[bumpkin]

hi, mel_g20

Second what you said. We trust our children but not in that way or that much. Most of young children are fearless and anything could happen because of that. They have no idea what can be danger to them. So if we have to apply mind-my-own-business rule, I simply would draw some distance from them, just to avoid any possible lawsuit.

[carang]

sorry, if it comes to safety, i WOULD NOT hold my tongue.

no climbing on tables, playing near water (without supervision), playing with electrical outlets.

if you DIDN'T say something, you would be negligent. (it seems to me that is what your friends are).

some parents are so worried about being their child's friend, they forget to be parents!

you child will have many friends in their life, however, they will only ever have two parents, so act like parents, your kid's will thank you for it!

[elizaveta]

Well that's the whole point - I did say that child was playing alone at the pool without supervision and they just ignored that. I did not call the police - no.

I could add to the story actually. Some time ago they found their child standing OUTSIDE the window in her (of course!) non childproofed room. Do you think it improved their view on security or childproofing? No. After a short panic, the window is still wide open last time I visited.

Back to the topic: even if you say something you cannot always change people's view on parenting even in such drastic episodes. So I would rather agree with previous post - distance from people that do not share your parenting point of view on some important topics, whatever is important to you, for me that's security.

[Neha]

i dont think u have to stop being friends with someone because they are not good parents according to u. You did your job telling them their daughter was all alone and if they didnt take your advise and something was to happen to their daughter ( hope not) but that would not be your problem. Yes true i wouldnot leave them to babysit my child , but i would not distance my self from a friend because I dont like the way she takes care or in this kid lack of care of her kid

[mel_g20]

I am not sure that I could continue to be too close in this situation. If the house was unsafe I would not really want to visit. And sometimes there are times where you need a friends help to watch your kids just for afew minutes. You wouldnt trust then to do that. It would be difficult to not make it obvious that you didnt trust them, which would just make things uncomfortable.

[MayC]

I think it really depends.

If a child's safety is at risk, I would say something. For example, if her child is playing with sharp objects, if he/she is near a non-childproof window or if he/she is near a pool unsupervised.

However, I would NOT like it if someone was on my back for everything I do. For example, my inlaws (mother in law + sister in law). I took a lot of crap from them.... criticising me for not sending my child to a "free" school here, for not putting layers and layers of clothing on her when it's so hot, for breastfeeding my daughter, for my daughter's lack of interest in reciting chinese poems and for her inability to recognise her alphabets and numbers at the age of 2. In fact, my SIL who is a real hypocrite criticised me for sending my daughter to a private local school at a monthly fee of 2.4k a year ago, yet now she's sending her 3 year old son to New Zealand for 2 years on his own (with only his grandma) because her friend who is a doctor said that the English standard in the local school here is poor. In addition, after criticising me for breastfeeding my little girl, she went and did it herself. Now I'm being criticised because her son, at the age of 2, could recognise his abcs, 123s and could recite more than 10 Chinese poems and I haven't done the same with mine.

I mean and I truly mean this... everyone should mind their own business. We all have different ways of bringing up our children and we all have different values. Not two mothers are alike... and what makes a mother think that her ways are better than other mothers? I mean, even if you're good at one thing, it does not mean you're good at another.

Mothers should respect each other. After all, no mothers would purposely try to hurt or disadvantage their own children.

I believe that another mother's intervention should purely be at a "safety" level. If you see danger, then by all means don't just stand there. But when it comes to parenting, we all have our own right to do what we feel is good for our OWN children.

So sorry to sound so bitter.. I've just had some really aweful experience of this from my Chinese inlaws...

[dctoki]

MayC - You hit the nail on the head for me. I feel exactly the same as you!

[mumto2]

Thanks to everyone for their opinions - some very valuable insights in all comments made...

So as for me? I guess I'm the paralysed headshaker smiling silently until I get home, rant about it to my husband, get told off by him and told to not worry about how others raise their children and then am glad I did since it is actually nice to get different points of view on raising children and respecting mums' and the hard job we all do...lol...