Story Archive

ZT Spills Into Real Life More Every Day

When an unnamed 10-year-old brat in White Plains, N.Y., called police asking them to “come and take his mother away because she was pressuring him to do his homework,” as the resulting police report puts it, officers did in fact respond. When they found the mother wasn’t at home, but rather working the lunch shift as a waitress at a local restaurant, they went there and did the boy’s bidding — arresting her on charges of “endangering the welfare of a child” for leaving the boy home alone. The mother faces up to a year in jail, plus the state’s Child Protective Services agency is conducting an investigation. The law in New York is completely mute about how old a child must be to be left alone. The judge in the case released her without posting bail pending a hearing, but under the condition that she never leave the boy home alone. (RC/White Plains Journal News) ...When I was 10, I was a babysitter.