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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

#71

Post by wvenable »

DanBC wrote: post #67
baddox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the father became unconscious, had a stroke or a heart attack, etc. while driving or doing anything with the child away from other people, the child could die.

Yes, driving to the store is considerably more dangerous for the child (even if it's in correctly fitted car seat (and many children are not)) than being left for a few minutes in the car. Still, leaving the child alone leaves them open to more risk than taking them out of the car. This parent was not buying anything important - just headphones for a child - and they took the wasy options by i) taking child to shops…

> Still, leaving the child alone leaves them open to more risk than taking them out of the car.

So a child in an immobile tested-safe metal box with ventilation, locked and alarmed, is more at risk than being outside the car? I'd like to understand how you came to that reasoning.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#72

Post by drzaiusapelord »

encoderer wrote: post #24

I once left my puppy beagle in the back of my car, windows cracked, while I ran into the restaurant to pick up takeout. I was not in there more than 5 mins. When I got out, started to pull away, and was stopped by a cop who then called animal services. This level of nanny-state-ism drives me slightly crazy. But the real issue for me was the person who decided s/he needed to call the police (the police for this). If i…

To be fair, if I'm a passerby and I see a dog with the window cracked open, I have no idea how long he's been there. Calling the cops makes sense, they're the ones paid to made the judgement call and animal control should have the training to diagnose whether the dog is in distress or not. Whoever made the call chose to err on the side of caution out of humanitarian concern, not to get your goat or ruin your day.

Sounds like your police department sucks more so than the worried passerby engaging in "nanny-statism." The police chose not to assess the situation correctly and just went for the easy fine.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#73

Post by fixermark »

I remember when my mom left me in the car to run into the grocery store one summer. I put the seat back and dozed with my head resting against the partially-slackened seatbelt. It was a hot day with the sun shining right in the windshield. It felt nice and sauna-like, so I closed my eyes for a bit...

My mother got pretty upset when she came back and found me in that state. She told me that's how people manage to die in the car, and when I realized how hot it was I should have popped the door open and come inside.

And, well, she was right! :)

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#74

Post by krupan »

Wow, what a story for a parent to read. Lenore Skenazy and her discussion of the various risks we take as parents is awesome. Also, read Parenting with Love and Logic. Makes the argument that over-protecting your kids is denying them important learning opportunities. Mind blowing at first, but then when you think about it (and remember your own largely unsupervised childhood) it makes a lot of sense.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#75

Post by anigbrowl »

sadris wrote: post #12

Another example of why you should never talk to the cops. When they come to ask, "Did you or your wife leave your child in the car?" Only acceptable response is: come back with a warrant.

Not really, because that would almost certainly have resulted in the mother being arrested and all the children being taken into protective custody. The police already had evidence of the child being left alone in the car in the form of a photograph. In a situation where someone acts evasively they're going to assume the worst. Think of those cases where children die or are found in situations of truly dreadful neglect and the local captain of police has to grovel in public while trying to answer questions about why they didn't follow up on reports of the situation.

I had to deal with the police earlier this week because my dog accidentally bit someone who interfered with him, resulting in a (thankfully superficial) injury. I answered their questions forthrightly and we emailed some paperwork back and forth, which is why he's now confined to my yard for the next 7 days instead of being locked in a crate at the city pound.

Overzealous policing is a real problem. That doesn't mean that evasion or passive-aggressive confrontation is always an effective response.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#76

Post by wvenable »

DanBC wrote: post #69
darklajid wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument still sucks. Given a reasonable choice in the beginning ("The weather's cool, the kid strapped in, car is secured, will be right back") the kid would - what? Complain and cry after a while? It's a four year old boy with a tendency (if you read between the lines) to throw fits. Maybe all boys are like that.. If the mother (to stay with the original article) would've fallen unconscious or dead in the super…

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.

And those reasons are?

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#77

Post by kevinnk »

ryandrake wrote: post #34

I don't now if it's an American thing or maybe a Western thing, but for whatever reason, voters and elected officials seem to be able to effortlessly make that huge leap from "It's sensible to do ABC" and "It should be required by law to do ABC, under penalty of fines and/or jail". We over-legislate things like public safety, and then rely on the court bureaucracy to apply sensibility and lenience on a case-by-case b…

How can you say it's a Western thing when places like Singapore have fines for not flushing the toilet?

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#78

Post by balor123 »

I was leaving daycare a few weeks ago and saw someone do the same. She left one kid in the car while she went inside to pick up the other one, in Texas. At least it was in front of a daycare center during pickup time, where people would likely notice. Still, a number of things can delay you inside or in the worst case, if you have a freak accident then it could easily be the end of the kid too.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#79

Post by DanBC »

darklajid wrote: post #66
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".

That is an entirely different world of crazy that doesn't belong here, does it? Are we going to turn this into a 'You need to be careful about talking to a child' debate? If you cannot address/talk to a child, things are worse OUTSIDE of that car.

Of course it belongs here!

In a sensible world she would have been able to call out to some car-park lurker "hey I'm just going to grab something from the store, can you just wave at my kid through this window"; or she could just run in and grab something and people seeing her run in and then out would not call the police; or etc etc.

Society has decided that men wanting to work with children are creepy (try finding pre-schools with male workers and early years schools with male teachers), and this extends to the damaging concept of "stranger danger" where someone waiting by the car to check the child is safe is not going to be seen as a welcome bit of support for a busy harassed mother but will be seen as a creepy threat.

It's all part of the same weird system of protecting children without regard to what actual risk is.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#80

Post by peterwwillis »

> 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. The bystander who called in should have done more than just call the police. The mother should have brought the kid in. The cop(s) shouldn't have let it get to court. The courts shouldn't be able to split apart families for a single, momentary, stupid, virtually riskless act. And the media needs to not villify and capitalize on the fear and hate of people who judge situations like this without context.

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