Nine-year-old brothers left home alone for 120 days: How did they survive? (+video) -
According to an affidavit, the situation arose when an uncle reneged on a promise to move in with the twins in New Hampshire for the duration of their parents' trip to Nigeria.
An empty playground is seen at an apartment complex Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, in Manchester, N.H. where authorities say twin 9-year-old boys were left home alone for four months after their parents took three siblings to Nigeria and left an uncle to care for them.
Jim Cole/AP
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A real-life “Home Alone” story of twin 9-year-old brothers in New Hampshire who managed to basically take care of themselves for a third of a year is in part a case of child endangerment, but also, upon closer inspection, a stunning tale of childhood ingenuity.Few would agree with decisions made by the boys’ uncle, who told police he’d stop by every few days while the parents were on a trip in Africa. The parents, Jerusalem and Catherine Monday, left the United States in July, expecting to return in August. But they were delayed in Nigeria for another three months.For their part, the boys transitioned from summer vacation into the school routine: They came home from school every day, ate snacks, watched TV until their failure to pay the cable bill got it shut off, did homework, got ready for bed, hopefully brushed their teeth, went to sleep, got up the next morning, got dressed, got on the school bus – all on their own. Neighbors say they regularly saw the boys and didn’t have any concerns about them.
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“The kids were so resourceful that they managed to take care of themselves and handled whatever problems that came along,” says Michael Valentine, the Hillsborough County, N.H., prosecutor handling the case. “They could call for help, but they were really in charge of their own well-being.”
He continues: “I recall us [authorities] asking about setting alarm clocks. They certainly knew what time school started, they’d get themselves downstairs, out of the building, onto the bus. A lot of the time, they would get breakfast and lunch at school, so they would be mostly taken care of that way.”He adds: “The uncle claimed that he would drop off food somewhat regularly, but when the officers were there, there was only some ramen in the cabinets.”To be sure, the boys’ ordeal highlights a few realities of childhood development.Nine-year-olds have just crossed some major milestones. They show the first glimmers of the teenagers they’ll soon be. They can fix their own breakfast, and they’re known to roam around streets in loose packs, sometimes armed with hockey sticks. They dominate at video games like Minecraft. Hunting magazines in Georgia, at least, often feature 9-year-olds showing off the trophy buck they hunted and shot by themselves.Yet it is also clear that the New Hampshire twins still needed more help than they were getting.The boys’ school finally realized something was wrong when one of them came to class underdressed during an early-November cold snap. When asked whether their uncle could get them some warmer clothes and shoes, the boys said he didn’t live with them, according to Mr. Valentine.The uncle, Giobari Atura, who is in his 20s and is the younger brother of Mr. Monday, was charged in December with one count of child endangerment, a misdemeanor. He posted $500 bail.In a country that is having an ongoing debate about the pros and cons of helicopter parenting versus so-called free-range parenting, the case has stirred up emotions among county officials and the state child welfare agency in New Hampshire.While authorities at first wondered whether the parents had been neglectful, it soon became clear, according to the affidavit, that the problem was that the uncle had reneged on a promise to move in with the children for the duration of their parents’ absence. In that way, the story may say more about the development of 20-somethings than the capabilities of 9-year-olds.The family is now back together, an apparent happy ending to an incident that has given America a surprising look into the minds of 9-year-olds.“What’s fascinating is their thought process, which was apparently, ‘Yeah, we go to school, our uncle checks on us occasionally, and this is OK, it’s OK that our parents have left us,’ ” says Valentine, noting that the children never complained about their situation to the many adults, including neighbors, who saw them every day.
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You have already saved this item.这是个机器人猖狂的时代，请输一下验证码，证明咱是正常人~You’re Not B You’re Just on Your Own Path
Announcement: Wish you could change the past? Learn to let go and create a life you love with !
“To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.” ~Sven Goran Eriksson
Endlessly , idealizing their best qualities while underestimating our own are self defeating thought patterns, and they hurt our self-esteem. Yet in the competitive nature of our world, many of us do this.
As a result of my own self-defeating thoughts, throughout my life, I’ve repeatedly felt like I was five years behind where I “should” be.
After high school graduation, many of my peers went away to school and into a new wave of relationship and social experiences.
I stayed home, worked, and went to see a lot of bands play, and when I started gaining more life experience of my own, I felt like I was in catch-up mode and ashamed that I hadn’t gotten some of these experiences out of the way earlier.
I had a rocky college career, bouncing between, in, and out of schools, finally completing my English degree when I was twenty-five and feeling absolutely no further toward a career than I had before I’d started.
Attracted to web development because it offered the possibility of working remotely, I learned on the side and eventually landed a job at a small web shop. I was twenty-eight, but felt behind compared to those who had their career paths charted early on, and stacked resumes.
I decided to start freelancing with only one solid client and hoped that I’d be able to sustain myself enough to stay location independent.
After a few years of this, though I still loved the flexibility freelancing offered, I started feeling the need for my work to not only provide for myself, but to also contribute something positive to the world. Now in my mid thirties, I feel like I need to reevaluate again, but compared to others whom are solidifying relationships and buying property, I feel behind.
In the examples above, I’m comparing my path to others that aren’t my own.
If you can relate, try reframing these thoughts as a more accurate reflection of yourself and celebration of your own personal journey.
What did you want? Often when we compare ourselves to others, we are comparing ourselves to an ideal that might appear to be favored by society, media, or whatever, but it’s really not that interesting to us.
After high school, I remember distinctly not wanting to go away to school to dorm and thinking it was a manufactured environment that didn’t represent real life. I wanted to hang out with my best friend and go see live music.
As I’ve , I realize that anti-dorming position probably reflected my high levels of social anxiety and that the experience, though difficult at times, would have had a positive impact, though I would have probably missed a lot of awesome shows.
What you wanted from life then might not be what you want now, and that’s okay because throughout life, we change and gain insight. The decisions you made likely reflected where you were in life at that point. Maybe
or maybe it wasn’t, but celebrate yourself either way.
Look at the positive side of your life path. Read between the lines and don’t focus on the negatives of what you didn’t do.
When I was fourteen, my father took me to England for a couple weeks and it left me with a lasting desire to
beyond the confines of the “paid time off” policies at many jobs in the United States.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted out of school, so it’s probably no surprise that while I bounced between academic institutions, I also spent some of that time period traveling abroad and hence, nurturing and developing a huge part of who I am.
Choices made to appease what you perceive others think you should be doing rather than what nurtures you are self-negating, and though they may seem like shortcuts, they will often not bring you any closer to fulfillment.
Focus on what your unique cocktail of nurture and nature enabled you to accomplish.
While others found their career path early, I was sweating inside the back of a 3000 cubic foot truck, working 5am merchandising shifts at a major retailer with a group of people that ended up feeling like a family, and I know I will stay in touch with some of them for the rest of my life.
The work felt honest and the people even better, and those are two of the most valuable things in life to me.
While others were sculpting their career, networking, and building relationships, spurred on by my earlier travels, I started to freelance and accomplished a lifelong dream of working remotely abroad.
I took an extended trip to Europe and two years later, I did the same thing in South America. While my career development suffered most likely, accomplishing this goal was a priority, and I created memories that I will always cherish.
Take a moment and you can probably think about when you took a less traveled road and accomplished something beautiful.
Celebrate what you love about your personality and how those qualities have contributed to your life experience.
It’s easy to confuse what it is you want to work on with those qualities that you’re quite happy with.
If I go to a large social gathering, the introvert in me will spend time processing, observing, and taking everything in. I can be pretty quiet initially, but I’m okay with this because the attributes that make me identify as an introvert also have enabled me to , be sensitive to others and the world around me, and to feel on a very deep level.
At that same social gathering, I might be hanging out in a small group listening when I think of a relevant story that I’d love to share, but social anxiety renders me quiet because I’m afraid my storytelling will not hold their attention.
Introversion and social anxiety can sometimes be confused, but they are different concepts. Being introverted has enabled me to experience life in a unique way, but only social anxiety has held me back at times from participating in life like I want to.
Sometimes, two aspects of yourself produce similar symptoms. When you make the decision to work on a behavior, make sure that you’re targeting the right one.
I still catch my mind comparing myself to the ideals we are constantly subjected to by society and feeling like I will never catch up, but then I center myself and realize I’m comparing myself to an ideal that is not necessarily applicable to me, and that I need to stay true to my own path. Life is much more personal, complex, and nuanced.
Perhaps there are times when you feel five years behind? But really, you’re constantly learning about yourself and sculpting a life that is a reflection of that, and that’s exactly where you need to be.
Celebrate the path of others but most importantly, celebrate your own path because you’ve likely been living a pretty honest existence all along.
About Kevin lives in Oakland, CA. He enjoys connection, culture, calm and chaos and things that make the world seem small. He might blog in the future, or he might not, but if he does, it will live at deadsound.net
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