When I was twelve, my brother, Y, was a about a year and a half old. One evening at the YWCA, my mother called me over to her. She was in the kids pool with Y, and she wanted to show me something. She said to me, “Jenn, remember how I have told you to be very careful with babies and small children around water?” I nodded. I had asked her a few times if I could bathe Y, but she always insisted on hovering at my elbow and watching my every single move. And she always turned down my request to carry Y around with me when we were at swimming pools together, insisting on carrying him herself.
“Well, this is why”, she continued. She had been holding onto my brother’s hand, and he, who had been standing next to my mom, promptly sat down. In the water. Under the water. Despite the level of water being not more than three inches above his head, and despite my brother being perfectly capable of standing, walking and even running, my brother sat down in the water, under the water, and stayed there. My mother hauled him up about three seconds later, and said to me, “That is why you never, ever leave babies, toddlers and small children unattended in water. You saw for yourself that your brother could have drowned, simply because he didn’t bother to stand up. They don’t know. They can drown in just an inch of water, as well as deeper bodies of water, such as baby tubs, regular tubs and swimming pools.”
That happened over ten years ago, and has stuck with me. It was also the first thing that came to mind when I read the following confession on truemomconfessions.com:
I was letting my 20 month old son play in the tub by himself for awhile, and when I went back in there to get him out I found a pile of poop on the floor. At least he didn’t poop in the water!!
This confession was mentioned on a message board associated with truemomconfessions.com, and the confessor herself stepped up to the plate and admitted that it was here, and noncholantly announced that she leaves him unattended on a regular basis.
I am dumbfounded. Maybe it’s because of my own witnessing of my brother, who was not much younger than this woman’s son, simply sitting underwater while his life would slowly tick away, or the dozens of drownings in buckets, toilets, tubs, pools, ponds and lakes I hear about year after year, but I cannot imagine how this woman would be so willingly careless with her child. Come to think of it – wasn’t there a twenty month old child that drowned in a bathtub earlier this summer, while his mother was in another room browsing MySpace?
I never leave my children alone. Alyssa is almost three, and I am always with her. And obviously I am always with Ryan, who is a year old. I don’t leave for the phone, I don’t leave for the door. I don’t leave to grab a snack, and I certainly don’t leave to check MySpace. Since I do sometimes get a little bored sitting in a bathroom for fifteen or twenty minutes while the kids are playing, I think ahead of time and keep a book or magazine in the bathroom, so I occupy myself with that while sitting right on the toilet next to the tub.
Please… assure me that parents like her are few and far between! At what age did you start leaving your children unattended in the bathtub?
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My name is Jenn, and I'm 27 years old. I'm happily married to my best friend and soulmate, Daniel. Together we have a six year old daughter named 
Name: Alyssa
Name: Ryan
