One mother is left in shock after a simple decision to not answer her door when the delivery man arrived almost left her in jail, without her children.
The rise of Amazon and other online services have made deliveries directly to your home incredibly popular and many people have a constant stream of packages heading to their home.point 151 | This makes having a good delivery man absolutely essential as there is nothing worse than a delivery man coming to your home mere moments after you left or before you arrive home.point 299 |
Dealing with a package that requires a signature can be an absolute headache if you have a delivery man that comes at inconsistent times.point 114 | 1
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But for this mother from Connecticut, getting a package slightly later was the least of her problems. Her daughter and son were watching TV in the living room and Patty Levreault was watching over them. It was a lazy morning, Patty hadn’t changed out of her pajamas yet, and her kids were content with watching some TV before their day began.
All seemed well until the doorbell rang. Patty looked up and saw that it was just a delivery man. Thinking nothing of it, she decided she would just let the delivery man leave the package at her doorstep and she would go pick it up later, when she was more appropriately dressed.
Patty told ABC News her thought process
I was just like, okay, well, I’m going to see if he leaves his package on the porch. I went to the bathroom and five minutes later, three cop cars showed up.
Before Patty knew it her home looked like a crime scene featured on CSI.point 224 |
Alarmed, Patty immediately rushed outside to find out what was going on.point 61 | The delivery man had called the cops, because he believed her two children were home alone.point 137 | So he decided to call child services, who immediately showed up.point 191 | Patty couldn’t believe that one lazy decision had turned into this.point 254 |
Now instead of being embarrassed, she was terrified that she might go to jail or her children would be taken away from her.point 101 | 1
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Not the morning Patty had expected at all.
I was mortified
So why would the delivery man automatically assume that just because the door was unanswered that her children were left home alone? Well Patty believes that it’s due to a larger, growing trend called “parent shaming.point 343 |
” Parent shaming is when strangers decide to make quick, usually rude judgements, about other parents.point 93 | These judgements are usually made without all of the necessary information.point 158 | In this day and age, many parents are quick to judge others simply for not being absolutely perfect all of the time.point 253 |
Instead of parents sharing their learned experiences with other parents, improving all children’s lives, they would rather point out shortcomings of other parents to make themselves feel better.point 173 | 1
Dana Points, the Editor-in-Chief of Parents magazine explained common examples of the way modern day parents are shamed for methods that were acceptable just 10 years ago.
People are shamed today for letting their child play in front of their house in an unfenced yard and letting a child walk to school alone.
These modern days are certainly not like the days my grandfather told me about when he had to walk 3 miles uphill to his school, no matter if there was snow or not!
In fact, there is new data that suggests that the majority of calls to Child Protective Services are completely unfounded. Despite there being a 4 percent decrease in child abuse, the amount of possible child abuse calls have risen 12 percent, amounting to 3.5 million calls that are not actual child abuse.
While everyone agrees that children should be safe, it seems like too many parents would rather become what are known as ‘helicopter parents’ instead of letting their child live and learn.
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Tell us, what do you think? Do you think parents these days are too protective of their children? Have you or a loved one ever experienced parent shaming? Let us know down below!