Friday, October 13, 2006

A Hypothetical Situation On Which You Are Coordially Invited to Comment

Let's say there are two parents and four children. Let us further assume that two children, the girl children, go off for a sleepover. Thus, we have two parents and two children. Two boy children.

One parent decides to put the older boy to bed. That parent opens the gate designed to keep the baby from climbing the stairs and takes the very heavy older child up to bed. The second parent remains downstairs with the baby but does not explicitly assume responsibility for the baby.

The parent who opened the gate did not close it. The parent who remained downstairs with the baby went to check email.

The baby, sensing this was perhaps his one chance to discover the nirvana that surely awaited at the top of the stairs, the forbidden room from which he is cruelly separated by the aforementioned gate, quietly began his climb and made it all the way to the second floor, whereupon the parent who went upstairs shrieked.

Now, readers, I ask you: Which parent is at fault? Please choose only the BEST answer from the choices below.

A. The parent who went upstairs and did not close the gate.
B. The parent who remained downstairs with the baby.
C. Mr. WG, regardless of which parent he is.
D. WG, for argument's sake, although she is always blameless and WE KNOW THIS

Please leave your answer in the form of a comment.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The answer is B, although since, apparently, nothing bad happened to the baby, there is really no 'fault' to be concerned about.

Dee said...

Humph...I say whichever parent didn't keep an eye on the baby downstairs while the other parent took the older child up to bed.

But I'm just saying is all :-)

Anonymous said...

I assume that the parent who was caring the kid to the second floor had his hands full - since the kid is 55 lbs and all - so HE COULD NOT close the gate and HE assumed that his responsible wife (that's what HE thought) would take care of the baby for a few minutes...instaed she decided to check her email...while the other parent was PARENTING...realy who's fault is it? and yes nothing happened to the baby...infact HE allowed the kid to do it again this morning WHILE WATCHING HIM!

Anonymous said...

Clearly it is the parent who was left with the baby downstairs. It is that person's duty to make sure the baby is safe and sound at all times.

WriterGrrl said...

Um, my peeps, you are not exactly helping. Let's take a GOOD HARD LOOK at the person who LEFT THE GATE OPEN, shall we?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I hate to say it but I would go with the parent who was downstairs watching the baby. Just a technicality, really.

Anonymous said...

Sorry WG, I didn't read the comments before I added my 2 cents. I'd love to have your back on this one but I still sorta gotta go with Mr. WG on this one. Although he messed up too! No dessert for either one of you tonight!

Anonymous said...

Umm (cautiously raises hand), I am surprised that I am in the minority here, but I think it's the parent who didn't close the gate. Why would that parent not close the gate? Or at least say, "hey, i'm not closing the gate--do you have the baby?" Why would he assume that the other parent knew he didn't close the gate and should, therefore, keep a closer eye on the baby?

I was going to say this even before I knew that I would be implicating Mr. WG. Sorry, Mr.

sourpatchbaby said...

It depends on where the baby was when the first parent left. If baby was within eyesight of second parent, then its that parent's fault. If not, then how was the second parent to know that the first parent left baby downstairs. But I still place the blame on the second parent.