As kids, my sister & I were forced to endure hours of travel, suffer desert heat, sleep in strange rooms. For what? All to see a mouse in California?
My parents practically got away with murder.
At least, that would be the perception of some geniuses here in Orlando after we all heard the hard-breaking news story of the week, which is sure to be a tremendous boost to tourism.
Starting with the quick-reacting maids at a Disney hotel who then called the all-wise police who then called the ever discerning family services, a family was saved from the same fate I suffered in childhood. Whew.
The crime was ghastly. Two small children, aged two & four, were rescued from the perils of their evil family when two angelic maids entered the hotel room, no doubt pretending not to be able to read the "do not disturb" sign on the door. The horror they found is almost too graphic to describe. But I must...
Inside the quiet room, amidst unpacked suitcases & perhaps a few dirty towels thrown on the floor, the two-year-old was in her diaper, buried under blankets on the first king-size bed, sleeping. The four-year-old was sprawled out on the other bed, in his underwear, sucking his thumb, twitching, lost in a nightmare that likely had him remembering leaving the security of the wonderful foster system to come live with this horrible family who rips kids out of their home in Michigan to force them to go to Disney World. This was clearly a dangerous situation.
Huh?
Anyhow, the saviors - I mean the maids - looked around for the parents. They waited. And waited. Time ticked away. FIVE WHOLE MINUTES!
Time to call the police.
Now the manhunt was on for the abusive foster parents who would leave their sleeping tots in an air conditioned room for a nap while they went off with their bouncing-off-the-walls six-year-old nephew into the 95-degree heat...to play in the pool.
After a grueling two-hour search, the parents were finally located at the pool, & the wheels of justice finally started spinning in favor of the children.
Family Services was called in from Michigan, & you can guess the happy ending!
The parents were arrested, fined $4,000 & banned from Disney. The children were taken back to Michigan's all-loving Family Services system to live happily ever after.
The end?
I gotta say that I'm pretty embarrassed to live in Orlando right now. Apparently, this Mickey Mouse town is in the business of arresting people for made-up crimes.
To think that if such "do-no-gooders" (as my mom calls them) had been around when I was a kid, I could have been spared the pain of a childhood spent traveling with my parents, who were entertainers. When very young, my sister & I both slept in guitar cases instead of cribs while on the road. It was terrible.
Um - well - actually, it was wonderful. The number of times we were left alone in hotel rooms at all ages is too astronomical to count. Sometimes 15 minutes. Sometimes six hours while Mom & Dad went to do a show. It was so hard to be alone in a hotel room. Nothing but unlimited snacks, a blaring TV, one (sometimes two) trampolines (beds) to occupy our abused little selves.
Yes, I know that 2009 is not the same as 1969, but kids are still the same. Parents are still the same. Parents & kids need a break from each other, even (or especially) when on vacation.
If you're thinking that the maids and the police and Family Services did NOT overreact, enlighten me.
Undoubtedly, my parents deprived me of a normal childhood. I'm so screwed up I can't think of a punchline for this. I just want to punch someone! But that's clearly a result of my bad upbringing. Thanks, Mom.
(CLICK HERE to see the original story)
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ReplyDeleteI've gone on to look at message boards that follow this story online. Wow.
ReplyDeleteI must live in the Twilight Zone. The assumption, starting with the maids & extending to every person posting on forums out there, is that these are the most horrible people in the world to have left the children alone.
The assumption is that they callously left the kids crawling half naked on the floor, slammed the door behind them to selfishly catch some rays, and went merrily to play with their "blood relative" (the nephew), intentionally leaving the foster kids who are nothing more than a paycheck from the state to them.
Really?
Is that what YOU think?
Sure, the parents could have made another choice, but the choice they did make is not criminal. It's not even negligent. I personally don't even think it was a bad choice based on what we know. Their biggest mistake was probably not putting the "do not disturb" sign on the door, if indeed they didn't. The report doesn't say.
If you start from the shocking assumption that these are normal, average, good parents (which is evident if you do a little research on them), you come to the conclusion that they had two tired toddlers (with a history of taking uneventful midday naps) and one rambunctious 6-year-old. When the toddlers crashed, it was the obvious decision to let them sleep for a couple hours while they went to help the 6-year-old burn off energy, and, yes, perhaps a little relaxation themselves.
We don't know those decision-making details. Perhaps I should not assume they are good parents. But perhaps the crazies on forums should not assume they are criminally motivated dirtbags either.
One thing they obviously left out of this news story is that the hotel must have been the Tower Of Terror, and we've all entered the Twilight Zone.