Anybody else in the world who hung an infant out of a window would have lost custody so fast it made his head spin.

People say that a lot, but I don't think it's true.

Holding a baby up over a balcony is a dumb-ass thing to do to be certain, but the courts don't permanantly remove custody for one fleeting dumb-ass thing. There's parenting classes and home visits and blah de blah... but probably not if it had happened in another country.

I do know that he is an unfit parent. Point-blank. Anybody else in the world who hung an infant out of a window would have lost custody so fast it made his head spin.

Nope. Unfortunately people do a lot stupider things with their kids and retain custody. And a lot more dangerous things.

I agree, I overspoke. He probably shouldn't have lost custody for that alone.

However, anybody who would do that should not have sole responsibility for children, which by all accounts Jackson does.

But what if he was a good friend? You might not give a fig what anyone has to say except your kids.

Even if I had known him for 20 years and loved and trusted him absolutely, I probably still would not let my children be alone with him. There's just no way to take back a mistake if I was wrong.

Also, I don't get the impression most of the parents of the kids he hangs out with are people he's known and socialized with for years and years. They seem to be largely local parents, often either poor or middle-class, who could easily be dazzled by his celebrity. I think Nicole Ritchie is the only child of an MJ colleague I've seen talk about being at Neverland, and a)that would be 20 years ago and b)she's a girl.

Most parents I know wouldn't let their kids spend the night unchaperoned in the same room with a single adult. For any reason.

Why are you in places with appreciable winters, then?

If you only know how many times a day I ask myself this.

sits with Sue

cries

wonders how many more years it is going to take to logistically be able to move

Most parents I know wouldn't let their kids spend the night unchaperoned in the same room with a single adult. For any reason.

Same here. But when you see parents say, "my little girl with agonizing cancer finally gets some happiness and rest at a Neverland sleepover" (that's a paraphrase) it's another perspective.

Most parents I know wouldn't let their kids spend the night unchaperoned in the same room with a single adult.

Huh. I'd trust my brother, married or not. My husband would trust his sisters, married or not.

I certainly know there are families where you shouldn't, can't trust blood relatives. Mine isn't one of them.

Come to think of it, when I was a camp counselor I slept in a cabin with six little girls every. damn. night.

I'm a little unclear on how a sleepover anywhere, much less at Michael Jackson's house, is a special enough thing to dream about. Then again, I have no (a) magic in my heart and (b) cancer.

I just came back from lunch with colleagues, one of whom is madly in love with the football player Tom Brady. I realized after a little bit that although I can think of famous people I'd probably like, if I met them, and famous people I'd find interesting to talk to, I just don't have that module for "loving" someone I've never met installed in my brain.

Clearly, most of this country has that module. I find most of this country a little creepy.