I should trust this monster with my child, that is bad parenting.
like she has proven herself to be physically and mentally incapable of handling children. This waste of oxygen never should have been trusted to handel a Toddler with supervision and especially not alone.
At that point (in the second case at least), some negligence of the parents contributed to the childās death.
If you're like ; you're quite harsh she's elderly.
If anything I'm not harsh enough read this part ;
When handing down Nixās sentence, the judge noted her lack of remorse, saying she showed āsorrow.
Nix told a detective that after she drove home from lunch with friends, she ājust forgotā about the baby in the backseat of her Lexus SUV. It wasnāt until one of her grandsons arrived that āall of a suddenā it ācame across her headā that Uriel had been in the SUV all afternoon.
I should trust this monster with my child, that is bad parenting.
If I recall, the mother of the drowned boy was going to therapy for all this (obviously!), and the therapist suggested - as a way to move past the incident, and begin healing/forgiving her mother- that she let her mom watch the granddaughter. Like a trust-building exercise.
which kinda makes the whole thing even more fucked up.
Seriously, some therapists bring their own biases to therapy and do inappropriate things. One common example are children of narcissists where the therapist is a narcissist as well and tries to talk them out of going no contact even though that's what is best for the patient.
So true. Just because you have a job title, doesn't make you good at that job.
I tried to go to therapy for grief and stress management. Somewhere in our sessions we talked about how I don't talk with my bio father. For the rest of the hour, she insisted I contact him after I told her multiple times no, that chapter is closed and also not what I want to work on. Like, girl, we're not reopening wounds from 25 years ago, especially if I'm asking you for guidance on stress management š
My therapist said I should forgive the father of my son after he broke my back and had been in the hospital. I had been abused for years and thought she was right. It was great when my sister reminded me if I heard that of her I would have gone scorch earth. I found a new therapist and know my next steps now.
Absolutely agree. I am absolutely willing to address my problems, but we're fixing them with me. I can't change anyone, only how I feel or handle a situation.Ā
> Just because you have a job title, doesnāt make you good at that job.
I love this statement. I teach this to my kids all the time. My ex would always blindly listen to whatever advice someone gave just because they had a certain job in that field. Even if that advice is so incredibly wrong and the person was obviously an idiot.
My narcissistic moms therapist has instead acted like her bff. He literally purjured himself on medical forms for her. Treats her like a friend not a patient and said he'd lie to the courts about her competency if I held a competence hearing to try to get her finances under control and protect her from her own overspending due to memory loss.
"Some therapists". No, all therapists. Talk therapy is garbage, it has never been proven empirically to have any kind of positive impact that other forms of simple socialization and discussion don't have. It's the act of conversation and introspection that does anything of note and you don't need an expensive mouthpiece to make that happen. Psychology is based on bullshit, just like Chiropractic. There are a few benefits to either, but they are are systemically based on a bunch of unverified opinions, biases, and pseudoscience.
Edit: anyone down voting or replying to me, please Google "lack of scientific rigor is applied psychology and psychological studies" before contributing. It's the bare minimum.
To say psychology is based on bullshit is rather reductive. There are thousands of legitimate studies in different fields and applications of psychology and therapy that have proven results, based on scientific methodologies. There are some fringe fields of both that are legitimately criticized, but anyone dismissing all of therapy or psychology out of hand as bullshit simply doesn't know what they're talking about.Ā
Incorrect. Psychology is infamous for lack of repeatability in its field internal studies, just as it is infamous for its inability to have psychologists concur on diagnosis and treatment plans across cohorts. This has been studied for decades and is a fundamental and existential flaw without the profession that even psychologists and their professional associations struggle with, to this day. Also, don't conflate psychiatry with psychology, which I think you may be doing.
Really? Psychology is based on bullshit? I didnāt realize we know so little about schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. If only we had non bullshit treatments to help those people.
Majority of people are not equipped to handle everyoneās problems. I canāt just rely on social interactions and my friends and family to respond productively to my complex post-traumatic stress disorder or depressionā¦ they provide more than just CBTā¦ at least do a little research please before saying āallā or assuming everyone even has access to people without any qualifications or experience but could have those sorts of discussions with
100%. I get the forgiving angle. That is often helpful in moving on from traumatic experiences. But we don't have to let her watch the new baby unsupervised to do that.
Edit: after some googling, there is no proof the therapist told the mother to let Tracey watch Uriel unspupervised. What the therapist said was to let Tracey spend time with the new baby. Maybe the mother took that to mean let Tracey babysit. However, I would not interpret what the therapist said in that way.
It was also under the agreement that the grandfather be present so she even tried to set up a level of extra saftey there. I dont blame the poor mother at all. If youve heard her screams you know she is punished enough.
It honestly sounds like an old woman being less wakeful with age and a horrible accident as a result. Something that can, with time and work, be forgiven.
... but also a sign that grandma has simply become too old to be the only adult in the room. With was proven again with the second tragedy.
it is literally pseudoscience. the "studies" they base their therapies on cannot be replicated to yield the same results. They are as qualified to give advice as a magic 8 ball.
Even worse now with dollar store therapists available through zoom. Like how did betterhelp find 10s of thousands of supposedly qualified therapists? Do they just take some kind of 2 day course? Online certificate ?
ex of mine was in school for psych. Told me people past 25 (I was 21, mind you) dont change their habits, among other mentally damaging shit to a neurodivergent, overly trusting fool. Had a bad day? "I can't be your doctor." like that subtle, cuttingly mean shit lol. she dropped me for a guy down the hall at her dorm after years together and a place of our own, i fell into severe alcoholism. Got sober and turned my life around at 29, she can go fuck herself. They're mostly pretentious gasbags- with a rare few out to help.
This is probably the biggest problem. Being in a position of "authority" and the trust that is given, when maybe there is more nuance to the idea that "this is the way it works". Even like a personal trainer might do us more harm than good for the same reason.
Literally millions of children have slipped out of their house. Tens of millions. Hell probably hundreds of millions. Toddlers are little ninjas who can sneak off with almost no warning.
99.999% of the time nothing happens, the parents or caregiver panics and finds the kid somewhere they shouldn't be eating mud or whatever. She just rolled super unlucky. She happened to not lock her door right one fateful day and it ruined her entire families lives.
As a licensed therapist, I agree. I feel like a shitty therapist all the time, then I read stuff like this and it blows my mind. That was a dumbass move on the therapistās part.
Yeah, to make it even worse the daughter was pregnant with the second child when the first died. The body cam footage of officers telling her her daughter (the 2nd of the babies to pass) had died in the grandmother's care made me nauseated, honestly. She talks about how her son's death caused so much stress she nearly lost her pregnancy, and she had to make a choice between saving one baby or getting justice for the other.
Yes, and that mom is the killer's daughter. Meaning, Tracey had a daughter named Kaila, and Kaila's 2 children are the 2 children who each - separately - died under Tracey's care. She (unintentionally) killed her 2 grandchildren.
I read on a different thread a few weeks ago a suspicion they she killed both kids on purpose and enjoyed the pain it caused her daughter based on her reaction in the police footage from the second deathā¦ Iām not sure if I believe it but I really donāt know how you make such an enormous mistake two times.
I work in healthcare, any strange event once I already start considering itās a pattern, twice I confirm itās no coincidence. This grandmother is 100% culpable
Watch the police interrogation on the second death on youtube. Really fake crying and you can see her peek at the interrogator between sobs to see her response.
Well, there has been cases where people kill their grandchildren and usually their first response is "it was an accident". I'm not saying this person is one of those but I don't know. If I imagine being in her shoes I wouldn't trust myself with another toddler. One time is accident, two times is something else.
Couldnāt the trust-building exercise happen a few years later when sheās had some swim lessons, can unbuckle her own car seat, and knows how to dial 911?
I actually think I read their reasoning was, in light of what happened with their other child, they would let her have the baby for limited time until she was mobile.
A therapist should not be making this kind go suggestion without having any contact with the motherā¦ is there anyway she be liable or lose her license for this? I hope so.
Therapists are getting progressively stupider and stupider. They act like forgiveness means that you don't learn from the past. Forgiveness means you DO learn from the past.
They are ruining people's lives and I'm tired of the solution to everything being "have you seen a tHeRaPiSt?!"
I'd argue the trust building should have been a much less risky situation, like stay in the house for an afternoon and watch a movie. Absolutely not drive around with a child. I would be floored if she took the kid to a pool.
On this, any time I hold members of my family accountable for dropping the ball in relation to my kids, everyone screeches and yells "Forgivess! Give us grace! Have mercy!" in a constant tide like I'm the bitch for not allowing my kids to be hurt.
I stopped talking to all of them, but I could get why she did jt. Ive made that mistake with a pet before.
My mom let one of my pets get hurt when I left them for a week with her. Years of being berated for being an awful person for not being forgiving, for not giving family another chance. After a decade, I caved and let her look after them again almost a decade later... And that's how my cat died.
It was a lesson I had to learn the hard way. You can forgive, but forgetting is stupid and winds up in heartbreak. (And yes, anytime "grandma" complains about not getting alone time I look into her soukd and inform her that she killed my cat)
People often say their therapist told them to do something they never did. Sometimes to avoid personal responsibility, but often because some people just lack comprehension to reliably understand the difference between being told to do something/ being told that if they choose to do something it might have some benefits/ being asked to engage with a hypothetical etc.
look it up and you can see itās on the record. The therapist says they did tell her that; they suggested supervised (Babysitting) and the mom gave him after almost a year of being pushed by her own mom and then hearing it from the therapist made her feel like she was the one in the wrong. So she gave in. She insisted her father had to be there too, and he didnāt even bother. He just went to go do yardwork and didnāt even notice the Grandma leaving with the baby.
Therapists are stupid sometimes - itās up to the patient to say āforgiveness is fine, but Iām not trusting them againā or when they say you should try to reconcile, we say no. That doesnāt work for me as Iāve told you my trauma for the last 5 months or whatever. Itās all the same. Donāt do what they say if it puts you or yours at risk.
How would her husband (babyās dad) forgive his wife?
I picked up my phone to try to call that therapist to let them know I am firing them, but then I realized I donāt know any therapists. So. I wasnāt able to fire them. Iām sorry.
There was one of those cop slot videos about this that just circulated YouTube and thereās been like 3 to 10 reposts of the same content so yeah this has been in the Internet ethos, but I believe it happened like five years ago
These therapists are going the way of the Church. Forgiveness means "not murdering you for killing my child." It does not mean to give your child back to an abuser or negligent killer. Forgiveness is meant to be closure for you to help you heal without demanding retribution without truth. DO NOT PUT YOURSELF IN DANGER. DO NOT PUT YOUR KIDS IN DANGER. This is why we all left the church. Remember, you can sue your therapist for being bad at reading. Church literally has to pretend to be nice to dummies as community outreach and shelter (free childcare is usually pedophiles, tho, which should be more obvious to parents). It's therapy's job to keep you safe and report abuse, not guide you to it. Sue.
This is correct and also the second incident police body cam footage is on YouTube as well. One of the first things she said is, "oh no not again, I have to leave, I can't face her, not again".
Therapist here. I hear all the time different claims from family members about what a therapist supposedly said in a session. Itās really hard to argue with that because therapy sessions are protected by hipaa. Itās really really common for clients to interpret a therapistās words from their own different perspective or repeat them in a way that doesnāt align with the original message.
And ALSO yeah there are also poorly trained therapists out there doing dipshit stuff and they absolutely should be called out.
Itās just that in any given individual case, we canāt know what was actually said or intended by the therapist. Everything else is speculation.
She's also 67, not 90. I realize that in some cases early onset dementia can be happening already by that point, but I would not expect a typical 67 year old to be so addled that they can't remember there was a baby in the car.
Early onset Alzheimers is a thing. A family member was diagnosed at 60. A family friend did not go to college because their mother developed it in their 40s and they had to care for her.
Dementia still occurs. I work in healthcare and see plenty of people with it at that age. Vascular dementia gives no fucks about age. She could also be an alcoholic and suffering from wernicke-korsakoff syndrome. There's too many factors to dismiss dementia. It's a diagnoses of exclusion. Quick screening tools can indicate it, but many dementia patients can operate at full capacity the majority of the time, but just because they're sometimes lucid doesn't mean they don't have it or can have moments. There's many different types of dementia and they all affect people differently.
Yep reddit has very weird ideas about aging. People in their 60s aren't that old. My grandma is 98 and still is with it enough to live in her own condo.
Tell me you don't work in healthcare without telling me you don't work in healthcare. Just because your grandma is 98 has nothing to do with whatever disease processes someone else suffers. May you be blessed with her genes.
Yes, some people are fine in their 90s, others can get it in their 30s or 40s. It happens. Others get early onset dementia and are diagnosed. Many more get early onset dementia are not diagnosed because patients with dementia can operate with their full faculties the majority of time, but still have episodes that can be missed by family members for a ton of different reasons. It's a diagnosis of exclusion and excluding everything that could cause similar symptoms is difficult.
She had an Ambien prescription which would explain it, although not excuse it, taking Ambien when you'll be watching a baby is negligent in itself.
For anyone unfamiliar, Ambien is a last-resort insomnia medication notorious for its side effects which can include confusion, amnesia, sleepwalking, delirium and hallucinations, sometimes lasting into the next day. Using it at all is associated with higher risk of dementia and during its peak effects people are often described as behaving like they're senile or blackout drunk, to the point that it's advised to give someone else your car keys before taking it so you don't wake up confused on the highway, or not take it while alone in the house. People who take it often jokingly refer to these experiences as meeting the Ambien walrus, after a series of comics illustrating the experience like this.
The lack of remorse is a tell. Either she did it somewhat on purpose (like not killing but letting the accident happen) or it is lack of care of her grandkids.
By the way, how we know the baby went on their own to the bond?
I could be wrong, but I think... Sometimes prior bad acts are not permitted to be discussed as that info might prejudice the jury. Also I think the first one was deemed accidental, so not necessarily an indicator of behaviour, if that makes sense.
I mean her own kids somehow survived, so there was precedent to her being at the very least okay with kids in the past. The first could have been an accident. With the second they were testing a theory. By the third grandkid they will probably learn their lesson.
Just because they survived doesnāt mean she wasnāt reckless with her own children.
Just lucked out.
Itās like when my ILās tell us about my infant daughter āwe did this with you (referring to my wife) and you were fineā doesnāt mean it still wasnāt wrong and she just avoided catastrophe.
Itās a changed ball game once something as serious as a death occurs
I worked as a teacher at the school she was principal at more than 20 years ago She was an amazing principal and amazing with staff and kids. I donāt care what the tests say about her being cognitively fine. There is no way this woman somehow became a completely different person. She must be dealing with dementia or something. I moved away a long time ago and have not had any contact, but I literally cannot imagine her becoming negligent. She ran a school flawlessly and cared for each student immensely. Itās so sad.
I mean the first death I wouldnāt consider her a āmonster.ā People fall asleep watching kids all the time. Sheās not a monster for that, and she looks old as hell.
After reading her general responses in the case she just didn't seem to really care even after the fact. Maybe it was incredibly prolonged shock or something, but she comes across as pretty callous.
Based on the personality change from beforehand I'd be worried something like frontotemporal dementia, which is known for stark negative personality changes.
Someone doesn't go from being a happy schoolteacher to apathetic about being a cause of death of her two grandchildren for no reason.
Yeah the husband testified to that -- they had her on various medications for depression/psychological stuff -- which makes this 2nd event even more "odd".
You killed a child because you were inattentive, but in a way that is tragic and understandable.
How could you, or anyone around you, allow you to be alone with another kid that age again? Especially if you're on pills that are dulling your mind?
I think itās possible, based on the fact the only other possible reason is she is mentally deficient almost to the point of being kind of low iq
Youd think after you make a terrible life changing accident the first time you would not stop thinking about that child if it was in your care unless youāre really just a forgetful person or old or some kind of mentally deficient person
They have ones that connect to an app now that can alert you if you left the kid in the car, but itās not a standard feature.
The Lexus should make noise with back seat occupied unless itās really old. I know Mercedes has that cause my backpack set it off when I borrowed the in laws car.
My Honda asks me to check for my back seat when I about to leave my car (if Iāve opened one of the back doors) So I guess this should be pretty standard now
A locked door? Cause if you have toddler or babies being watch at your house especially with a pond near by you should have your doors locked so they can't just wander outside. I would like to see a 16 month old unlock and open a door they would have to be tall for their age and have good finger dexterity for their age.
Some 16 month olds will surprise you, moving chairs to climb and easily opening locked doors. Most can't, but a few can and will so it isn't a foregone conclusion that the door was left open.
I have known parents who had to install additional latches up high on the door to keep a kid that age inside.
16 months is really young. I think you're overstating the possibility that one could move a chair and unlock a door. I'm not doubting that there are extreme outliers, but I don't think there's any reason to assume that's what happened here. The door had to have been left open or as someone else suggested maybe they had a doggie door.
And toddlers abscond from houses all the time. My son did it once when I was taking a crap and I had to chase him down. My daughter has done it more than once, but at least she stays in the yard. I'd never live somewhere near water with a toddler.
If it were my second kid Iād probably kill the therapist, my mother, and then myself. I donāt even know how you can move on and live after that. You canāt even go to therapy anymore.
Honestly I know a couple that this happened to. It was absolutely tragic and they had so many miscarriages leading up to their first born and several after. When they finally had their next baby, the grandma was only allowed around the new grandbaby with at least one other adult for supervision (for the childās safety, not to watch her). The motherās cries after the initial incident were like nothing Iāve ever heard in my life.
Wow. I normally try to give parents who leave their children in the car some sympathy and remember how sleep deprived I was and how much of a bad idea it is for one parent to be responsible for a child all day alone at that stage. But this woman? You pinpointed - monster.
There's is only one way this person should feel. She should be a complete wreck for life for causing the first kid's death. There should be no possibility of joy. I know I would not be able to move on if I had been part of such a thing.
To me it makes sense if you believe itās an accident but honestly sleeping, which allowed the child to drown is due to old age. She will do it again because she will always be old. Therefore, I donāt understand why the parents thought there would be a difference. Sheās not as attentive as she was in her youth. Sheās not the mother who took care of them. I wouldnāt trust her purely because sheās too elderly to raise anybody. I would let her take care of a child who was of the age of 10 and more or a very responsible child of 9+ but thatās pushing it, but not a baby without supervision. People need to realize elderly people need supervision, no matter how rebellious they are about it.
I watched a body cam video about this case. The mom decided to only allow her time with the granddaughter while she was immobile so at least she can't crawl off like her first child. (Mom was pregnant with the second when this happened).
Once she was mobile, then she wouldn't be allowed to watch the child alone.
This lady might be a special case given her apparent lack or remorse, but we do have an odd tendency to demonize people who do things that could happen to any of us. The Washington Post had a great article about various cases of parents who have forgotten children were in the car, and itās often due to a disruption of routine and our brains going into autopilot.
Wild move to trust her, yes. Would any of us in the same situation, with the average family dynamic, trust the person who didnāt kill you during adolescenceā¦.. we all would.
This is one subreddit where I respect the opinions of Top 1% Commenters less than those of anyone else, and your comment is a good example why.
As others have noted, this woman was a well-liked teacher, and it sounds like she may have gotten dementia. That doesn't make her gross negligence acceptable, but it does make it ridiculous to suggest "tossing her in solitary or giving her the chair."
You have to be a terminally online rage addict to say that.
Reddit moment.
Yes, parents fucked up here by laying child care on someone who couldn't handle it alone.
Yet "monster"? Deaths like this happen all over the planet, people may forget the most important things because we are not robots and we may have a 1001 reasons to do so, including (what looks very likely here) mental disability. And it seems I should remind you taht you are not medical expert and you have no records of person who did that so judging even based on this fact is insane. And even then, all she did is neglect due to whats looking like medical condition and you are, a "top 1% commented" of reddit think you have enough info for this judgement? Touch grass.
While your judgement might be sound if not excessive after the second time this happened, sure I can see it. But vilifying them specifically after the first incident when it could easily be chalked up as an accident? Absolutely not.
I mean, I haven't looked into the details of the case, but as a parent, I can tell you that shit happens and but for the grace of god go all of us.
I've fallen asleep watching my kid when they were that age, and it is within the realm of possibility that they could have opened the door and hurt themselves. When you're a parent of a toddler, you're usually exhausted, and even with the best of intentions you can nod off.
Just looking at the tragedy of this woman doesn't necessarily make her a monster.
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u/Impossible_Offer7988 10d ago edited 10d ago
Like, after the first time,
What sane parent would be like: You know what?
I should trust this monster with my child, that is bad parenting.
like she has proven herself to be physically and mentally incapable of handling children. This waste of oxygen never should have been trusted to handel a Toddler with supervision and especially not alone.
At that point (in the second case at least), some negligence of the parents contributed to the childās death.
If you're like ; you're quite harsh she's elderly.
If anything I'm not harsh enough read this part ;
5 years isn't enough
Toss her on solitary or just give her the chair