Amethyst Posted December 31, 2006 Share Posted December 31, 2006 Police: Toddler found playing on highway INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) -- Drivers swerved cars and trucks into other lanes to avoid a 3-year-old boy, wearing only a diaper and T-shirt, who was playing along a busy highway after wandering away from home while his mother slept, police said. Some motorists stopped along Interstate 465 on the city's west side Saturday to take care of the boy until officers arrived, the Indiana State Police said. "I looked up and I seen this little ... boy running down the middle of the slow lane in the interstate. I just could not believe what I was seeing," said Troy Crady, one of those who stopped to help. The boy, Damon Dyer, was unscathed as at least a half-dozen cars and a tractor-trailer rig swerved into other lanes to avoid him. Temperatures were in the mid 50s as the boy ran around barefooted. Police said they traced the toddler to an apartment at a nearby complex, where they found his mother, Nancy Dyer asleep in a filthy apartment and his 2-year-old sister eating spaghetti off the floor. Dyer, 33, was arrested on two counts of child neglect and remained in custody Sunday, officials said. Senior State Trooper Cedric Merritt said that when Dyer was told of her son's activities, she responded: "Oh, he got out again." Investigators said the boy got out his second-story apartment, went down stairs and got around a fence to reach the highway about 200 yards away. Child Protective Services took the boy and his sister into custody, and investigators said the agency also had been called to the apartment Thursday because the boy was outside unsupervised. * * * * * WTF is up with these people? If your kid got out once, wouldn't you take the necessary precautions, like locking the doors/windows to make sure he didn't get out again? And there's no excuse for having a 2-year old eat spaghetti on the floor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-COG Posted December 31, 2006 Share Posted December 31, 2006 Stupid people should be sterilized. Sounds drastic, but...think about it awhile. No children having to be rescued, tax money saved by not having to pay for social services...the list could go on and on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purple Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 Although I agree the children need to be out of there. From the entire story there are hints of serious depression though. She's asleep in a filthy apartment?? Eh, but thats just an observation from a distance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friendly Misanthrope Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 Stupid people should be sterilized. Sounds drastic, but...think about it awhile. No children having to be rescued, tax money saved by not having to pay for social services...the list could go on and on. The Nazi's thought the same thing. Eugenics A bit of a slippery slope, it is. Although I realize your comment was probably made with tongue held firmly in cheek. edit: Too, as intelligence is a polygenic trait, it is possible for two geniuses to spawn an idiot, and for two idiots to spawn a genius. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted January 1, 2007 Author Share Posted January 1, 2007 Although I agree the children need to be out of there. From the entire story there are hints of serious depression though. She's asleep in a filthy apartment?? Eh, but thats just an observation from a distance. That could be the case but it's so hard to tell from a news story, and the only quote we get from the mother is that the kid had been out before. Also the child protective services had already been called a couple of days before that, so something should've been done then. Seems to me a ball was dropped somewhere, and it wasn't the kid who dropped it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truth Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 I do agree with everyone that something needs to be done, but it is actually a lot harder for social workers to apprehend a child. You would not believe the standards that parents are allowed to keep their children for so long. It is sad, really that we live in such a developed country but have such low standards when it comes to protecting our children and supporting familes and communities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
necrosmith Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 I do agree with everyone that something needs to be done, but it is actually a lot harder for social workers to apprehend a child. You would not believe the standards that parents are allowed to keep their children for so long. It is sad, really that we live in such a developed country but have such low standards when it comes to protecting our children and supporting familes and communities. Hmm.. think I'll pass on making it easier for the government to take people's kids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truth Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 It isn't a matter of making it easier for the government to take peoples kids, it is more a matter of early preventtion and intervention of when parents start putting their kids at risk and being neglectful. I wouldn't want to be a social worker to have to make that call, of when enough is enough. They do have standards and legislation protocall. There must have been a lot going on before, for the action that was taken against the mother. It would take a lot more than a kid wondering around, a mom asleep in a dirty apartment and a toddler eating spagetti off the floor. There is obviously more to this case than meets the eye. I grew up being raised by a single mom who was on welfare till my mid twenties. In some eyes would have considered our apartment to be dirty... but from what I have heard from other proffessionals the squalor in some homes is a major health hazard and beyond the standards of just dirty. She was a good mom and we were always well cared for, clean, had food in our bellies. We didn't have the new clothing or latest fad but we were warm and often better dressed for the weather than my wealthy two parent peers. My mom was always worried that someone would get mad at her at her or possibly report her to social services she had this fear until my youngest sister finally became legal age. She had nothing to worry about she was a good mom, and no one ever reported her. I have taken care of many children who are neglected/ ignored by their parent(s) who have fallen asleep and their child has been found wondering the streets.. who social services is involved in and threating to take the children away. More needs to be done to better support thease parents and keep the children safe or there comes a point when they do have to be removed from the care of their parents. Sorry but just because you gave birth to a child, does not mean they are fit to parent a child... yes they should be given every opportunity and support and if it calls for supervison so they can be a loving nuturing parent..but sadly in many cases this does not happen. The child will end up suffering to some extent either way.. but no child should be put in harms way a continual basis just because the parent loves them or has a need to keep them. Families need to be supported before they get to this point.. people need to care before a kid is found on the highway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanaslove Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 Hmm.. think I'll pass on making it easier for the government to take people's kids. Second. But being a mother of a 4 and 2 year old I can't help but be appalled. I automatically think of my kids in that situation. This woman needs to be evaluated and treated. Tearing apart a family will not necessarily make things better for anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknowing1 Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 I agree that tearing a family apart does not make it better for everyone but sometimes it does. I am friends with a family that adopted a little boy who is now 4. His sister was adopted by the sister of my female friend so the children do get to see each other quite frequently. This little boy told his adoptive mom the other day that he was crying for her (wanted her to come to him) when he lived in Chicago. He lived with his biological mom in Chicago not his adoptive family. This little boy suffered neglect and abuse and remembers it from two years ago. He knows that he wanted someone like her in his life back then. He has issues that he will need to overcome but in this circumstance tearing the family apart was the best thing. It would have been better to have kept the siblings together, but that was not an option as neither family could take in both but at least with both children being adopted by sisters they are still in the same family, know each other as brother and sister and spend significant time together. Sometimes neglect is due to stupidity; however, I'm not sure that you would call having a situation such as a child sitting on the side of a busy highway more than once stupidity, nor do I think allowing a child to eat off the floor is stupidity. Do you honestly think this woman eats her food off the floor? If she could prove to me that she eats her food off the floor then maybe, just maybe I would think it is stupidity. But in my mind most dogs let alone humans do not eat their food off the floor so to me it is willful neglect pure and simple. IMO stupidity is more like this example from my stupid parent moves, making sure that your 2 year old is ahead of you and not behind you when walking out the door. They sure can close and lock the door really quick. I had to climb through a window to get to him but I never allowed him to walk behind me out the door again AND a key was placed outside so that if, just if anything like that happened again it would only take seconds to get to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StewartP Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 And there's no excuse for having a 2-year old eat spaghetti on the floor. Maybe there were no plates? No, seriously tho, I'm sure there are a pile of issues going on here, reading between the lines. The mother was asleep, while the toddler had made his break for freedom and the 2 year old was eating al fresco. Why was she asleep? Stoned? exhausted because she works nights? Life is a mess. Most of us (not all of us) get lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delicate_Catastrophe Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 I do agree with everyone that something needs to be done, but it is actually a lot harder for social workers to apprehend a child. You would not believe the standards that parents are allowed to keep their children for so long. It is sad, really that we live in such a developed country but have such low standards when it comes to protecting our children and supporting familes and communities. I know what you mean about standards. I work for a counseling agency, in people's homes. Many of these homes are the "filthy, parents may sleep while kids run wild" type. I technically provide behavior modification to the kids, but my team as a whole really goes after the parents. You might be surprised at how many times all we have to do is teach them HOW to be a parent and it all turns around. Even REALLY BAD cases like when we all hated the mom for hating her kid! It's amazing how far things can go with no intervention like taking the kids away, but our agency concentrates on keeping the kids in the home and making things okay there... that said, we jump at every chance to report certain things in an attempt to get certain clients removed. I hate going home for a long holiday weekend KNOWING one of my kids is being molested. When it comes down to it, around here at least, it's not that it's always HARD to get the kids out, it's that there aren't enough employees for investigations. As a mandatory reporter, for the most part my reportable incidents get feedback like "yeah, okay, whatever." If there isn't a baby in the home it isn't given priority unless it's something huge. I often wish I got to choose who got sterilized. But all I can do is try to break the cycle. All the parents I work with were never taught what a parent should be. They were all neglected and/or abused as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Variable Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Great point above. Some parents are selfish. Some are abusive. And some are just plain ignorant, but good at heart. It's hard for someone to imagine what it's like for someone with a really bad or non-existent upbringing to become a parent themselves. They love their children but don't know how to begin showing it. The woman above sounds like a classicaly depressed, poor, single mother without any support. I could throw stones at her but then I would be just like the fundies I escaped from who are conviced that depression is a CHOICE and not a neurochemical imbalance that strikes good and bad alike. The children should be removed from that situation but shame on us for not having a proper mental health care system that could have stopped a situation like that from ever occurring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sage Nabooru Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 "I looked up and I seen this little ... boy running down the middle of the slow lane in the interstate. I just could not believe what I was seeing," said Troy Crady, one of those who stopped to help. INDIANA HOOSIER!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yaoi Huntress Earth Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 edit: Too, as intelligence is a polygenic trait, it is possible for two geniuses to spawn an idiot, and for two idiots to spawn a genius. I know this is OT, but I'm reminded of comment in the Bahai religion that basically says what good is all the intellgence in world when the person holding it is morally corrupt? A smart person who is cruel will only bring trouble and hurt others while a less educated person who is kind and thinks of others can do more for the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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