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I feel bad for the artist who was trying to sell it. Two years in the making? I see this all the time today - parents who do not watch their kids or do not teach them "NOT TO TOUCH" - Many are busy looking down at their phones. I see it in the drs offices. The kids are unruly and bored. Mom is playing on her phone.
I'm on the side of the artist on this one. I'm sorry. When we were growing up we behaved as did my daughter.
It's not the artist versus the parents. There is a third party who is (depending on what the artist knew) almost entirely responsible for this.
This! Times a thousand. Parents just weren't WATCHING their kids in the good ol' days. So if something fell down or broke who would ever know why? Of course it looked like kids were getting into less trouble. Because the adults weren't seeing it, LOL. Come on, was nobody here ACTUALLY ever a kid? Don't you ever think, "I wonder how I made it through childhood alive"?
And that's pretty ironic, since the whole screaming and hair-pulling on this thread on behalf of The Perfect Faction is about "not watching the kids. Bring back the old days when parents parented!" Erm WHAT?? Uh, nobody watched us back in the day, LOL, unless we were under their noses and if we were smart we were getting out and about so we *wouldn't* be watched and, as ClaraC said, run pretty much wild. If we did hang around too much we were "sent outside to play" for the day and if somebody didn't show up at somebody's house by dinnertime 8 hours later it might be time to worry.
What we did in between, well...our parents just didn't know. Or if they heard about some found mishap it couldn't have been *their* kids, because "my kid knows I'd beat her within an inch of her life!" Ignorance, bliss, et. al. But if nobody wound up dead, permanently missing or with something bleeding, broken or hanging off our parents assumed any other scrapes, bumps, crying, or whatever were just part of being a kid and might not even ask, depending. We might have gotten a bruise falling off a bike. Or by climbing the town statue trying to pull its nose off. Or climbing through the cute boy's window.
I don't know...either there's a lot of revisionist history going on in the high and mighty attitudes on this thread, or people were raised in monasteries.
You're conflating two very different contexts/environments, here. Parents didn't watch kids, when they were playing out in the street and around the neighborhood. But the thread topic is about parents watching their kids in indoor spaces, whether public or private, and keeping those kids under some control, so that things don't get broken, older people don't trip over small children, and so on.
Also, let's not forget that one big reason for keeping kids by your side as much as possible or holding their hand when your in a crowded store, theater, etc., is to keep the child safe, and to prevent kidnappings. It happens. A friend of my cousin took her small daughter to the zoo, the child wandered off, and by the time the utterly panicked mom and zoo staff found her, she was leaving the grounds, going out to the parking lot with a stranger, who WAS holding her hand, like the mom should have been doing. It's much too easy for kids to wander off and get lost or get snatched.
What so many are missing is it is not the center going after the parents. The centers insurance company has paid the artist, and it was the insurance company that is going after the parents to recover their money. Under Kansas law the parents are responsible not only for he $132,000, but is one of only 3 states that make them also responsible for court costs.
The parents said the are turning it over to their homeowners insurance. It now depends on how big that coverage is, as how much the parents owe. The centers insurance company is one of the biggies, with a bunch of the best attorneys in the business, and have won many cases like this, as the law is so clear in Kansas on damage done by children. As they have on tape the child was not supervised, as he made 3 attempts to pull it down. And children under 10 are not allowed in the building unless under direct parent supervision.
In a way, I've been on the fence about his - on one hand, they kids probably did need a bit more supervision, BUT (!) even furniture is supposed to be bolted to the walls (i.e. SECURE) in places where kids might happen to be (even at home, where there are always parents nearby)…
Such a big and heavy statue... so easily coming down 😠 - a big no-no, regardless of it's value!!
The child could've been injured pretty badly - good thing he wasn't, else who would be suing, then?? ESPECIALLY it being a GLASS statue - omg, the cuts that could result!!
My sister and I spent every possible moment roaming the nearby hills on our horses, and otherwise free-ranging outside of the home, but we still managed to understand that you don't climb on statues indoors or otherwise destroy things.
Even at 5? Are you very-very sure? And even if you didn't "mean" for that something to be destroyed?
(Besides, he didn't really "climb" on it, LOL - something else more interesting - and definitely a lot harder to predict that it could've possibly resulted in the thing falling!)
It is officially time for us to move on and recycle the same debate every three pages on a new topic.
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Uh, nobody watched us back in the day, LOL, unless we were under their noses and if we were smart we were getting out and about so we *wouldn't* be watched and, as ClaraC said, run pretty much wild. If we did hang around too much we were "sent outside to play" for the day and if somebody didn't show up at somebody's house by dinnertime 8 hours later it might be time to worry. 
And even if you didn't "mean" for that something to be destroyed? 
- and definitely a lot harder to predict that it could've possibly resulted in the thing falling!)
