11–20 of 223 posts
Leaving your child in a car for five minutes is definitely a lapse in judgment. Not because it's dangerous so much as because your peers are stupid. I remember a time where I was really tempted to leave my kid in the car. He was asleep. It was a nice cool day. I was going to be gone for much less than five minutes. I was going to be able to see the car the entire time. Nope. Better safe than sensible.
I can't fathom how one could begin to process and move on from such an incident.
So while I don't think it should be illegal to leave a child in the car, personally that's a line I'll not cross with my kids.
[1]http://www.khou.com/news/Baby-left-in-hot-truck-dies-in-Aust...
I'd be interested in hearing non-US perspectives on this. Is it acceptable elsewhere to leave your small child alone in the car for 5 minutes while you get something from a store? Would you fear for the child's safety, of legal action, or neither? Is the US leading the way criminalizing parents who do such things, or are there other countries that have been doing this for years?
Finland here. Some people would leave a child in a car when they conduct a short errand, and some people would not, and the latter might frown upon the former. But the law enforcement would never ever get involved. That Salon article is just absurd. A whole new level of American weirdness.
(Then again, we rarely have weather as hot as the more southern countries.)
> It was a temporary lapse in judgment. Leaving your child in a car for five minutes is definitely a lapse in judgment. Not because it's dangerous so much as because your peers are stupid. I remember a time where I was really tempted to leave my kid in the car. He was asleep. It was a nice cool day. I was going to be gone for much less than five minutes. I was going to be able to see the car the entire time. Nope. Be…
In any case - if you wanted to make the safe decision, why did you put your kid in the car in the first place? Don't you realize how dangerous it is to drive on the roads? Ask yourself - which is safer - Your child spending 5 minutes alone in a car with a window cracked open on a cool day - or 5 minutes driving to that place, with oncoming traffic that with the slightest lapse of attention by a driver could have their car crashing into yours in a second.
This is the madness of this whole situation - people have left common sense at the door.
I'd be interested in hearing non-US perspectives on this. Is it acceptable elsewhere to leave your small child alone in the car for 5 minutes while you get something from a store? Would you fear for the child's safety, of legal action, or neither? Is the US leading the way criminalizing parents who do such things, or are there other countries that have been doing this for years?
> It was a temporary lapse in judgment. Leaving your child in a car for five minutes is definitely a lapse in judgment. Not because it's dangerous so much as because your peers are stupid. I remember a time where I was really tempted to leave my kid in the car. He was asleep. It was a nice cool day. I was going to be gone for much less than five minutes. I was going to be able to see the car the entire time. Nope. Be…
I'd be interested in hearing non-US perspectives on this. Is it acceptable elsewhere to leave your small child alone in the car for 5 minutes while you get something from a store? Would you fear for the child's safety, of legal action, or neither? Is the US leading the way criminalizing parents who do such things, or are there other countries that have been doing this for years?
Some people in the UK take an extreme view on age of baby sitters. See this BBC article (in my parenting SE answer) about a woman leaving her 14 year old son in charge of a 3 year old boy for 30 minutes and the trouble that caused. (She should not have accepted the caution. I am surprised that's what the solicitor suggested, and I'm not sure she actually got a solicitor.)
http://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/12599/what-is-c...
While it's tough to criticize the decision to leave a child in the car for a few minutes -- happened to me all the time as a child -- I'm forever scarred by seeing a dead child pulled out of a car in the office complex next to mine [1]. The dad was bashing his head against a tree trying to knock himself unconscious because he was so overcome with grief. Officers were trying to restrain him when his wife showed up and…
http://www.parenting.com/article/tragedy-in-the-backseat-hot...