What kind of parent takes his/her children shopping on Black Friday morning?
I posed that question last year in a blog and got a variety of answers.
Personally, I wouldn’t dream of dragging my child out of bed at 3, 4, 5 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving, so that she could sit in a cart while I tried to score deals on Christmas gifts.
But that’s just me. Apparently, some parents don’t share the same philosophy.
Take for example the Georgia couple that ditched their kids last week, so they could snag Black Friday deals. According to police, instead of leaving their sleepy children at home with a babysitter OR simply not venturing out to Wal-Mart at 5 a.m. on the busiest shopping day of the year, the budget-conscious parents left their kids alone in a shopping cart while they ran around the store grabbing doorbuster deals.
The 35-year-old dad later explained to authorities that he left his 9-year-old and 9-month-old children in a shopping cart because he thought the kids would slow him down. Ditto for the 31-year-old mom, who said she figured the kids would be fine in the midst of the mayhem that is Wal-Mart on Black Friday.
Fortunately, the children were not harmed, or kidnapped, or accidentally rung up and bagged while their parents were scooping up reduced price electronics.
Instead, the kids were looked after by law enforcement officers while their mom and dad were charged with reckless conduct.
How’s that for irony?
I bet the fee for reckless conduct likely negates any savings they scored on Black Friday.
If you ask me, I think they should have been charged with neglect (which comes with a stiffer penalty) rather than a misdemeanor reckless conduct charge. I mean, come on, they left their children in the vortex of a shopping tornado because they thought the kids would SLOW. THEM. DOWN.
Geez!
What do you make of the Black Friday brouhaha?
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