I wasn’t calling you a fucking idiot. I knew you were agreeing with me. I was merely pointing out to you that it wasn’t six hours. The rest of my rant wasn’t directed at you.
The people I’m referring to as fucking idiots are anyone who thinks it’s in anyway okay to leave a 9 year old unattended, in a strange place, surrounded by strangers, for 16 hours.
Honestly why doesnt Ironman offer daycare … people would for sure pay for it?
Pretty sure Roth offers it for free
What a judgmental thing to say. What if the reason for the “poor bike time” was that the dad saw the cops and the trouble brewing and decided to complete another loop? He would’ve smoked all of us!
I think daycare is definitely one area that Ironman could bring to the table. It would likely be paid, but would probably do well.
Not just for the whole day, both parents are racing, type thing. But even if one parent is racing, childcare falls onto the other parent, and it would be useful to have a daycare arrangement, even its just for a few hours.
Yea could imagine like an afternoon/evening option. One parent racing, other wants to drop off the kid for a few hours to be there and help at the finish.
And Paid is better than nothing
Yep this. I’ve taken my late teens with me to races, and it is still a concern for me, for which I make sure there are backup plans/contacts, and backups to those.
Leaving a 9 year old alone like that is just insane.
Just what we need - Nirvana buying out all the nearby daycare options and doubling the price.
/pink
… sorta
Doesn’t the VIP area include day care?
No. Additionally per IM: All children in VIP must be accompanied by an adult at all times on race day.
Sarcasm…
That lack of a pink font option nowadays makes sarcasm harder to detect. 
Gosh…
I’m not a parent so no judgement from me. As a kid who grew up in the 1970s, I was left to my own devices and left alone many times. And I survived. Parenting styles were different back then. But nowadays, this sounds to me like a big No No. I think if the kid was older, sure. But 9 years old seems to be a bit young to leave alone unattended all day. Ironmans are long and sounded like the father was going to finish late at night. I haven’t heard the father’s side of the story. Did he have someone else who was supposed to watch his kid but then had to cancel or didn’t show up at the VIP tent? Is there something we don’t know about?
Easy to throw stones here. I get it. It’s not a great situation. But I do wonder if being arrested and handcuffed was more traumatic for the kid? Maybe they didn’t have to handle it that way.
This would be a great opportunity. A win win for everyone.
I’m not surprised about Roth. Europe is more advanced and progressive with childcare compared to the US.
It really doesn’t matter what the father’s story was or what excuse he had. If you don’t have someone to take care of your kid you don’t do the race. It can’t be anymore simple than that.
I wonder what the insurance cost of that service would be? I can’t imagine it would be cheap.
I don’t disagree with you.
I was just suggesting a possible scenario where someone was supposed to be there with the kid but for whatever reason wasn’t there or left. But I’m probably being too generous with this possibility.
Also, I wonder where the mother was.
Was it some crazy situation where the mother took off and left the husband and kid? Again probably unlikely. But weird terrible shit happens all the time.
If you are a single dad and the boys mom isn’t in the picture at all you make arrangements for race weekend. If the boy has a mom it would have made sense she is taking care of the child. This man’s actions are reckless.
Interesting responses here…
As a Gen Xer with 2 working parents, I was a latch key kid, so my brother and spent sometime albeit at home unsupervised.
I would think child care would be a revenue stream for Ironman. IJS.
They comment to hand off to a stranger was interesting.
9 is a funny age (I dont have kids). Old enough to be somewhat self sufficient / Young enough to be very much a kid.
All things equal how did the kid get onto the cops radar as being alone in the first place? Did he do something wrong?
It would be expensive but probably not as expensive as the insurance for the athletes as Ironman is an inherently dangerous sport. But the Ironman clientele are mostly affluent people who could most likely afford the childcare service even if it had the extra insurance rolled up in the cost. But who knows, most IM athletes have their families and friends there for support and someone is usually watching the kids. Maybe there would not be enough interest? I guess parents would be able to answer this question better than myself who doesn’t have kids.