[DeltAlum]

It's impossible to judge the parents in this situation without more details than the article provides.

In a perfect world, parents always know where their children are. In the real one, phones ring, people come to the door or some other thing distracts for just long enough for a tragedy to happen. Like running into the street and being hit by a car -- or like this one.

It doesn't take long, and until you've raised children, it's nearly impossible to imagine how hard it is to keep track of them every second of every day -- no matter how hard you try. It's also remarkably easy to become overconfident as your children grow older and you expect them to take care of their younger siblings. (Granted, a nine year old shouldn't be given mortal responsibility)

In our area recently two young brothers drowned in the middle of a pool party! There were twenty or thirty friends and adults around who simply lost track of the two for a couple of minutes. Our daughter, who is a trained lifeguard, and our son-in-law tried to help another lifeguard who happened by and pulled the kids out of the water -- but their CPR attempts were futile. (To clarify, this was a private pool and no lifeguard was on duty -- our duaghter lives close by and the other guard heard the calls for help as he was passing by) We've probably all heard (at least I have many times) of people drowing in public pools with qualified, professional lifeguards on duty.

Bad things can happen very quickly.

The quoted article doesn't say whether the three boys were good swimmers or not. The two in our local case were allegedly were.

I'm not necessarily excusing the parent(s) in this case. If they are charged, it is probably because he police know something we don't. The boys may have been told never to go near the pool by timeselves and simply disobeyed.

Remember, though, some parents are negligent, some are dumber than a brick, some don't care -- and some are good parents who simply lose control of a situation for just long enough to have tragic results. If we were all perfect there would never be a traffic accident or any other kind of traumatic situation.

No matter what the case, the children and the parents need our prayers.