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The day I left my son in the car

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Re: The day I left my son in the car

#111

Post by Domenic_S »

imgabe wrote: post #100
tptacek wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts immediately go to "that they will get hit by a car when they figure out how to get out".

The article states that the car had child locks, which were used, so the doors could only be opened from the outside. Furthermore, the kid specifically wanted to go on the trip in the first place so he could sit in the car and play with the iPad, which he was happily doing. It's not impossible that in the space of five minutes the kid could get bored of the iPad, unbuckle the car seat, and figure out how to disable t…

I don't agree with tptacek on this (at all), but front doors don't have child locks and it's trivial for a child to crawl up to the front seat.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#112

Post by SeanDav »

tptacek wrote: post #70

I've flagged down a cop seeing a kid alone in a car, and would do it again. Should people who leave their toddlers in cars be prosecuted criminally? That's a complicated question. In almost every reasonable case the answer is probably "no". But this article doesn't really grapple with that question. Instead, it's a stew of rationalization and misdirection. It is literally an argument for leaving kids alone in cars .…

Ask yourself: How many kids are killed annually by being left alone in a car, and how many kids are killed annually in car accidents? I have no doubt that the number killed in car accidents is vastly higher.

So which is the biggest sin? Which should be the crime?

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#113

Post by notdonspaulding »

nostromo wrote: post #35

I'm willing to bet that having a pool in your yard is much more dangerous for your child than leaving them in a car with windows cracked for 5 minutes. Media drives government. Clicks drive the media. What we're left with is a hodgepodge of laws that attempt to prevent yesterday's headline.

> ... a hodgepodge of laws that attempt to prevent yesterday's headline.

Oooh, nice, I'm going to steal that line.

Relatedly, I think the person I'd be happiest to vote for in this day and age is someone who will introduce no new legislation, but just spend their time getting old pointless laws off the books.

Think of it as an extension of "The best code you will ever write is… code you never write."

I think more software engineers need to run for office.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#114

Post by anigbrowl »

darklajid wrote: post #92
DanBC wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the police reaction is sub-optimal, but there are reasons not to tie a child to a seat and lock them into a car and then leave them unsupervised, even if that is for a few minutes.

Reasons not to .. and reasons to to exactly that. The decision is not yours, not ours. It's the parent's. Like everything else about the daily life of the kid. That argument contains no value. Of course there are reasons that one might not do that. Loop/Recur to line 1.

That's not much help for kids who do have abusive or neglectful parents, is it? They're citizens too and if they're stuck in a dangerous situation they're entitled to the same level of protection as any other member of society.

there's a middle ground between the state as inflexible guardian and complete parental sovereignty.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#115

Post by tptacek »

skwirl wrote: post #109
tptacek wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot leave a four year old alone in a car and trust that they will not get out. Nobody's four year old is trustworthy; they are not biologically capable of being trustworthy at that age. Meanwhile, a four year old escorted through a parking lot with their parent is at least somewhat visible. A four year old alone in a parking lot is invisible .

You can't have your child out of your sight for a single instant without a chance of them getting hurt. When you are asleep they could easily leave the house and get run over in the street. I'm generally a fan of your comments but this time I don't see your point at all.

And I am not advocating for a parenting strategy that demands total attention to your children 60 minutes out of 24 hours a day. I'm simply saying that one time you can't let a child out of your sight is when they're in a parking lot.

Let's make this simpler: would you leave your four year old alone in a parked car for 5 minutes while you ran into a store?

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#116

Post by DanBC »

revelation wrote: post #60
DanBC wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent runs into store for few minutes, trips and knocks head becoming unconcious / has stroke / has heart attack / etc etc - child dies. Having said that, This story is a really good example of how tough it is for some parents and how hostile society is to parenting.

How hostile society is to parenting? Did I read that right? Parents have free reign to brainwash their kids into some religious cult. Then theres the whole homeschooling thing - yes, enlightened HN readers will protest that they are able to give their kids a better education than the crappy public school system could, but lets face it, home schooling is as much a cover for the many nutjobs out there that don't want t…

You make some good points about parental rights.

Look at vaccinations. (Vaccinations are good; I had no hesitation having my child immunised; I'd like schools to require immunisations for pupils; etc). The early days of the vaccination scandal were not presented as a bit of scientific research, it was "you, as a parent, are harming your child by vaccinating them" (and that's still what the nutjobs are saying). Now that we know that Wakefield is a crook we tend not to say "you were duped by a crook who had financial interests in misleading you so let's help you get your child immunised", we say "you're a nutjob and a bad parent".

Look at HN where parents feel guilt about work life balance for one example of how hard it is to be a parent in a rich first world country.

Look at the number of people on HN who (ignoring law) say they would hesitate to employ women because of the risk of maternity leave.

The fact that "having a child" has to be written into legislation as a protected status shows that status of parents was seen as needing protection.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#117

Post by DanBC »

darklajid wrote: post #92
DanBC wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the police reaction is sub-optimal, but there are reasons not to tie a child to a seat and lock them into a car and then leave them unsupervised, even if that is for a few minutes.

Reasons not to .. and reasons to to exactly that. The decision is not yours, not ours. It's the parent's. Like everything else about the daily life of the kid. That argument contains no value. Of course there are reasons that one might not do that. Loop/Recur to line 1.

No, society should protect children. As you say calling the police is okay, but the reaction of police is not okay.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#118

Post by awj »

tptacek wrote: post #82
IanDrake wrote: post #44

Seriously, this is my number one reason for not having kids. For the younger crowd who may not understand, I was born in '77: - I rode in the back hatch (no seats) of my dad's corvette until I was 8, cops would wave to us. - At 6 I could ride my bike around pretty much anywhere I wanted, but wasn't allowed to cross rt6 (which I didn't, though no one checked). - Left in the car in parking lots for up to an hour. - Arr…

Putting children in the seatless back hatch of a Corvette was probably not a great parenting call either. Not everything that used to be S.O.P. for parents was good judgement. Not every safety concern we've developed over the last 20 years is wrong. Some of them are very valid.

Yeah, people also survived when we put lead paint on everything. Evaluate the issue on its actual merits and relevant statistics, not wether or not you personally won the "take an unnecessary risk" dice roll.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#119

Post by ejk314 »

tptacek wrote: post #70

I've flagged down a cop seeing a kid alone in a car, and would do it again. Should people who leave their toddlers in cars be prosecuted criminally? That's a complicated question. In almost every reasonable case the answer is probably "no". But this article doesn't really grapple with that question. Instead, it's a stew of rationalization and misdirection. It is literally an argument for leaving kids alone in cars .…

Except this wasn't the "blistering heat of July" like in the article you linked. This was a cool, 50F day. And the author pointed that out. The child was in no danger and the parent was coming right back.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#120

Post by tptacek »

ejk314 wrote: post #119
tptacek wrote: post #70

I've flagged down a cop seeing a kid alone in a car, and would do it again. Should people who leave their toddlers in cars be prosecuted criminally? That's a complicated question. In almost every reasonable case the answer is probably "no". But this article doesn't really grapple with that question. Instead, it's a stew of rationalization and misdirection. It is literally an argument for leaving kids alone in cars .…

Except this wasn't the "blistering heat of July" like in the article you linked. This was a cool, 50F day. And the author pointed that out. The child was in no danger and the parent was coming right back.

The point of linking to Weingarten's piece wasn't that the author missed a terrible risk. She covered that risk in her piece too. The point of Weingarten's piece is that it carefully looks at the issues of culpability involved in leaving kids alone in parked cars in situations that resulted in the deaths of children. And it does not come to the conclusion that all such cases should be crimes.
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