The Nanny State: Brooklyn Parents Arrested for Leaving 12-Year-Old and Siblings Home Alone
Laura Aguero via Facebook
In what might be the clearest example of the nanny state, a Brooklyn couple was arrested yesterday night for child endangerment after leaving their three children home alone while they went out drinking. The New York Post reports that Laura Aguero, 35, and husband Alfredo Bobe, 41, “are now facing child endangerment charges for allegedly abandoning their sons… at their duplex in Sunset Park for several hours.” Terrible, right? Leaving three little boys alone is not a safe thing at all! And Aguero is even a teacher at a Park Slope middle school! She—and her husband—should totally know better!
Except, well, while two of the children left alone were only 4 and 5 years old, the oldest child was 12, by which age I was already babysitting—you guessed it—4 and 5 year olds. It seems like a responsible 12-year-old should be able to watch his younger siblings for a few hours without it leading to the arrest of his parents, right? Isn’t this all taking the whole nanny state thing too far?
Ordinarily we’d say an unreserved: Yes, it is! It is completely absurd to potentially put children in the foster care system (in this case, the children are now staying with relatives) because a 12-year-old was temporarily put in charge. However, Aguero and Bobe didn’t just leave their kids alone for a few hours in the afternoon, rather neighbors reported loud noises coming from the apartment late at night, and cops stayed with the children till the parents returned home “drunkenly fighting” at 3:55am. That’s really fucking late to leave your kids alone, even if one is 12! Plus, the couple has been in trouble with the law before for having “brawled with another couple outside a McDonald’s in Fort Greene” in 2003 and “in June 2011, Aguero got angry at Bobe, chucked his bicycle in front of a moving car and was charged with criminal mischief.” Aguero also had another incident in 2012, in which “she hit a school vendor with an orange parking cone.” Awesome. So, you know, when you’re thinking of submitting your nomination for “Brooklyn Parents of the Year,” seriously consider these two. If nothing else, it will improve upon the stereotype that all Brooklyn parents do is sit around obsessing about their kids all day; some of them also are amassing impressive rap sheets.
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