'America’s worst mom' jailed after holiday trip

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Erin Lee Macke, 30, from the US state of Iowa was deemed “America’s worst mom,” after she left her four young children alone with an unloaded gun to go on an 11-day European trip.

As the week-long National Day holiday took off on October 1, most Chinese parents chose to go on family trips and use the time for parent-child bonding. The US mother, however, decided to travel without her children.

Without arranging child care, Macke traveled from Johnston, Iowa to Germany on Sept 20, leaving a pair of 12-year-old twins and two daughters aged six and seven at home, Johnson police said.

Macke's four children. /The Paper Photo

The children are from two biological fathers who do not live in the home, local police reported. One of the fathers who lives in Texas discovered they had been left alone and called police.

“The police have seen times when people have left their children to go somewhere, but to go to another country is completely different,” said Janet Wilwerding, a spokeswoman for the city of 22,000.

Macke posed in a photo taken in Germany. /Instagram Photo

Local police discovered the children at their house one day after the mother left, notified child protective services and then called Macke in Germany, ordering her to return.

In the phone conversation, Macke didn’t see the situation as a problem.

Upon arriving back in Iowa, Macke was arrested Thursday on four counts of child endangerment, police said.

She is also charged with one count of making a firearm available to a person under age 21, because she left an unsecured gun on an open surface within the children's reach.

Macke with her twins. /Instagram Photo

The children were placed in the custody of family members, local police said. The mother was ordered by the court not to have contact with her children.

Macke with her two youngest daughters. /Instagram Photo

The news also attracted headlines in the UK, where the Daily Mail newspaper called Macke “America’s worst mom,” as well as comments on Macke’s Facebook page.

“Leaving children alone to leave the country for 11 days? Most mothers don't like leaving them alone long enough to borrow sugar from a neighbor,” Serge A Storms commented.

(With inputs from Reuters)