Parents share your story?

Several months ago my kids and I were playing in the backyard. We have one of those "white picket fence" kind of fences. So it's not very high and the lock is on the inside. We live on the end unit of a townhouse complex. So our backyard is sort of an L shape if that makes sense. The kids would run from the back to the side of the house chasing a ball. My daughter was about 14 months at the time and my son was 3yrs. My son knew how to open the gate but knew he wasn't supposed to so he didn't do it without asking.

I was in the backyard watching both my kids. I was at the back. My daughter is not quite as fast as my son so when he came back kicking the ball I figured she would be around in a few seconds. I wasn't worried because it was gated off. So I start to walk towards the side when I hear "clink! clink!" and I knew exactly what she was doing. She had opened the gate and started to walk down through our townhouse complex. I'm trying to get my son to follow cause I didn't want to leave him alone, in the mean time I am taking off after my daughter. I finally catch her when she is about 3 houses down (the houses are not too wide, they have 3 stories to them). So it wasn't that big of a deal but this one mom bringing her groceries into her house gave me "the look", shook her head and did the eye roll.

It wasn't that big of a deal considering its a blocked off community and traffic goes very slowly in the complex due to speed bumps and child signs. Plus we live at the far back so we are nowhere near the road. The whole even lasted like 1 min. But I definitely got the looks from people, mainly that one mom. Oh the joys of being a parent. =)

We fostered a sibling group that had already been split up - so they didn't know each other. Then we live in an area with very little in the "mental health resources" dept. The kids had been abused and neglected and so they abused - each other, the pets, the neighbor kids. Because they were neglected, they learned to steal (it was the only way they could get food in their original home). Yes, these kids desperately need love and safety. But they also need extremely competent mental health services. They've been abused and they've lost everything they've ever known - including their parents. They can be incredibly destructive to a home, a marriage, and a family. Foster parents aren't seen as the hero by the kids. To these kids, foster parents are the bad guys until proven otherwise. Potential foster parents need to know that it isn't all sunshine and roses. They need to be prepared and they need to have a really good child therapist (preferably one who works with foster kids) ready-to-go.

I used to go to free "Family Planning" clinic for my paps & exams. Even though my tubes were tied, they were required to send women home with condoms. (I guess the assumption was that even married I'd need STD protection for "affairs.")

So these items were stored by tampons and amassed from lack of use.

One morning my kids got up and found this stash. I guess they'd gone out into the yard to play with these. When I woke up, I saw white things in contrast to green lawn. When I went out to check, there were tampons & opened condoms all through out the yard.

I felt it made it look like husband & I had thrown some wild sex party during the night & that's why I had slept in & wasn't attending children. This was the first time they had broken rule to not go outside without permission.

Top of the door chain locks were installed after that.

Oh, how embarrassing to have to walk the yard to pick all of these items up as neighbors watched (and whispered).

When Evan was around 2 years old he was running through the house like usual, and tripped on one of those cheesy thresholds. I dont know how he did it. It's those brass thresholds that are around 1/32 of an inch high. Fell flat on his face if you please and his mouth was a bloody mess. His teeth were knocked in.

So we brought him to the ER, and right on schedule the social service people come in with their clipboards and raised eyebrows and asked him what happened. With arched eyebrows like he was taking a history exam he never studied for he answered, "uhhhh... I... uhhh... fell?" Holy cripes my jaw hit the ground. Even I didn't believe that line. We were interrogated for another couple hours. How they ever let him leave with me I'll never know.

My sister and I were even worse at that age, maybe older. My mother was on a water diet and a home health nurse was at the house. Little magnets were lined up across the refrigerator. "What're these for?" she asked. "Oh that's my mom's," we answered, "She keeps track of how much she drinks." The nurse was stunned and said She does?? "Yes, she's up to 8 drinks a day."

One time the phone rang while my mother was in the yard hanging out clothes to dry on the line. (She'd leave us behind the baby gate a couple times a day to do the wash). We climbed over the baby gate, answered the phone and told the caller, "No she went out." Who's watching you the caller wanted to know. "No one. She goes out and leaves us here."

My son plays very hard and bruises the living crud out of himself. I swear it looks like I have taken a blunt object to his legs! Poor little guy! The worst is when he bruises his bobo or his back, because then it REALLY looks like I hit him! I would totally NEVER do that and I don't let him climb on high things, he just plays really hard!

i never beat or hurt my son i will start with that but one day we were walking into his school, he is four. i was holding his hand and and leading him through the parking lot i guess we were walking too close to the cars and i lead him right into the side mirror of the car he got a big knot on his forehead. when we got into the school he walked right up to his teacher and said look mom threw me into a car and i hit my head. i was so embarrassed. i explained what happened but i still got that look like i was horrible.

My 5 month old daughter sleeps with her hands behind her head and scratches herself during the night. People are always telling me "it looks like she needs her nails cut!" I clip them 3 times a week! My girl is just vicious!

yeah just the other day I was shopping with my 3 year old a wally mart and while I was paying he jumped onto the side of the cart and it tipped on top of him. (Thankfully I didnt buy much stuff he was just fine) The cashier wanted me to fill out an incident report as if it was their fault I told them no thank u.

At my sister house once she has kids who are very smart so i envy them so bad they speak Hebrew so they started to talk to me in Hebrew yes i understood we had a great convo but then she asked my kids what do they do for fun and they said mommy told us to lie to you that we spoked Hebrew even thought we dont i felt so bad for myself i told her we had to go home