The day I left my son in the car • Hacker News Board

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#221

Post by shintakezou » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 8:51 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #125

DanBC wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approaching a young child who has been left alone in a car is foolish in today's paranoic society. Also, the returning parent is unlikely to be grateful to the comments of "I was just making sure your left alone child was not dying".

The person was near enough to spot the child and take a photograph, so they could have remained at that distance and call the police if they feel it's necessary, not least to advise the returning parent/guardian that the police were called. In that case the police would probably have arrived and written a ticket or something. Although this would have involved a delay and frustration for the temporarily unattentive pa…

«From the police POV, a child was left alone in a vehicle that was later driven off by someone else».

No "someone else", but the very same woman: leaving the car, returning back to the car. The same woman, not someone else. Unless the good samaritan has deceptively shown just the last part and told the police he (or she) saw a different person leaving the car with the child inside.

The issue here is not car theft, driving license not matching the car owner, or whatever. It was instead a good samaritan evaluating as criminal/dangerous the fact that a mom left his son alone in the car for few minutes. And decided (when she came back) to call the police to...? Check if the child was fine? Whatever.

It takes few minutes to check if the car was stolen and/or the owner knows that someone else is driving it.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#222

Post by shintakezou » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 10:28 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #218

cpach wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, what? scolding != assaulting, no? But of course it might have been better if the kids’ parents took up the matter between them.

I chose my words carefully. When an adult confronts a child and terrifies them verbally, that is assault. That's not my opinion; that's the law. Because it is so easy for an adult to create a credible fear of violence in a child, it is very poor judgement for adults to directly confront children.

And the fact you see assault, and a law teaches you that it is so, instead of just scolding, is a cultural bias (sort of) and a point in favor of not living in US - or similar countries - for anyone born and grown up where these deceptive concepts are absent and hopefully not carved in a law.

Once common sense would have been enough: do you scolded my child? Why? What's happened? ... Ha, ok, my son did something wrong... and so on...

Usually it's not that hard.

Instead, a society rambling towards paranoia and driven by fear (especially this), makes a citizen feel the urge to "look at" a greater power, the Great Protector, to "protect" him/her even from an unexistant menace - or to seek revenge.

In the story we are commenting, the first thing I have noticed and blamed was the following: the mother surrenders to the request of the son who wants to go with her to the store. There, she makes the first mistake: the son had to stay at home with the grandma.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#223

Post by GuiA » Sun, Jun 15, 2014, 12:36 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #210

GuiA wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grew up in France in the 90s, in a small upper middle class town. My mother definitely left me alone in the car while she was running errands many, many times (which I liked because it meant I could just read my book, which is all I cared about as a kid). My parents also let me walk back and forth to the library (half a mile or so away) on my own fairly early on. When we lived in the US for 2 years (pre 9/11), my par…

One of your stated reasons for leaving the US when you have kids is that the US is hostile to adults assaulting children? Because that's the circumstance you described with your father and the kid from school.

`tptacek, I'm not sure you'll ever see this, but I'll reply to your point anyways:

As `shintakezou pointed out, this is very much a cultural matter here. France (where my parents and I are from) tends to subscribe more to the "it takes a village to raise a child" mentality. Correcting the behavior of someone else's child at the park, supermarket, in the bus, etc. if they are out of the parent's sight is perfectly acceptable in French culture, and as a kid it happened to me many times, without traumatizing me (even when it was a scary old man yelling at me).

It is not perceived as assault, and it is certainly not "terrifying them verbally" (I find that phrasing a little bit excessive though, and am surprised that you extracted that from my "a few stern words").

In retrospect, the one thing my father did wrong was not considering that he was living in a different culture, and that something that seemed normal to him might be scandalous in the US. But that only makes my wish to leave the US when I have children even more valid in my eyes: I'd hate to find myself in those sort of cultural misunderstandings that can very easily escalate juridically.

I do find the US's approach to parenting very poor: France's approach to parenting is that kids are human beings in construction, and that they do not inherently know what is right or wrong, good or bad - and it is up to adults (parents or not) to let them know (that doesn't mean that their feelings or interests are invalid because they are "incomplete": it just means that they are lacking the knowledge of social mores, conventions, mental tools, etc. required to be productive citizens). The US's approach to parenting falls more in line with the belief that children are just "little adults" and that one should respect their wishes and desires no matter what, which I find preposterous.