Jack H. Schick

Bad Babysitters



Posted: Monday, August 29, 2011

by Jack H. Schick

Back in our child rearing days both my wife and I worked full time jobs. That was a long, long time ago now, I hate to admit. I worked rotating shifts—dayshift one week, nights the next and evenings the next. My wife worked straight second for a while then straight nights. The kids had babysitters most of their lives. There were no daycare centers or licensing and governmental oversight like there is today. We just found some woman who watched kids, talked to her once, then started dropping the kids off at her place (usually), with seldom a second thought.

Some of them were referred by friends and some of them were really great, but we did pick a few losers over the years. Nobody ever got hurt, though. There was the one woman whose five year old kid ran around hitting people over the head with a foam rubber hammer. When I griped about it she said, “It’s only a toy.”  Somebody who thought that their kid hitting people on the head, with any kind of hammer, was okay was watching way too much Three Stooges and was asking for trouble, I thought. Then there was the cowgirl.  She was a big, rough looking broad.  She was a bull rider on the Wyoming rodeo circuit.  She “sat” at our place, and showed up all banged up with black eyes a couple of times.  She stole some of my irreplaceable record albums. The kids don’t seem to have any permanent psychological scares from those years, so I don’t really feel too guilty about it.

They never had a babysitter like Terra Jean Hill, 27, of Liverpool, Ohio, though.  She’s a tough one. A week or so ago, they found one of her wards, 23 month old Alizae Mosconi, on the sidewalk outside of the third story apartment in Beaver County, PA, where she was watching other people’s kids. Alizae is in Pittsburgh’s Children’s hospital in critical but stable condition.

Naturally the police investigated. Hill first claimed that she didn’t know how the child fell out of the window.  Then she told them that another child had placed the girl on the ledge and she fell. Then she said that her six year old son had accidentally knocked her out the window.  Then she confessed that she had accidentally dropped the girl as he was holding her out the window to see a small animal down below.  When the police questioned her about scratch marks on her arm, Hill told them it was from a separate incident. Eventually she fessed up.  She got angry at Alizae after the toddler hit her in the face with a ball.  She hung her out the window to “teach her a lesson,” then dropped her to the sidewalk below.

Terra Jean Hill was charged with aggravated assault and other crimes. She has been jailed in lieu of $25,000 bail. Court records do not list an attorney for her.

By the way, my granddaughter out in California goes to a licensed day care center. My daughter said that they’ve promised to not dangle her out of any windows or let her play with hammers.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)
» left by Hilda Cang
 266 days 3 hours ago.
60 fans.
Hi Jack, everywhere every family has something in common relating to children and I know as long the working class parents do not quit their jobs, their kids will suffer without them knowing. It's sad these days the so-called babysitters have no concern or love for the kids they are paid to take care. All they want is money. If possible, try to look after your own kids if you have kids or not to have kids. I mean if you can not handle the job why do you get into it ?
» left by Jack H. Schick 266 days ago.
99 fans.
thanks for reading and commenting
» left by donna badman
from new hamshire 187 days 21 hours ago.
Food for thought!
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