Back in 2007, when Lindsay was young, hot and seemingly had a long career of Hollywood stardom stretching out before her, I awarded the actress the championship for most brazen and manifestly ridiculous excuse ever. She had just been arrested for driving intoxicated and possession of cocaine, which had been found in the pocket of her jeans. Lindsay’s professions of innocence were that 1) she wasn’t driving her own car and 2) “These aren’t my pants!”
But like so many records, this one was short-lived. In 2012, The Smoking Gun reported that in Wisconsin police responded to a domestic abuse call to find Mrs. Michael West [Note: NOT the spouse of the Ethics Alarms commenter] bleeding from her face and saying that her husband Michael beat and tried to strangle her. Confronted by the officers, Mr. West (above, next to Lindsay) explained that he was innocent. A ghost did it.
That pushed Lindsay to second place, and those standings held for another 13 years…until this month. Brian and Sara Wilks [above] of Houston, Texas were at Miramar Beach with their four children on October 11when they left their baby alone under a tent for about an hour as they walked up the beach with their more mobile offspring. Officers responded to reports of an unattended infant on the beach, and witnesses told police that the baby had been left alone while the family wandered off. When Brian, 40, and Sara, 37, returned to the scene they found police waiting as some charitable bystanders took care of the infant. Mom and Dad admitted to placing the child under the tent for a nap before leaving with their other children.
Their explanation of how an infant ended up alone on a public beach for more than an hour?
You know: it can happen to anyone! And up go the Wilkses to the top of the “Worst Excuse Ever” rankings. Sorry Lindsay.
Ethics Alarms 
Wow. Just wow. A six-month old is starting to get mobile, rolling around if not crawling. I suppose I could think of some rationalizations here, such as the baby typically sleeps for a couple of hours, so he’d still be there when they returned, but still, what in the world were they thinking? They have four other kids; they know the game. That baby could wake up early from the nap, especially in an unfamiliar place. It wouldn’t be at all unreasonable that he would make a beeline for the water as soon as he realized nothing was stopping him. And let’s not forget some strangers noticing a baby left alone, with the possibility that they didn’t have good intentions.
Maybe I’m feeling a little sensitive to this issue. My wife and I are expecting our fifth here shortly (due date Nov 4th). Our fourth is now 4, so we’ve had a gap where we have grown accustomed to the children being fully mobile, understanding commands, and even having the opportunity to place our eldest in charge for short periods of time. Maybe I can understand the pressure these parents felt to do things with the older children they used to do before the latest addition came along, but that pressure does not excuse their negligence in the slightest. Someone has to watch the baby. Maybe the baby has to come along and sleep in a sling. Maybe a parent or the eldest kid has to stay behind and keep a close eye on the sleeping tyke. But you can’t just leave a six-month-old alone unattended. I know it is hard, but that’s life.
At least this time around the baby is still alive and uninjured. But who wants to bet these parents have gotten away with this negligence a few times already, and have patterned themselves into thinking they can keep getting away with it? Next time the baby might not make it out all right.
Lost track of time?
I guess that is better than “that’s not our baby.”
-Jut
Alma Lewis, a pioneering Arizona lawyer, said that a woman once came to her for legal advice and said, “I’m pregnant, and I don’t think the baby is mine.”
Seems like the same excuse as another negligent parent you posted on. Would that make it a tie with this guy?
https://ethicsalarms.com/2024/08/01/before-offering-second-thoughts-j-d-vances-childless-cat-ladies-controversy-these-relevant-horror-stories/
“lost track of time”… Sociopaths? That’s some serious free range child rearing.
However, try having 5(maybe more) kids. Sometimes you do lose track of time. After 1.5 decades of sleep deprivation, I now have the short term memory of a chicken.
I think the wrong excuse is in question here. People lose track of time…well, all of the time. I want to know what their excuse is for leaving a baby alone in a tent on a beach for any length of time.
Bingo!
-Jut