Why Do We Judge Parents for Putting Kids at Perceived But Unreal Risk?

I understand the overall thrust of this article, but I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that my judgement of morality should have no impact on my judgement of the risk to a child.

For instance a parent that would leave a 2-year old alone to go play pokemon probably has other terrible parenting judgement/skills and most likely the environment they leave the kid in IS actually more dangerous than someone who accidentally leaves their kid alone.

They are standardizing risk assessment across all environments, but that's statistics not reality. Certainly some peoples moral assessments have gone overboard (it's crazy that kids can't go to the park unattended when they reach a general maturity). But I don't think it's unreal to assess the risk to a child as higher if you also think their parents are amoral and likely bad parents. Those kids ARE probably at higher risk in my opinion, either from their parents not being as cautious at establishing a healthy environment or in not being good enough parents to teach their kids how to behave in a safe manner when left alone.

EDIT - I should have read the article, sounds like the child was not only not asleep but in pretty bad condition.

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It doesn't say if the 2-year-old was asleep (does it? skimmed the article) - if it was asleep in a crib then it was probably in very little danger. When we lived in an apartment we would sometimes put the baby down and when we were sure he was asleep we'd go to the apartment hot tub. The hot tub was right under our room, we could see our front entryway and the baby's window. We would also start a phone call and leave one phone in the baby's room and take the other with us on mute as a longer distance baby-monitor. I don't think this was putting our son in danger.

If their kid was sleeping and they stayed in range of a baby monitor, what is the risk there? Yes, it makes sense to make the risk higher if you perceive a parent as less apt, however, we are fast to judge that aptitude without knowing much of the context.

The OP really just uses the title of the news article as a sort of segue. Reading the news article itself shows that the parents were fairly negligent.

>According to the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, a neighbor found the 2-year-old boy outside his home in the 700 block of East Payton Street Thursday night and called authorities.

>Deputies arrived and found the child screaming and crying, attempting to get into the residence. They said the boy was barefoot and wearing only a diaper and a T-shirt. The child was reportedly red-faced, sweaty and dirty.

If you ever see a kid alone outside the best course of action is to call cops.

1. If you try talking to kid while the kid is alone you might be charged as a sex offender, attempt to kidnap and what not. 2. If you dont try to help and if something happens to the kid may be later you might face some charges or come under suspicion.

This is absolutely nothing to with what you feel and think. The risks for not calling cops are simply very high.