3:10 pm ~ 
Filed Under:
WTF?
I was sitting in the WalMart parking lot waiting on Preston to get out with formula, and this black woman who looked to be in her early 20s walked up to get into the car next to us. She had a very small baby girl in an infant carrier and a little boy who looked to be around 2 years old.
She opened the back door of her old car, put the infant carrier in the center back seat forward facing, NOT in a base, and NOT buckled in. She just set the carrier in the middle of the back seat and then proceeded to put the very small toddler in the back seat next to the infant carrier. She did buckle him in, but he was not in any kind of car seat or booster. I was completely baffled. She got into the drivers seat like it wasn’t any big deal and drove off.
When Preston got back to the car I told him about it and she said I should have gotten the license plate and called the police. I didn’t think of that at the time, but if she was so nonchalant about it, you can be pretty certain that she does this regularly. She didn’t appear to be in a hurry or anything… so there goes that excuse. Even if she was in a hurry, there is absolutely no excuse to but a baby and a toddler in that kind of danger.
Some people. Talk about Death insurance for her kids if she were to get into a bad accident. Those poor kids. I really hope someone else sees her putting them in the car like that and says something to her. It’s hard to believe that she might not know any better.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Sometimes - and unfortunately it’s usually when I’m at a Walmart of McDonald’s or some other semi-ghetto location - sometimes I will just be praying under my breath - “Lord help those children, their mama certainly isn’t”. Sometimes it’s stuff like that- putting the kids in a physically unsafe position - and sometimes I see moms (and dads) who are screaming at their kids or otherwise “disciplining” them in a decidedly awful way. So sad!
June 20th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
wow. just wow. i would have said something to her, but that is just me and my huge mouth.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
OMG I would have been speechless, I hate when people knowingly put their child in danger. I cannot believe that, I hope the police see her doing that.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Great post Sarah! I love anything you have to say.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
thats terrible,
but
did you have to state she was black?
June 21st, 2008 at 12:50 am
Wow people will jump on the chance to turn something into a racist issue. First off, when you are telling a story, you tell it like you saw it. You notice things, like the fact that the baby was a girl. Does this make her sexist? She could have said that there was a baby in the car seat, but instead she specified that it was a girl. The woman was black. Maybe the question should be asked to you Theresa….. does Sarah need to not say anything about anyone’s ethnicity in a story in the future? I know that you didn’t accuse Sarah of being racist, but you can’t exactly get anything else from what you said.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:48 am
here in arizona, its mexicans, its always predominatly mexicans who are letting their kids scream around wal-mart, and just take stuff off shelves and eat thru the store i see a lot too. Am i racist against mexicans? I dont think so, in fact im “that” person that defends them b/c quite honestly its ALSO “mexicans” that i see doing all the outside hard ass manual labor in this arizona heat, I do not ever drive by a construction site seeing white ppl out there in the hot sun putting on roofs or building our neigborhoods and i have a lot of respect for that, in my uneducated joe smoe point of view i thinking that they are very very hard workers, willing to do the shittiest of work in the shittiest of conditions to take care of their families, and on the flip side they are also the most loose with their kids :/
June 21st, 2008 at 11:23 am
Ugh, I saw something similar…I should blog about it…hmmm. lol!! I hate seeing things like this though…it is really sad.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:17 pm
The mexicans that are working on construction sites are HAPPY to be working on the sites and will do it for a lot less, but it’s not because whites are stuck up or too good. It’s because Mexico has no jobs for their own people, and here, they can come in, even illegally, get work easy, get paid, and send it back home to Mexico…. You’d think that Mexico would know what to do with all that American money. I saw an article today where the Mexico state south of Arizona is COMPLAINING because we are sending their own people back there, and they don’t know what to do with the influx of their own people! Now they know how it feels. You can find photographs of the trail of crap left out in our wilderness where Mexicans have come and left their crap…. diapers, clothes, it looks like a wasteland, and they don’t even pick up after themselves. I’m not racist against every Mexican, because I know they are not all like that. But the majority seem to be.
June 21st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
We see that all the time here where I live. And, they always seem to get away with it. People just have no common sense anymore. And, I saw this one lady telling her friend that was with her that she CUT the seatbelts out of her car. And she had kids! In a carseat, but there was no seatbelt to hold it in.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
It was purely an observatory detail. I didn’t mean anything by it.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:04 am
Before I had my daughter I worked in child care and it was amazing how many parents I have seen pull up with their children in the back, no seat belt, just crawling around on the seat. It’s just baffling. Once, one of the children was in the front seat, up on her knees, side on so that she was looking out the window. If someone had have rear ended that car, I have no doubt she would have been thrown straight out that window. Argh! Sorry, off on a rant, but this is something that gets me so worked up… I just don’t understand how people can be so careless!
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
As a mother of two mixed children, I personally find that a little bit on the racist side. “Why,” some of you might ask. Well let me explain why I feel like that. I do agree with you tell as story how you see it but some things are better left unsaid. Some things aren’t needed to tell a story or make a statement. Sarah’s story could’ve got the point across without stating the women was black (African American). Same thing goes if she was making a statement regarding a white women (Caucasian) or a Mexican (Hispanic). Although, some people find it offensives calling people white, black, or Mexican. Again, this is SARAH’S BLOG and she can say whatever she wants to whether she is racist or not. We all are aloud to have our own views and opinions on everything. Does it change my views on Sarah, NO. Would I care if she was racist, NO. This is HER blog and if people don’t like what she has to say then maybe they shouldn’t come to her page.
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
someones always gotta make it a race issue huh? :P
thats incredibly sad. people in my birth community were putting their kids in convertible car seats facing forward around 7-8 months. which is sad. since i believe state/us law is both 20lbs & 1 year minimum.
but an infant seat?! sheesh =/.
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 am
honestly you’re a racist by adding that “black” part before “woman” which simply could just have been “woman”… by doing so you’re stating your unconcious racist self. but then again, i guess you’re in texas, the most backwards and racist of all the states, so it must be normal!
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:55 am
I’m sorry, but that did sound racist. Before I even finished the post I started thinking, “Black” woman? Where is this going? Look, I realize you’re probably not racist at all. But like it or not, the statement was rude and obviously offended some people.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
Yeah, I was surprised that you had to mention she was black too. I know that it was an observatory detail but it wasn’t really relative to the rest of the story.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:58 am
Seriously. Wow. Talk about ridiculous.
It’s always funny to me when people pull the race card out at the smallest mention of a persons race. I’m sorry but specifying a persons race when telling a story is not in any way rude or racist.
I bet if I were to have said that the person was a white trash looking girl no one would be making an issue of it. Because there’s no way anyone could be racist against a white person, right?
Give me a break, really.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Sarah, I’m just wondering why you had to point out it was at WalMart. Do you have something against Target?
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
good point nonnie makes
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Yep, yall are right. I’m a big ol racist bitch. You caught me. What can I say. *insert eye roll here*
I’m sure you agree “Maxie”, coming from California and all. OMG. I must be “racist” against people from California now!
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:40 pm
motheroftwo said “Although, some people find it offensives calling people white, black, or Mexican.”
Please tell me why this is so? Are you serious? I mean, I agree, that some people do find it offensive, but this is completely retarded. Its like if I say “hey this is my deaf friend Paul”, am I making fun of him for being deaf? If I say “I was running in a race and this black guy whizzed past me like i was standing still” does that mean I am belittling him? People are so ridiculous these days. You should be proud to be “black” or proud to be “white” instead of getting pissed off because someone just called you what you are. If you are black, you are black. If you are white, you are white. If you are Mexican, you are from Mexico. I don’t get it.
I also find it rather ridiculous because for instance, Obama, is the first “black” candidate, and it is a well known fact that he is black, and his wife is black, and Condoleeza Rice is black, but you know what? They aren’t whining and crying when someone says they are black. It’s because they aren’t so damn childish that they are going to assume that its an insult. Stating that someone is black is not racist. Using the N word would be. Talking about her in a derogatory sense would be racist, as to point out that her being black has something to do with her ignorance for putting her baby in the car like she did. I have black friends. They don’t get defensive when I say they are black. The people here that are turning this into a racist issue are the exact kind of people that believe they have a handle on what love and acceptance is, and everyone else is a dumb bag of taters. And as for Nonnie saying “but then again, i guess you’re in texas, the most backwards and racist of all the states, so it must be normal!”…. wow… you are worse than racist. You are discriminating a geographic location, and claiming that everyone from Texas is backwards and racist. This is probably the most ironic thing I have ever read on here. I know another woman that you’d love to hang out with, she shares your level of intelligence.