Every kid deserves a parent, but not every parent deserves a kid. How some people raise, or fail to raise, their kids is enough to lift anyone’s eyebrows. Whether they let them run wild or are painfully strict with them, as a stranger, there’s not much you can do to intervene.

When one woman came across two preschoolers playing alone on her porch, she tried to find out where they lived or where their “grown-up” was, to no avail. So, she called the cops, but now she’s wondering if that was a jerk move after the kids’ mom showed up unimpressed.

More info: Reddit

Some people’s parenting skills are dubious at best, as this woman discovered when she found two preschoolers playing on her porch without an adult in sight

Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)

After trying to find out where they lived and where their parents were with no luck, the 3-year-old boy demanded toys and water from her

Image credits: Mental Health America (MHA) / Pexels (not the actual photo)

At a loss for what to do about the situation, the woman called the police and explained her preschooler predicament

Image credits: Dom J / Pexels (not the actual photo)

The police turned up and located the kids’ mother several blocks away, who turned up thoroughly unimpressed

Image credits: Lost_Consideration90

Feeling slightly guilty, the woman took to the web to ask if she was a jerk for calling the cops

OP begins her story by telling the community that one day she heard kids playing on her porch, but when her daughter opened the door, two preschoolers jumped up and ran towards the road. This unnerved OP since both kids were so young; a 3-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl. 

When they saw OP’s children, the kids came back to the porch, but OP realized she’d never seen them before and there wasn’t an adult in sight. OP tried to ask them where they lived, where their grown-up was, or if she could walk them home, all to no avail. 

Concerned for their safety, OP decided to call the non-emergency police line to explain the situation. The cops arrived 20 minutes later and turned up the kids’ mom about 10 houses down the street. According to OP, the mom kept glaring at her while the cops were talking to her. After that she took a while to round up her kids and leave.

The woman went on to add some details about the kids’ behavior while she was waiting for the police. While the little girl refused to say a word, her younger brother was rather entitled, telling the woman to bring out toys and yelling at her for not delivering a “big” bottle of water. 

OP adds that when she told her best friend and mom about it, they agreed she’d done the right thing, but OP’s boyfriend suspected the kids’ mother might not be in the US fully legally, hence her staring daggers at OP.

In an update to her post, OP thanked the readers for all their advice and said that she’d called CPS after they’d pointed out the signs of potential abuse and negligence.

Image credits: Elina Fairytale / Pexels (not the actual photo)

You can’t parent someone else’s kids, but what would you do in the face of point-blank problematic parenting? Have a quiet word? Try to ignore it? Whip out your phone and post it to TikTok while you publicly lambast the so-called parents? 

In her article for VeryWellMind, Kendra Cherry writes that uninvolved parenting, also typically termed neglectful parenting, is a parenting style typified by a lack of responsiveness to a child’s needs. According to Cherry, uninvolved parents make few to no demands of their kids and they are often dismissive, indifferent, or even entirely neglectful.   

Common patterns of behavior for uninvolved parents include acting emotionally distant from their children, limiting interactions with their kids because they’re too overwhelmed by their own problems, providing little or no supervision, showing little love or affection towards their children, and setting few or no expectations or demands for behavior. 

In her article for Healthline, Sara Lindberg writes that kids without positive parenting are more at risk for their own relationship troubles, depression, anxiety, and aggression, among other negative outcomes such a negative self-perception, control issues and rebellion, and emotional and behavioral problems.

So, what should you do if you find yourself in the position where disciplining someone else’s kid becomes necessary? 

In her article for KidSpot, Charlotte Willis writes that catching other people’s kids behaving badly can place parents in a sticky situation. 

Unfortunately, according to parenting expert and author Dr Justin Coulson, there aren’t any hard and fast rules, but some suggested options include approaching the parents, approaching the child with a view to teaching them or guiding them, or intervening if there’s immediate danger involved.

Bearing all this in mind, OP probably did the best thing possible for the neglected kids in the scenario – their mother certainly needed the reality check.

What would you have done if you’d found yourself in OP’s shoes? Do you think her calling the cops was the right thing to do? Let us know your opinion in the comments!

In the comments, netizens were divided, but most agreed that the kids’ mother wasn’t fit to call herself a parent

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