Cops Arrest Mom Working Evening Shift at Pizza Place for Leaving Kids, Ages 10 and 2, Alone

An Ohio mom has been arrested for leaving her kids, a 10-year-old and a two-year-old, in a motel room while she worked her shift at a pizza shop.

A tip to the police led officers to a Motel Six in Youngstown at about 6:15 p.m. on Thursday night. The 10-year-old explained that her mom was working and would be home at 10:00 p.m.

The officers went to the pizza shop where the mom, Shaina Bell, 24, told them she usually has someone look in on the kids every hour. She was booked into jail on two counts of child endangerment and the kids were sent to their father. She got out on bail.

It’s certainly not ideal for a mom to have to work at night while her 10-year-old babysits her little sister. But the facts—the motel room—seem to suggest that the family is under serious financial strain. And when that is the case, and there is a pandemic, and you are a mom trying to earn a living, it does not make your kids better off if you are under arrest, or in a cell, or possibly now contending with custody lawyers and the courts to get back on your feet.

We don’t know any more details about the case. A GoFundMe for the family was started and then stopped. The comments section on the local news story is rife with folks trying to figure out her relationship to the kids’ dad and his family. But having the police and probably child protection authorities in the middle of this family’s drama—all because mom had to go to work an evening shift—is not going to make life easier for the kids or teach them any lessons we would want them to know.

Think about the moral of t