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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

#191

Post by notdonspaulding »

tptacek wrote: post #144
notdonspaulding wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that you don't flag down cops for parents driving their children down the road , which is the bigger risk to their safety.

That's not true , but the fact that you think it's true is one of the reasons I find this article so off-putting, because the article tries its hardest to set up that bogus comparison. I want to say something here about the base rate fallacy, but I'm too tired and impatient to figure out how to articulate it.

> ... I'm too tired and impatient to figure out how to articulate it.

I wish you'd have given it a go. It sounds like an argument about evaluating the risks of an action proportional to the frequency of that action being taken.

If that's the case, it seems the best conclusion you could hope to come to is "we don't have enough data". Because there's no way to know how often parents leave their kids in cars without incident, and no way to know how many parents would leave their kids in their cars were it socially acceptable.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#192

Post by aidenn0 »

tptacek wrote: post #115
skwirl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm a parent of 4 kids, 2 of whom have passed the age of four. I don't recall if it's a law or just a regulation I have to follow as a certified foster parent, but either way I'm not allowed to leave any child under 6 unattended in a car.

If it weren't for that rule, then I absolutely would have left one of my kids in a car unattended for 5 minutes, but not the other.

The one I would not have got antsy fairly easily. Even they could probably have been trusted for less than 10 minutes, I wouldn't be willing to take that risk. The other, I have no doubt would have stayed in the car for a half-hour.

More recently I did leave one of them in the car, in the shade, with the windows cracked on a 65 degree day. She was 7 at the time. Someone did report me to the cops, but I said "She's 7, was in the shade and I was gone for less than 10 minutes" and never heard anything from then again.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#193

Post by aidenn0 »

notdonspaulding wrote: post #191
tptacek wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true , but the fact that you think it's true is one of the reasons I find this article so off-putting, because the article tries its hardest to set up that bogus comparison. I want to say something here about the base rate fallacy, but I'm too tired and impatient to figure out how to articulate it.

> ... I'm too tired and impatient to figure out how to articulate it. I wish you'd have given it a go. It sounds like an argument about evaluating the risks of an action proportional to the frequency of that action being taken. If that's the case, it seems the best conclusion you could hope to come to is "we don't have enough data". Because there's no way to know how often parents leave their kids in cars without inc…

It's almost certainly possible to come up with an estimate for how often parents leave their kids in cars. If by "we" you meant those of us currently discussing it on HN right now, then maybe you're right.

Either way, it's obvious that more kids are driven in cars than are left in cars (since nearly all kids left in cars were also driven in them as part of that trip).

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#194

Post by [deleted] »

notdonspaulding wrote: post #191
tptacek wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true , but the fact that you think it's true is one of the reasons I find this article so off-putting, because the article tries its hardest to set up that bogus comparison. I want to say something here about the base rate fallacy, but I'm too tired and impatient to figure out how to articulate it.

> ... I'm too tired and impatient to figure out how to articulate it. I wish you'd have given it a go. It sounds like an argument about evaluating the risks of an action proportional to the frequency of that action being taken. If that's the case, it seems the best conclusion you could hope to come to is "we don't have enough data". Because there's no way to know how often parents leave their kids in cars without inc…

[deleted]

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#195

Post by aidenn0 »

IanDrake wrote: post #156
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survivorship bias. I too rode in the boot of the car, but presumably some other kids did that and died in an accident slamming in to back of their parent's heads and the windscreen when the car had to break suddenly. Or maybe they got crushed when a lorry rode in to the back of them.

Yeah, I knew kids that had dogs growing up. We all think it's safe, but alas, family dogs kill children. I guess we all suffer from that survivorship bias. The lesson here is anyone with a family dog should have their children taken away. I also used to take the ferry to Nantucket and MV as a kid. Thought that was safe too, but apparently those things sink and kill children. What, you let your kids take the ferry? So…

Car accidents are the #1 cause of death for children. Family dogs are not.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#196

Post by aidenn0 »

agorism wrote: post #145

As if Child Protective Service has anything to do with protecting children. Orphans are very profitable. Charging people with crimes is how police, judges, and prison guards get paid.

I'm not even sure where to begin responding to this.

1) CPS wasn't ever involved in this case

2) Everywhere I've ever lived CPS was already understaffed and overworked; they don't have time to go looking for children to take away, they're busy enough already.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#197

Post by aidenn0 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #80

> I got out of the car one day to feed the parking meter next to the driver side window. “Don’t, Mommy. Don’t. The police will come.” I went to let the dog into our front yard while he was watching his morning cartoon. “Mommy, no!!! The police.” Sigh..... It's such a tragic, fucked up thing that our society could do this to a child and his mother. We all really need to think more about the consequences of our actions…

To be fair, all we know is that prosecutors can threaten to split families apart for a single, momentary stupid, virtually riskless act. The mother agreed to a plea-bargain because she didn't want to find out if they actually could.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#198

Post by aidenn0 »

notdonspaulding wrote: post #134
scrumper wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you being serious with that comment? I can't see how it's a joke. I strongly suspect you'll end up being downvoted into transparency, but in case not, where is the 'pattern'? Where, in fact, is even another example of negligence (conceding that some people may consider leaving the child in the car negligent, which I don't.) EDIT: Ah, it happened while I was replying, probably for the best.

I understand where you're coming from here, but to parents who actually do have spines (and seek to grow such spines in their children), it is actually fairly easy to see that the reason the 4-year-old was left in the car was due the fact that he was running both the conversation and the decision-making that occurred throughout the incident. Which is to say, I can see the GP making the general point that the mom didn…

A good point. In a parenting class I went to recently, they showed the standard classical conditioning diagram, and then said roughly: "Now, while we know that there is more to human behavior than this box represents, it does describe a lot of it, and remember, that's not just your child, but you as well."

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#199

Post by Domenic_S »

tptacek wrote: post #124
Domenic_S wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You totally disagree that it's unsafe to leave a four year old alone in a parked car?

I don't, but that's not what I, the article, or your OP were really talking about. What I disagree with is this statement/attitude:

> I've flagged down a cop seeing a kid alone in a car, and would do it again.

The interesting and proper question isn't whether it's unsafe to leave a four year old alone in a parked car, it's whether leaving a four year old alone in a parked car warrants involvement from the State -- particularly, involvement kicked off by a fellow citizen.

It surprises and deeply concerns me that we live in a country/world of social content and community-driven projects, yet when one of our (real-life) community members might possibly be in trouble, a cellphone video and call to the cops is the default (and lauded) reaction. Look, had that 4-year-old been in real danger, a cellphone video wasn't going to help him. A call to the cops wasn't going to help him either (clearly, as they arrived after mom had left). Ok, maybe a coin flip on the cops at best.

What can the cops do that the nosy neighbor -- or you -- couldn't? Truly, if someone felt a child's life was in danger, everything else could wait while you supervised the situation and sent someone else to go fetch mom out of the store. Or use that cellphone to call the store, or whatever. In other words, you could actually do something. Unless this fictional example kid is literally dying before your eyes and you think medics/the coroner are going to have to be involved, what's the point of calling the cops? Two options: either a) to throw mom under the bus or b) to let yourself think you did all you could so you can get going to that next meeting.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#200

Post by mcv »

mcphilip wrote: post #13

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…

The thing is, something could happen to you while you're away. The few minutes in the car won't hurt the child, but if something happens to you, the child is still there. And if you locked the car, the child can't get out.

I'm all for letting kids play with little or no supervision. (Depending on the surroundings, of course; a place near my home where kids can build huts has the explicit rule that kids under 8 need adult supervision at all times, which makes total sense. A mother was upset that someone confiscated the hammer and saw her kids were using while she was away. That mother was wrong.)

But what's important is that if you trust your child to take care of itself, you give it the means to do so. Locking a kid in a car is not that. I'd rather let it play in the parking lot or a field next to it.

So I think the decision to leave the kid in the car is still a bad one. And not even just because of the danger, but because of teaching it about choice and consequences: The kid wanted to come along to the shop? Then it's coming inside. The kid thinks a game is more important than new earphones? Then it's not getting new earphones. Teach the kid consequences.

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