Moms, imagine this nightmarish scenario: you take your daughter to a park for a family outing, where you have an unpleasant disagreement with your husband. Realizing that you both need time to cool off, you and your husband decide to leave in separate vehicles. In the confusion and emotional stress, both of you assume your daughter is with someone else. Still angry and wanting space from your husband, you head to a relative's house to spend the night -- only to learn 12 hours later that your daughter had been left behind, alone at the park.

This is what happened to a Kansas City couple recently, who accidentally left their 4-year-old at a park after both parents had a terrible miscommunication over who would be bringing little Zayshia Harris home. As if the mistake wasn't bad enough, now Harris is with a foster family as authorities work to determine if the parents should regain custody or not.

Josh and Amanda Harris live with their five children, and they were fighting before they headed to a lake on Saturday with some friends. The disagreement continued at the park, and the parents -- who took separate vehicles -- left without talking to one another. Amanda Harris believed her stepmother was responsible for taking her 4-year-old daughter Zayshia home, and Josh believed Zayshia was with Amanda, but in fact no one managed to collect the girl before everyone left.

That's when Amanda chose to spend the night elsewhere. Both parents continued to believe the other person had Zayshia, since they never got in contact with one another.

Zayshia was found in the playground area near the front entrance, and police took control of the girl after the parents couldn't be located. More than 12 hours later, Amanda was alerted by a relative who saw Zayshia's photo on the local news channel's Facebook page. According to Amanda,

So I called her dad screaming and crying and trying to see where she was. Then that's when he starts screaming, 'She's with you. She's with you.' And we just kept screaming and yelling.

Amanda rushed to the police department, where she learned her daughter was in foster care. A judge will determine later this week whether the child should be returned to the care of her parents, but until then, she remains in protective care.

Oh man. On the one hand, it's hard for me to wrap my head around how this could happen because I can't personally imagine a scenario where I'm so mad at my husband, I don't even check in before spending the night away from home. But I know fights happen, and considering this is a big family and there were lots of people involved that day, I can see how it was a horrible accident rather than a case of outright negligence. Thank god she was found safe and sound and hadn't wandered into the lake.

It does seem really sad that the girl is in foster care while the authorities verify this couple's separate accounts of what happened. Assuming it really was an awful mistake, you know they already feel devastated by the whole thing. It must feel like a bad dream to not being able to bring their daughter home, and I'm sure it's scary for Zayshia too.

The parents say they've learned their lesson from this incident. Amanda says,

My daughter is going with me from now on. If someone needs a ride, I'm sorry, but my girls are staying in my car.

Josh, to his wife:

From now on, when there's an argument, I'm sleeping on the couch, and you can have the bedroom.

What do you think about this story -- does it seem right that the child is in foster care while authorities figure it out?

Image via ajari/Flickr

All children, regardless of how much in day care costs or tuition their families pay, deserve to be treated with the utmost respect. But when we hear about pricey private schools, we often assume administrators are providing them with the highest quality of care.

Not true at the Goddard School in Woodbridge, Virginia, where a teacher has been charged with assault and battery for reportedly biting a toddler after the 13-month-old bit her colleague. And when the owner of the school found out about the incident, rather than report the teacher, she allegedly kept it under wraps -- and told a staff member who had witnessed it not to call cops or Child Protective Services.

Theresa Brown, 24, is the teacher who has been accused of biting the baby as a totally deranged way of teaching him a lesson after he did what so many toddlers do and bit another teacher. She apparently bit him hard enough to leave a bite mark on the child, though it is unclear whether he needed medical attention.

When a different teacher told Nadia Choudhry, the daughter of the owners of the school, about what had happened, she reportedly told the witness not to say anything. She may have kept it quiet forever if not for an anonymous call that was made to CPS the following day reporting the crime.

Brown was released on $2,000 secured bond. Information about Choudhry's bond has not been made public.

The young woman was set to take over the school, which serves children as young as newborns and as old as kindergarten-age, but her parents have wisely issued a statement making it clear she has been fired. Brown, as you can guess, has also been let go.

Since each Goddard school is independently operated, it's impossible to quote an exact tuition cost, but a friend of mine sends her child to a well-regarded Goddard school in New York City and pays about $800 a month. She is extremely happy with them and believes the institution is worth every penny. But it's crucial to remember that a school or day care is only as good as its staff and that sincerity is a quality that you can't buy.

Assuming they're guilty as charged, two bad apples shouldn't spoil the bunch.

Are you surprised something like this happened at a costly private school?

Image via Woodbridge Police Department

Horrifying is the only way to describe the accident that took the life of a toddler at a church in Alabama. According to reports, the 22-month-old fell into the baptismal tank and drowned at the Pentecostal House of Prayer in Decatur. The story of how he ended up there is just heartbreaking.

The little boy was being looked after by one of his teenage sisters. It seems that he wandered away and was found in just 33 inches of water. Despite fervent attempts to resuscitate him, he died.

Needless to say, his mother is devastated. Already the parent of two teen girls, she had prayed for years for a son, according to the church pastor Bishop TD Strong. "Twenty-two months ago he gave her a son," Strong said. "And 22 months later he was taken away. I've been preaching 30 years and pastoring for 20 years, this is the first time in my ministry I've been speechless."

It's easy to see why he's so stunned. No words can adequately describe how senseless this death seems to us all. A poor, innocent baby just taken away in an instance. It is a painful reminder of how easy it is for them to find danger in the seemingly safest of places. At a time like this, it's easy to pass blame. Undoubtedly, people will wonder why a child that young was allowed to wander off. But anyone with small children knows how they can sprint away quickly and a deadly accident can happen in a matter of moments. Sadly, this could have happened to anyone, anywhere. Our hearts go out to that family -- and especially the teen who was looking after her brother and the heartbroken mother.

Are there any words of comfort at a time like this?

Image via © SW Productions/Design Pics/Corbis

Leaving a 4-year-old home alone sounds like the kind of thing only an egregiously irresponsible parent would do, right? Or is it? Charles D. Clemons, Jr. is an upstanding citizen, the head basketball coach for a high school in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a fifth-grade teacher. His father is a state representative. Yet Clemons, who is married and has three children, is charged with risk of injury to a minor after leaving his 4-year-old son home alone so he could reportedly get in a workout at a gym.

The boy was reportedly found wandering the streets in his pajamas, one sock on, the other barefoot, and saying his house was on fire since an alarm was going off.

A neighbor called the boy's father when police arrived to check out the fire -- there turned out not to be one -- and Clemons arrived a short time later, apparently then admitting he had left the boy alone to go to the gym.

Clemons' lawyer says:

Like all of us, he is not a perfect human being and appears to have made an isolated mistake. Clearly, this is an aberration and he should not be crucified for this human error.

No one should be crucified for an error, and hopefully this was an aberration. But what if the house HAD been on fire? What if the little boy, wandering the streets alone, had stumbled into a ditch or a lake? Or into the wrong hands? There are very good reasons you don't leave a child home alone this young.

Also, I have to wonder what will happen to this dad. He faces 10 years in prison -- surely much too harsh for a crime of this magnitude. However, will he suffer the same punishment that, say, a single teen mother who was out drinking with her boyfriend would?

Something tells me Clemons will not be punished nor judged as harshly as a struggling young mom would be.

The boy has been temporarily turned over to a relative.

Do you think he should go to jail? What would you say about a young mother who was off doing something not as "wholesome" as going to the gym?

Image via Tex Texin/Flickr

President Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize winner, launched a series of airstrikes into Syria this week, bombing 20 or more targets. Actually, even though I may poke fun at Mr. Peacemaker, bombing the heck out of terrorist cells is probably the most peaceful thing we could possibly do.

You see, one of the terrorist organizations, the Khorasan Group, was reportedly plotting attacks against the United States and other Western targets. Obama described the group as "seasoned al Qaeda operatives in Syria," and military intelligence had recently learned that they were "planning imminent attacks against Western targets to include the U.S. homeland."

Ack! Yeah, terrorist attacks on American soil are a very, very bad idea for Islamic extremists who don't have a death wish, but unfortunately, most of them do. Something about 72 virgins.

Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told Good Morning America on Tuesday, "It was on that basis that we struck targets, Khorasan targets, inside Syria. We believe the individuals [who] were plotting and planning it have been eliminated and we’re going to continue, as I said, to assess the effectiveness of our strikes going through today."

In a televised statement from the White House, President Obama said, "Once again, it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and try to do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people."

So with all the turmoil in the Middle East, ISIS growing in size and influence, and so many refugees fleeing their homes ... it's not hard to see that we have a huge global humanitarian problem.

So naturally, the president also went to the U.N. Tuesday to talk about the "threat" that will "define the contours of this century more than any other."

Er, um ... except he wasn't talking about ISIS or Middle East unrest. Nope, Obama was addressing ... climate change.

"Climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it. The alarm bells keep ringing. Our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we don’t hear them," the leader of the free world told delegates at the U.N. Climate Summit in New York.

"We have to tackle this global threat before it’s too late."

And that's your Tuesday in global politics, ladies and gents!

Do you think ISIS or climate change is a bigger threat to the global population?

Image via The U.S. Army/Flickr

A mother from Missouri did what most moms would but should never have to do: she saved her daughter's life and sacrificed her own. Colleen Segbers, 33, died after she was struck by an SUV while walking toward a Walgreens store on Monday evening with her 10-year-old daughter, Gwen. When a vehicle suddenly sped up and made its way toward them, Colleen had just seconds to react. She selflessly thought of Gwen and not herself by pushing the child out of harm's way and saving her life. Sadly, she did not survive the horrific accident.

The driver of the SUV, who is described as a 58-year-old woman, was reportedly attempting to park in a handicap spot in the Walgreens parking lot. She says she thought she had put her vehicle in park but hadn't, and it started to roll. When she tried to stop it, she says she stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake. Trying to avoid a pillar, she reportedly swerved around it -- only to hit and instantly kill Colleen, who got pinned between the woman's vehicle and the pillar.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise money for Gwen and for Colleen's funeral expenses. Nearly $20,000 has already been collected in less than 24 hours. On the page, Colleen's friend describes her as a woman with a "beautiful free spirit" and says "Colleen had less than a second to react but managed to move Gwen out of the way before she was struck and pinned between the vehicle and the building. Tragically, she did not survive and Gwen must continue this journey without her mother and best friend."

More from The Stir: Mom Shot in the Head by Marine Husband Hid Their Baby in a Toilet Bowl

Your heart just aches for this little girl. Obviously, Gwen and everyone else in her family would give anything to have Colleen back. But we can at least feel good about one thing: Gwen's role model in life will always serve as a true inspiration to her. There's no doubt about the intense love Colleen felt for Gwen, and her daughter should be proud of what she did for her.

What's the bravest thing you've ever heard of a parent doing to keep his or her child safe?

Image via GoFundMe

When my kids get too loud, I often send them outside. But even their outdoor voices can be too noisy, and I've been known to come barreling out the back door to add to the cacophony: "DYLAN! RILEY! TAKE IT DOWN ABOUT FIVE NOTCHES!"

I can't imagine how I would feel if one of my neighbors sent me a nasty letter telling me the entire neighborhood was "exasperated" by the sounds of my kids playing, but that's exactly what happened to Sarah Cloutier and Guy Doré. Someone left them an anonymous note complaining about the noise level created by their three children, two of which have special needs. Cloutier said the letter was so upsetting, she cried when she first read it.

Sarah Cloutier's daughter Laurence, 7, has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and they believe her 4-year-old son Olivier also has the disorder. Her oldest son, 9-year-old Antoine, does not have ADHD. She says an anonymous letter was left in the family's mailbox last Friday, which read,

Many of us are exasperated by the screams of your children. We even think your children can only express themselves by yelling and don’t know how to talk.

The note went on to say the situation was becoming "unlivable." Cloutier admits her kids do scream occasionally when they play outside (what kids don't?), but mostly interact like normal children -- and that she was devastated the neighbor hadn't come to her personally about the issue.

I thought, 'Everybody hates us. They hate our kids.' It was sad. (...) For someone who doesn’t know us to judge us like that and the quality of our parenting? As a society, we need to respect each other and be able to talk with each other without sending a hurtful letter like that to someone you don’t really know.

Obviously I can't say how "unlivable" their neighborhood situation is because I don't know what the kids really sound like, but I do know that kids who scream a lot when they're playing are annoying to be around. It's annoying to ME when my own children scream, and that's when they get into trouble -- for one thing, I can't tell when someone's hurt, for another thing, UGH JUST STOP IT.

So I sympathize with the neighbor who is fed up with the noise. I really do, because it sucks when you want to relax in your backyard and you're being assaulted with the earsplitting shrieks of what sounds like a pack of deranged howler monkeys. I shut my kids down when I feel like they're getting too loud, but it's possible I have a different breaking point, noise-wise, than my neighbors do.

Which is why I really hope they'd come talk to me if it was becoming a problem, or at least send me an email. Not leave a shitty anonymous note that insults my parenting. It's like if I had a neighbor whose dog was barking all the time, the first step is to talk to them about it, not call the police.

I don't know if the children's ADHD contributes to the yelling or not, but since it was mentioned in the story, I'd guess it's a factor. It shouldn't excuse the parents from teaching their kids to be quieter if they're too loud, but it might have helped the angry neighbor be more understanding -- if only he or she had talked to them instead of taking the poison pen letter route.

Cloutier and Doré say they've gone around and talked with at least 10 neighbors within earshot of their house and no one confessed to writing the note. In fact, most people reacted with kindness, and some even cried when they read the letter.

It was heartwarming to see how nice they were with us. We mostly feel really lucky to have such good neighbors.

What's crazy is they probably talked with the exact person who left the note, and they acted completely differently when they had to interact with actual human beings who have feelings. And that's why they should have talked to these parents in the first place, because the whole thing might have been resolved without making two people -- who may be doing their best in a challenging situation -- feel so badly.

Do you think it's ever okay to leave a note like this?

Image via katerha/Flickr

Video showing a heavily pregnant woman being thrown to the ground belly first by police in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is making the rounds, and it's shocking to behold. Cops had been trying to arrest Sandra Amezquita's 17-year-old son when she reportedly heard him crying that he was being beaten. Bear in mind, this is a reality for many, especially in certain neighborhoods. Amezquita and her husband tried to intervene and that's when cops threw the 5-months-pregnant woman to the ground as her husband yelled for them stop.

Amezquita’s husband Ronel Lemos said he was worried they were going to kill the baby and his wife. He told the New York Daily News:

You would think the police would respect a woman that is pregnant ... I was afraid something happened to my baby. I am still afraid that something is wrong.

Lemos says that his wife suffered vaginal bleeding after the incident, as well as cuts and bruises. His wife was given a summons for disorderly conduct.

It all started when police tried to arrest Amezquita’s teenage son, and according to him, they planted a razor blade on him during the arrest while they told him, "We’re going to make sure this time, it sticks."

Supposedly Amezquita saw this happen and ran over to intervene. That's when the cops pounced on her.

The video shows her struggling before the takedown and shows her belly protruding enormously. There's no way they couldn't have known she was pregnant. Take a look:

See this video on The Stir by CafeMom.

This is the second time in two weeks that police have used a heavy hand with the residents of Sunset Park, which is not a high crime neighborhood. It is heavily Latino. In the first incident, now being investigated, cops brawled with vendors who didn't close up their food selling stations fast enough, and one cop was suspended after kicking a vendor who was being cuffed.

More from The Stir: Cops Taser Pregnant Woman 3 Times Over Driving Violation

It really seems that the NYPD needs better training. Their first line of defense seems to be to escalate a situation rather than defuse it. I live in NYC, and believe me, I have seen some cops with a major chip on their shoulders and major attitude. I have also dealt with some who were kind and professional. Unfortunately it's the bad ones who not only get the press, but who stick in your mind. The NYPD's motto is "Courtesy. Professionalism. Respect." Some cops really don't seem to understand this motto.

There's got to be a better way to deal with an unarmed pregnant woman who only stood five feet four inches tall. Seriously!

Image via Felix Schlapfer/Flickr

For some reason, a really powerful and accurate piece by a Forbes author was deleted yesterday. Thanks to the web caching capabilities of the Internet, however, we can still read it, and marvel at how true it is. It's titled "Drunk Female Guests Are the Gravest Threat to Fraternities," and I think you'll agree with every single one of contributor Bill Frezza's points.

What's really amazing about this post, aside from the incredibly appropriate accompanying image which depicts a young woman provocatively swilling from a bottle of wine while splayed out on the floor, is the fact that Bill Frezza is the President of The Beta Foundation, the house corporation for the Chi Phi fraternity at MIT. It's deeply heartwarming and not at all terrifying to know this person is in a position to advise young fraternity bros and help them develop healthy, respectful attitudes toward women.

Frezza begins his searing social commentary with the line, "I realize this headline is click-bait, but I believe it to be true." Many a piece of prize-winning journalism has started in this way, but Frezza goes on to exceed the reader's expectationa as he explores his groundbreaking theory:

As recriminations against fraternities mount and panicked college administrators search for an easy out, one factor doesn’t seem to be getting sufficient analysis: drunk female guests.

My god, finally someone has summoned the courage to identify the real culprit driving the assaults, injuries, and horrifying misconduct that frequently happens in our nation's universities. It's drunk female guests, a growing plague that continually ravages the finest of frat bro societies. Helpless in the wake of these unholy Boones-Farm-scented sirens, frat bros are in fact the victims, as I'm glad Mr. Frezza has pointed out.

He goes on:

(…) we have very little control over women who walk in the door carrying enough pre-gaming booze in their bellies to render them unconscious before the night is through. (…) In our age of sexual equality, why drunk female students are almost never characterized as irresponsible jerks is a question I leave to the feminists. But it is precisely those irresponsible women that the brothers must be trained to identify and protect against, because all it takes is one to bring an entire fraternity system down.

INDEED, Mr. Frezza! The answer is so clear: we need specialized military training programs to help fraternity men properly identify the enemy and take her out before she can bring shame to the brothers' household. Well, it's really a two-pronged approach: train them, and serve them beer.

As I wrote in my recent column “Ban Kegs From Fraternity Parties? Require Them Instead!,” the best way to reduce the incentive to furtively chug half a bottle of vodka before going out for a night of fun is by lowering the drinking age to 18 while encouraging the consumption of beer over distilled spirits. Alas, this is not going to happen any time soon.

In order to prevent unwanted outcomes such as the false accusation of rape -- so MANY of those assault cases turn out to be fake, obviously! -- Frezza suggests,

Identify drunks at the door. I don’t care how pretty or flirtatious a young lady is; if she’s visibly intoxicated, don’t let her in. Although we were once reprimanded for turning away a drunk female student who ultimately required an ambulance when she passed out on our sidewalk, it would have gone a lot worse for us had she collapsed inside.

WHEW CLOSE CALL. Thank god for the quick thinking of these fraternity brothers who probably gathered around this student and engaged in lascivious poses for the sake of an amusing selfie instead of making sure she was okay.

Frezza, who I would like once more to remind you is the president of one of the oldest and "most respected" fraternity chapters at MIT, muses that while you can probably get away with rape, it'll be a total pain and bring unfair judgement upon your bros:

And while a rape charge under these circumstances is unlikely to hold up in a court of law, it doesn’t take much for a campus kangaroo court to get you expelled, ruining your life while saddling your fraternity with a reputation for harboring rapists.

In conclusion, Frezza says "rather than blaming the institutions that house and educate them, the only defense is extreme vigilance." Do you hear that, fraternity brothers across the land? EXTREME vigilance. He's so right, and I can't believe no one's said it before now: fraternities are filled with well-behaved sober young men who are being continually unfairly treated by drunken females clamoring for aggressive sex they will later regret. Bless this man for sharing his wise opinions with the world, and I simply can't imagine why Forbes deleted the post after approximately half a horrified second yesterday.

Seriously on a scale from oh my god to HOLY SHIT I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS, how do you rate this guy's "Drunk Female Guests Are the Gravest Threat to Fraternities" article?

Image via tmab2003/Flickr

Just when you think you've heard it all, well, you hear something else. A mother has been arrested after a cop stopped her for having a taillight out and heard crying coming from ... the trunk. The cop reportedly opened the trunk and found what inside, you might ask? Why, a baby. Yes, yes, he found a baby. In. The. Trunk! So what happened, you might ask, quite horrified. Was this baby kidnapped? No, that would make too much sense. Reportedly, the baby's mother, who was driving the vehicle, put her there. Because ... wait for it ... she didn't have a car seat.

Breona Synclair Watkins, 19, was pulled over in Florida, after sheriff's deputies spotted her taillight out. Okay, no biggie. But seeing police car lights in her rear view mirror, Watkins was allegedly only worried about one thing -- that her 5-month-old baby was also in the car, but not strapped into a car seat.

So the young mom did what she had to do -- she handed the baby to her 14-year-old passenger (unclear if they are related), and the passenger stuck the baby into the trunk through an opening in the back seat.

When cops saw the baby, he or she was lying in the trunk on a pair of shears, and there were reportedly other dangerous items surrounding the child, including a rusty metal hanger, a tire iron, and a used gas can. 

The temperature in the trunk was also noticeably warmer, according to deputies.

The mom reportedly confessed that she had pulled this epic mom fail so she wouldn't get a ticket for not having the baby restrained.

Well, I suppose if you're going to have a baby in a trunk, at least this reason isn't as nefarious as it could have been. Presumably mom would have taken the baby out as soon as the cops drove away.

Should we feel sorry for this teen mom that she apparently can't afford a car seat? Nope. I found car seats going for as low as $10 on Craigslist in South Florida. Plus, I imagine she could have gotten one at a women's shelter or church if she couldn't afford even that.

Why on Earth wouldn't a mom have a car seat? Maybe she was just making a quick run and didn't want to bother with it? Who knows.

More from The Stir: Mom Arrested For Driving with Kids on Top of Car Wanted to Protect Seats (VIDEO)

But the lack of a car seat will now cost her dearly -- due to that boneheaded move, she has a $7,000 jail bond and several serious charges against her. I'm guessing she would have gotten off much easier if the cops had just seen the lack of a car seat.

Have you ever driven without a car seat?

Image via Broward County Sheriff's Office

It's impossible to live in a city of any size and never encounter a panhandler. Given these hard financial times, thousands of people beg on the streets for money to eat, shelter, and clothe themselves or their children. Sometimes they are met with the milk of human kindness, but often times they are rudely rebuffed. So one man took it upon himself to point out those who generously lend a helping hand in what has to be the sweetest prank ever orchestrated.

Dawson Burley, who can only be described as a professional YouTube prankster, decided to pose as a homeless man in need of spare change. For those who gave him anything, he would return the kindness by giving them back their donation along with $20. While the negative reactions are heartbreaking -- one guy gruffly tells him, "You need to get a job" -- it's the response from the givers that is noteworthy, many of which had very little themselves. Take a look.

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It's so touching to see how shocked these generous people are when their money plus a $20 bill are handed to them. They are even a little bit concerned -- they really wanted to help the guy out. When they realized it was a "prank," they are then touched that he would go out of his way to show his appreciation. Though, the best part was when he encountered Charna Foley, who just recently got off the streets and was struggling to find a job. She summed up the plight perfectly: "Trying to get a job when you are homeless, it's tough. You've got to be clean, you've got to be presentable, you've got to have a good attitude about yourself. When you are homeless, you don't feel like that." She had been looking for work for three months with no luck, but she hasn't given up. Gurley has since set up a PayPal fund for people who want to help her.

It really is lovely. This entire video reminds us about the spirit of giving -- that we should do it with open hearts, without expectation, and good things will happen to us in return.

Do you give to panhandlers?

Image © Keith Levit/Design Pics/Corbis

Once upon a time, not so long ago, when you were reprimanded by a neighbor, teacher -- any adult, whether you were from the same gene pool or not -- you listened. And, if you didn't listen, you got twice the scolding at home. The child who even thought of raising her hands to a grownup was a rare one -- and always the same kid you heard spent time in juvie years later.

It breaks my heart to hear that a group of young teens riding a New York City subway took such great offense to being asked, politely it seems, not to curse in front of children on the train that they reportedly beat a young woman with such savage force, she was knocked unconscious. And all because she had the nerve to attempt to teach them a little bit of good, old-fashioned respect.

"Amanda," who is 21, says she was riding on the G Train in Brooklyn on the afternoon of September 10 when a group of kids got on and began talking loudly about some fight they had just been involved in and how they beat the tar out of someone.

Now, since we all know that kids a) make up stories, b) have a strong desire to be liked by their peers and embellish the truth, and c) seem unable to reliably gauge the volume of their voices, we often overlook a lot of what we hear them say in public places.

But the teens apparently woke up two sleeping children with their loud cussing, Amanda says. When their father asked them to keep it down, Amanda says she reminded the kids not to curse in front of children and "to be more respectful."

And just like that, she opened up the floodgates to ridicule. She says the teens called her a "b****" and waved their fingers in her face to provoke her to fight them. 

Amanda admits she eventually ended up cursing at the girls, which we all know isn't going to resolve anything -- and Amanda admits that she realized this, too, but couldn't help herself. When the train pulled into her station and she began to get off, she says three of the girls shoved her and that she pushed one back.

Oh boy.

She was then jumped by the rest of the group, she says, and beaten so badly on the train that her body went numb. She somehow ended up on the train platform but still has no idea how she got there, which is just scary. Thankfully, the man on the train who initially asked the teens to be quiet helped peel them off the young woman, but seriously, are you telling me just one person on the entire train helped her as she was being jumped by a gang of kids?!

Even though cops were nearby and they apprehended the three girls and reportedly arrested a 14-year-old girl for assault and disorderly conduct, you might say the teens won in this case because Amanda says she will never, ever open her mouth like that again. This is just sad because there are children and teens who need to be reminded of rules, who benefit from these reminders. But if the consequence to speaking to other people's children like they're your own is bodily harm, I can't say I blame Amanda for choosing silence.

I still believe it takes a village to raise children, but the reality is looking a lot more like Lord of the Flies.

Do you think adults should reprimand children and teens in public or mind their own business?

Image via Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York/Flickr

In 2013, one of the world's top financiers up and quit his job with no real explanation. While the rest of us were bemoaning the impending finale of Breaking Bad, the finance world was in a tizzy over PIMCO's Mohamed El-Erian's abrupt departure from his $100 million a year job heading a $2 trillion investment firm.

Now El-Erian has come clean about the real reason he left it all behind -- or all 22 of them, as the case may be. It turns out that his 10-year-old daughter had presented him with a list of 22 things he'd missed in her life that year, and he called it "a wake-up call" that his work-life balance was extremely out of whack.

He explained:

About a year ago, I asked my daughter several times to do something -- brush her teeth, I think it was -- with no success. I reminded her that it was not so long ago that she would have immediately responded, and I wouldn’t have had to ask her multiple times; she would have known from my tone of voice that I was serious.

She asked me to wait a minute, went to her room and came back with a piece of paper. It was a list that she had compiled of her important events and activities that I had missed due to work commitments.

Talk about a wake-up call. The list contained 22 items, from her first day at school and first soccer match of the season to a parent-teacher meeting and a Halloween parade. And the school year wasn’t yet over.

I felt awful and got defensive: I had a good excuse for each missed event! Travel, important meetings, an urgent phone call, sudden to-do.

But it dawned on me that I was missing an infinitely more important point. As much as I could rationalize it -- as I had rationalized it -- my work-life balance had gotten way out of whack, and the imbalance was hurting my very special relationship with my daughter. I was not making nearly enough time for her.

Wowza. It's one thing to cut back on some hours, try to make one or two important events, but El-Erian decided to walk away from a $100 million a year job -- one that even had him rubbing elbows with President Obama.

Most bigwigs at this level would've brushed off their 10-year-old, or maybe patiently explained to them that they had to work so hard so that they could have all the nice things that they do. Instead, this guy quit his job that had him starting work at 1 o'clock in morning so that he could take his daughter to school in the morning.

He hasn't quit work entirely -- he's taken on a "portfolio of part-time jobs" that allows him the flexibility to be with his family that he craved. The 56-year-old was quick to point out that he knows how fortunate he is to be able to have this choice, as many people in America, particularly single-parent or lower-income homes, don't have the option of working less to spend more time with their kids.

It's stories like these that remind me to say a quick prayer of gratitude for my job and even my kids' dad. I was married to one of those workaholic types (unfortunately not the $100 million/year kind, but still), and we barely saw him. The little we did see of him was miserable, because he was always stressed out about work. It's not why we ended up divorced, but it sure didn't help.

It was a kick in the pants for him for sure, and now he's a fantastic dad with a more flexible schedule and more time for his girls. I know he will never regret having this time with them while they are still little. And me? Even though I'm a single mom now, I have this fabulous job as a writer that allows me to work from home and around my kids' schedule.

Mohamed El-Erian certainly made a controversial choice with his career path, and no doubt he gave up a lot of power, prestige, and wealth -- but what he got in return is something money can't buy.

Would you give up $100 million a year to spend more time with your family?

Image via World Economic Forum/Flickr

With Ferguson and Michael Brown still fresh in our minds, it's hard not to tense up every time the phrase "police shooting" comes up. As such, news of a 14-year-old fatally shot by a police officer in Louisiana is cause of concern. The immediate question that comes to mind: was he unarmed?

According to the police, there was a weapon in the vicinity. A sheriff's deputy was responding to a call about armed suspects running into an abandoned house when the shooting occurred. Five people were reported going into the home -- two minors and an 18-year-old were arrested while a fourth person ran out the back door.

Cameron Tillman, a freshman in high school, was killed. A "weapon" was reportedly found "in close proximity" to the child's body. However, police did not say what type of weapon it was, so it may not have been a gun. It's unclear what, if anything, Tillman and the other boys actually did wrong. He's described as a great athlete who lived near that abandoned house he died in.

I am sure more details will come to light in the days to come. And during that time, family and friends will surely paint one story and the police will paint another. These cases always boil down to THEY said, THEY said. There may be protests. There may even be more violence because incidents like this leave people scared, angry, and confused. Though no matter who shouts the loudest or what is said, one thing cannot be disputed -- a kid's life was cut entirely too short.

Do these stories of police shootings make you more fearful of the police?

Image © Reuters/CORBIS

I'm rolling my eyes at you, Jefferson County School Board, and your whack-a-doodle Advanced Placement US History curriculum. And I'm applauding the teachers and the students who are protesting it for its anti-American teachings.

In fact, these kids are probably getting a better education by practicing their first amendment right to free speech than they would stuck at a desk in AP US History in this county, because a new proposal to review the way it's taught says, "Materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife, or disregard of the law."

I'm sorry, say what now? One of our most fundamental rights as Americans -- the very thing that makes us Americans -- may be taught as a bad idea? No one tell Hillary Clinton! She very famously has said that dissent is patriotic, and we have every right to debate and disagree with the government.

You know who disregarded the law? Martin Luther King, Jr. Oh, but the kids wouldn't know who that guy was, because he's left out of the proposed new curriculum. Benjamin Franklin too -- another rebel rouser. Geez, do they even teach the American Revolution at all? Because that was an entire army of badly behaved Brits disregarding English law and establishing their own damn country.

This seems like the perfect place for a wonderful quote from the leader of the Civil Rights Movement himself. MLK, Jr. once said, "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

The teachers and students protesting the new material are supported by the Jefferson County Education Association, whose president, John Ford, said, "I think it's awesome that students understand and recognize their first amendment rights and they're taking action." He added, "Trying to create a board that in some ways purifies our curriculum is a little bit concerning and somewhat chilling."

Dozens of students walked out of classes in at least seven high schools in the district this week, after a teacher-staged and orchestrated "sick-out" last Friday that shut down two of the schools.

Good for them. It's a crash course in the American way.

Do you think high schoolers should be taught not to question the government?

Image via Mike Oliveri/Flickr

Chances are, you haven't thought about former Saturday Night Live cast member Rob Schneider in a few years, if ever, at all. But the actor has been thrust into the spotlight this week after it was revealed he has been dropped by State Farm and will no longer appear in the insurance company's commercials because of his anti-vaccine views.

After the company received a barrage of complaints from people who were upset and outraged over Schneider's role as a spokesman for State Farm, it pulled its "Richmeister" commercials because they were attracting far too much negative attention.

Schneider, a father of two, lobbied against a California state billin 2012 that made it a requirement for parents to obtain a doctor's consent before they could be exempt from state vax requirements. And while he's entitled to his views, his recent rant about his freedom of speech rights being stripped from him doesn't hold water.

Just as Schneider has the right to say what he wants about vaccinations, State Farm is also entitled to make business decisions that are profitable. And the bottom line here is: the actor was obstructing its ability to make more money, so he had to go.

Obviously, Schneider isn't happy about being fired and expressed his thoughts via Twitter with a quote from George Washington: "'If the Freedom of Speech is taken away the dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.'" He has been quoted in the past as saying, "Vaccines have been glorified as the be all end all for diseases, and frankly it's just a theory."

Ah, the freedom of speech card. Here's what it provides for you: the right to express your views without being thrown in prison or executed because of them. Here's what it isn't: an excuse you can use to keep your job as the spokesperson for a company that sells health insurance plans when an issue for which you are a vocal supporter has, arguably, resulted in the resurgence of diseases that we thought were eradicated years ago. 

State Farm did what was best for State Farm. Period. And that's not a bad thing -- it's a smart business decision. 

Here's a video that has been making the rounds. It takes Schneider's original commercial and puts a pro-vax spin on it:

See this video on The Stir by CafeMom.

Do you agree with State Farm for pulling Rob Schneider's commercial?

Image via YouTube

A 37-year-old woman allegedly lured a mother of two young children to her ex-boyfriend's home under the guise of giving her baby clothes, only to shoot her in the head and try to claim the children as her own. Catherine Goins, 37, is accused of meeting the mom and offering her some baby clothes, which the mom, 30-year-old Natalia Roberts, came to pick up at Goins' ex-boyfriend's home in Catoosa County, Georgia, with her baby and toddler in tow. According to police, Goins shot Roberts in the head as she was walking down the stairs, and then fled the crime scene with Roberts' two children.

Goins had apparently been faking being pregnant and hoped to pass off Roberts' 3-week-old baby as her own. It's unclear what she planned to do with Roberts' other child, a 3-year-old.

First, Goins' reportedly called her on-off boyfriend, Tony Richards, and told him she had shot an intruder in his home. She told police she had shot at a shadowy figure on the staircase. But her story soon fell apart when Richards returned home and found the dead woman. He then called Goins, who had Roberts' two children, and convinced her to return to the house.

Goins, who didn't know Roberts before the murder, had apparently been faking being pregnant, but when her boyfriend (either Richards or another man, it's unclear) found out she wasn't, he left her. Goins then allegedly concocted the plan to steal Roberts' baby and pass the baby off as her own.

Sounds like not only a diabolical plan, but a ludicrous one. How on Earth did this woman allegedly think she was going to get away with shooting a mom in cold blood -- one who happened to have two children -- and then showing up with those exact same children and claiming they were hers? Especially a 3-year-old, whom no one had ever seen her with before and whom Roberts' family could easily identify?

As cold-blooded and horrific as this is, sounds like the woman isn't all there.

Unfortunately, pregnant women and women with newborns do need to know there are some crazed baby snatchers out there, and it's truly a shame that women can't simply trust strangers to help them out. Of course, they're few and far between (thankfully), and the vast majority of people are trustworthy, but why take the chance?

As for women who do this kind of thing, they give all women a bad name. I really can't think of anything much more evil than killing a woman to steal her child.

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Image via Catoosa County Sheriff's Office

A little girl came to her mom's rescue after a man allegedly broke into their house and began stabbing the mom. Leonardo Henry, 25, is accused of bashing in his ex-girlfriend's back door, entering the home, and stabbing her several times. The woman's 11-year-old daughter then allegedly ran for a gun and shot him several times. Both the mom and Henry are in the hospital and expected to survive.

The woman had apparently been scared of the man and had an order of protection against him. She had accused him of molesting several children in the neighborhood and was worried he would come back to her and exact revenge. That's reportedly what he tried to do.

According to a neighbor, the woman is also pregnant. It's unclear if the attacker is the father of the baby.

But he must not have expected that while he allegedly stabbed his ex-girlfriend in the eye, neck, and chest that the mom's brave daughter would wield a gun, take aim, and hit him several times in their home in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Reportedly, the man was able to stumble out of the house but didn't get too far before collapsing.

The man's sister, Emma Spence, told KFOR:

It’s gruesome. It makes me sick. I salute [the daughter]. I'm 21 years old and I don't know how to use a gun.

While what the girl did was amazing and brave, she will probably still have emotional scars from the ordeal. It's horrible that she had to witness that, and had to come to her mother's defense.

Police say that so far the shooting seems to be justified and are not planning on charging her. Seems more like they should give her a medal -- and hopefully some counseling, because she very well may need it.

And let's salute the mom too who reported her boyfriend to authorities even though she had every reason to be terrified of him.

Image via KFOR

I'm sure a lot of teachers use humor as a coping method when their jobs get frustrating. I'm sure a lot of teachers even joke to their students about how they occasionally imagine various fictional ways to get the kids to pay attention in class, like maybe through the use of helpful robots that encourage the kids to focus. But robots that also carry out the teacher's command to execute every teenager who acts out in class? I'm pretty sure as a parent that would worry me, so I'm not surprised a San Diego County teacher was forced to resign for voicing that exact fantasy.

High school biology teacher Tuyet-Mai Thi Vo resigned from Oceanside Unified School District after she was investigated for telling her students that if she could, she'd program cyborgs to kill any student who misbehaved or didn't turn in their homework. Interestingly, she then received a glowing letter of recommendation from the superintendent and collected a $92,000 settlement on her way out the door.

Wait, I can get paid almost 100 grand for threatening children with an army of Cylons? Where do I sign up for this intriguing job opportunity?

According to a district report,

Ms. Vo told her class that if robots were teachers, Ms. Vo would program the robot to shoot the students every time the students didn’t pay attention, talked back, or even talked at all. Ms. Vo told her class she would program the robot to zap the students with a Taser if the students failed to complete homework assignments or arrived late to class. Ms. Vo told her class she would program the robot to kill all of the students.

That's what the students claim, anyway. After the investigation, which included reports of other hostile encounters including allegations Vo once "forcefully grabbed and ripped a student’s shirt," she was put on paid leave from January 23, 2012 until June 30, 2013, before leaving district employment with the cash settlement, plus 18 more months of family health benefits (which are still in effect) at a cost of $1,949 a month.

Vo had also apparently refused to sign an 2012 assistance plan about her quality of instruction, which noted that more than 70 percent of students in her five science classes received a D or F grade after 12 weeks. In June of 2012, the superintendent wrote that Vo "jeopardized the safety and welfare of the district’s staff and students by engaging in immoral conduct not befitting a teacher," but weirdly, he went on to write her a recommendation letter after she resigned, praising her “commitment to the academic achievement of students." Whaaaat?

As for Vo's side of the story:

That is not reflective of who I am. What the district claimed was alleged. Alleged means they are not true. (...) No one forced the superintendent to sign, and they know that letter of recommendation is an affirmation that this whole thing was wrong and it’s clear as a bell

An attorney who's been reviewing teacher dismissal administrative hearings from 2003 to 2013 says the system often prevents bad teachers from being terminated with cause:

I certainly don’t think the current system is working. We have so many protections in the law in California today against discriminatory behavior by employers, and especially public employers, we don’t need all those (teacher) protections today. They are only there as obstacles. They are a compliance list and they don’t go to the heart of the matter, which is, should the person be teaching students or not?

But don't worry -- Vo doesn't want to go back into teaching. Her goal:

To eventually move out of the classroom to administration where I can best support teachers and students and to serve the community the best way I can. That’s why the letter of recommendation is for an administrative position.

Oh okay she wants to move into administration, that sounds perfectly ... uhhhh, wait. Yikes.

Honestly, I don't know what really happened here, but it sounds like there was a decent amount of evidence that this woman wasn't a great teacher. I'd definitely be concerned if my kids' teacher's class was consistently getting such low grades year after year, and unless she was making a Battlestar Galactica joke, telling her students that she wished she could kill them with giant robots is no good. Pretty scary that she collected so much cash and may be moving on to an even more integral education position.

What do you think about this? Does it seem fishy this teacher received such inconsistent feedback about her job performance?

Image via cayoup/Flickr

They say it takes a village to raise a child -- and sometimes it takes a village to nab a sex offender. Shawn David Hayes, who was sentenced to five years in prison in 2002 for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, wasfound in a house living with seven kids -- and it's thanks to persistent neighbors that he was smoked out. Hayes had reportedly disappeared off the radar screen three years ago and hadn't registered in Pasadena, Texas, as a sex offender. So no one knew he was actually living with several children, including at least one that was his own. Thankfully, eagle-eyed neighbors caught on to his suspicious behavior.

Neighbors said they had a feeling that the home's resident was up to no good, that there were cars coming and going at all hours. "There was stop and go traffic like Christmastime at the mall," a neighbor told KHOU.

Through a mobile phone app called iWatchHarrisCounty, neighbors began policing the home's activities. The police ended up putting the home under surveillance.

Eventually, authorities were able to get enough evidence to raid the house. There, they allegedly found guns, surveillance cameras, and drugs. Oh, and seven children. One report says one of the children was his, but it's unclear where the rest of the children came from, which is very, very scary.

Interesting idea, this app. In this case, neighbors really came to the rescue of these children. But I could also see it being a tool for nosy neighbors to over-report ridiculous nonsense. Still, better to be on the safe side and let cops figure out what is worth investigating and what isn't.

Thankfully, these neighbors didn't turn a blind eye to what they saw. Now someone needs to figure out how these kids got with this man! So far, it's unclear what will happen to them.

Have you ever reported a neighbor for anything?

Image via Padadena Sheriff's Office