told by Johnny Law.
I have an inflatable pool that requires by law to be fenced, Am I allowed by law to build a box style enclosure that the pool is put in and has a lid that is locked when the pool is not in use. It would have hinges on one side and a padlock on the other.
Ok, so if the township wants me to get permits and put up a fence then every single pond, brook, stream or lake in the township must also be fenced in! How can it be only for homeowners and not the township?
Melanie,
You\’re right. I know what you’re talking about!!
Whatever happened to people watching their children? Next thing you know, it will be impossible to buy homeowners insurance if you have a child for whom you may buy a kiddie pool!!!
You are right on!!!!
I have to buy a fence cause I buy a pool for my children and other children I allow in the poool!?! No thank you. Personal responsibility is a good thing and parents are responsible for their own children.
So if I build a fence around my pool and a kid climbs over the fence and drowns in my pool who is to blame? Me…the fence should have been higher, more secure, as a matter of fact I should have provided a safer environment by hiring round the clock life guards. Any other suggestions…Wait a minute how about children obeying authority and respecting my wishes to not enter on to MY property without my permision!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any child that is cabable of drowning in a 24 inch deep, kiddie pool should not be left unsupervised, especially outdoors. All the statics on drownings in kiddie pools are probably stupid parents that left their child unattended.
While I do not like the idea of being told I have to put up a fence (I live in a subdivision that does not allow any old kind of fence) it is neighboring children that I am afraid for, not my own. My children do not understand why I will not buy a \’kiddie pool\’ for them…it is because other people may not be as diligent in watching their children as I am watching mine.
I wonder how I ever made it through a childhood of kiddie pools, going to the pool without my \”Mommie\”, playing on concrete at the playgrounds, playing outside until dark, riding my bike without a helmet, getting hurt (and not suing anybody), etc., etc.
I grew up in a time when you could actually enjoy your childhood. I pity children growing up today.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO SOCIETY???????
In our ever politically correct world we must have a rule about everything. Now when I was a kid it was a parents responsiblility to keep an eye on their 5 year old child. Why are 5 year olds rooming the neighborhood by themselves? Maybe that is a better rule to have. Don\’t let 5 year olds out by themself. No instead let\’s make everyone pay to put up a fence to keep them out. Doesn\’t really matter because when the 5 year old\’s 10 year old brother helps them over the fence you\’re in trouble anyway. So why not make a law that now you need an armed guard at the pool at all times. After all no one is ever responsible for themselves or their children. It\’s everyone elses job to make sure thier kids are safe.
Melanie, I agree completely with you. However, the reality is that when the 5 year old kid or younger drowns in the kiddie pool in my yard, I (my insurer) will have to pay. Like Grr, it is a wonder that I survived to adulthood!
Sam,
What is amazing to me is that in my state RI, there is not age restriction for leaving your child home alone. I found that out when I took my daughter to a \”home alone\” seminar put on by the police department in our town. When I asked the question what age is it legally ok to let a child stay alone, I was surprised to find there isn\’t one. The officer just responded, \”well if we show up and a 3 year old is alone we\’d have a problem with that\”. He actually thought 8 or 9 was old enough to stay at home alone. My cynical nature tells me the real reason for the fence law is that the towns will make some cash off the building permits needed to put the fence up, so let\’s make a law. Yet no cash is coming in from the little kids left home alone, so no need for a law about it.
You might be surprised in the near future…people are beginning to understand the foolishness of some laws that are designed to protect fools, but fools are made by choice, and no matter what laws are written a fool will still be a fool-cause he makes foolish choices. Sam don\’t punish your kids, let them enjoy swimming in their own yard. Do not live in fear of what if\’s..
Why not just put a fence around the child?
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO SOCIETY???????
Lawyers!!!!!!!
I think you hit the nail on the head!!!!!
Fences for kids it even has a nice ring to it. But these fences will need to be made of rubber as to not hurt or injure the children of fools.
I just find myself shaking my head more everyday! Thank God I didn\’t have children!!
I understand the frustration many of you feel with laws that, on the surface, seem over protective. But think about if for a second. None of us are prefect parents. While as parents, we do our very best to keep track of our kids at all times. Who us would admit that we\’ve never lost track of our toddler at times. Even if only for a few seconds.
Children love dogs and are attracted to them. If you owned an aggressive dog, wouldn\’t you contain it so that little children would not get injured? Or would you let it run in a yard open to children?
Wading pools are just as attractive to toddlers…and potentially just as dangerous. It only takes a moment…to answer the phone, or to check on what\’s cooking, for attention to be diverted, for disaster to strike.
All I\’m saying is…don\’t be too quick to condem our lawmakers. Greed may not have been the motivator for the law. And if we don\’t like a law, we have it within our power to get it changed.
Kaso
You seem to think an intelligent person cannot train a stupid dog. You are wrong. If you think it is more important to answer a phone than to watch over your children you should not be a parent. If a fool has children the fool needs to pay the costs for a fence to protect their own chilren not me.
Also good intentions do not make good law. Fools are fools by choice and choice alone. No law will protect them from themselves.
It doesn\’t take a village to raise a child it takes responsible parenting. If you can\’t watch your children don\’t blame me!!!
Perfect Parent – 1
Kaso – 0
How about a law against gravel driveways. My toddler tripped on gravel in a driveway and hit her head on a car, can I sue? how about a law against glass windows, they might break the glass and cut themselves, how about law against trees in your yard, they might climb it and fall. How about a law against flowers they attract bees and might get bit. Or the fresh cut grass that might give them an allergy. It is not a risk free world and in an effort to make it one we are crossing the line with a law for everything. You just can\’t fix stupid no matter how many laws you make.
It is not about being perfect it is about responsibility.
No one else is responsible for my children but my wife and I.
Not you, not my neighbor, not uncle sam, not anyone.
And just as important I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR INABILITY TO TRAIN A DOG!!!!!!!
AMEN
On July 11, 2006, 3:03 pm CDT, MUD wrote:
> If you think it is more important to answer a phone than to watch over your children you should not be a parent.
I have to confess that I laughed out loud when I read this. No parent I know has the following internal debate: \”Phone is ringing…I\’m watching my toddler…phone, my child\’s safety…phone, my child\’s safety…\” Parents, like teachers and construction workers and management consultants and everyone else living, make decisions every minute based on assessments of risk. You can answer the phone AND watch your toddler. Otherwise parents, nannies, childcare professionals and others would be incommunicado eight to ten hours a day. (Or, more accurately, parents would be permanently barred from answering a phone until their children had moved out. Appealing some days but impractical in the long run.)
Most sensible people would agree that the pool-fence law is a stupid law.
What if the law instead required that all water-filled inflatable pools had to be supervised at all times?
Two benefits of a law like this:
* \”Sorry, honey, I can\’t come back in. I\’m hard at work out here with a gin and tonic supervising the pool.\”
* When people weren\’t using their pools, THEY WOULD DRAIN THEM. No water, no drownings. (As well as no mosquitos breeding, another major benefit.)
But yes…a fence around each child might also work.
Dear Incred and MUD,
Clearly, I\’ve failed to communicate the message I was trying to get across. I, too, think the fence law for wading pools is over reactive. I was trying to point out that the law may have been passed in an attempt to solve a real problem. I never meant to imply that people should put answering a phone ahead of watching their children. But the fact is, they often do. We read about it every day in the papers. Usually with tragic results.
Incred…I like your suggestion of a law saying a wading pool should be drained when not in use. It\’s logical. It would help reduce the problem. Sure, some people would still disobey the law. But at least they would be more aware of the potential danger associated with their wading pool.
Again, I apologize for failing to communicating clearly. I was simply trying to use the absured to illustrate a point and to prompt an intelligent discussion. It appears that all I did was to prompt a tirade.
Yes you can watch children and answer a phone. But how does someone not watching their children force me to build a fence. Even more ludicrous is the number of new laws we all discussed to address this. (I understand many were in fun) YOU DO NOT NEED THE GOVERNMENT TO TELL YOU HOW TO BE RESPONSIBLE! It is real simple…be diligent, train YOUR children. IF ONE WOULD HAVE TO EMPTY A WADING POOL DOES ONE ALSO HAVE TO PUMP OUT PUDDLES IN THEIR YARD FROM RAIN THESE HAVE TO BE JUST AS DANGEROUS! MAYBE WE SHOULD ALSO EMPTY THE GREAT LAKES AND ALL RIVERS…YOU NEVER KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok so you have the wandering little 5 year old trotting through the neighborhood alone. Here comes the big bad unfenced attractive nuisance kiddie pool. Lucky for them they managed to dodge the cars on the road, rot wielders and pit bulls also wandering, pedophiles, clotheslines, ditches, drain pipes, and pond or lake, before they found that pool. Isn\’t this much like the closing the barn door after the horse gets out. You just cannot remove every potentional risk in life by legislating it. Maybe instead of handing out condoms we could teach kids to not have sex, maybe instead of giving drug addicts clean needles, we could help get them off the drugs. Our society has become enablers. Look how well the public assistance system works. I just love a third of my paycheck going to help others enlarge their families. People need to be responsible for themselves and their actions and know that those actions have consequences, some tragic. Heres a novel thought, how about better childcare training in high school. Let\’s take some lessons from our grandparents. We all managed to survive without the car seats, perfectly spaced crib bars, triple reinforced strollers. Let\’s get back to making parenting a treasured privilege and not a test to see how stupid you are.
Brilliant simply brilliant!!!
A life without risks is not worth living!!
Give me LIBERTY or give me DEATH, but don\’t give me more stupid people rules!
The reason we are seeing more and more of these types of idiotic lawsuits and laws is because we have legislated out the basic tenets of Darwin\’theory. By making the world a safer place, the dumb people manage not to kill or maim themselves and therefore reproduce. Sharp metal objects, unwatched pools & motorcycles exist to weed the idiots out of society. This law will only produce more idiots that we will have to protect down the road!
I have a 2 yr old, and I have 2 different kiddie pools, one is inflatable, one is a rather large plastic (the kind with the molded in slide). When not being used, the inflatable one is drained, deflated, and put up (after being hund for a short period to dry). The plastic one has the drain plug removed and it secured standing on it\’s side with the plug removed. Sure, it\’s a little trouble to set them up and fill them, but my son is not replacable, and neither are my neighbors kids.
There are enough things for my little guy to hurt himself on without me leaving a pool of water around filled with water.
Regarding the earlier post about the abilities of anyone drowning in 24 inches of water, all it takes is a slip in the pool and a bumped head, and just a few inches of water would do the trick.
I do agree that it\’s ridiculous that this has to be legislated. That parent should already have had the pool protected without having to be told by Johnny Law.
I put up a fence around by buckets.
People who think the kiddy pool in the front yard is ugly may have pushed this as a deterant to people who cant afford the fence.
I have an inflatable pool that requires by law to be fenced, Am I allowed by law to build a box style enclosure that the pool is put in and has a lid that is locked when the pool is not in use. It would have hinges on one side and a padlock on the other.
Ok, so if the township wants me to get permits and put up a fence then every single pond, brook, stream or lake in the township must also be fenced in! How can it be only for homeowners and not the township?