<p>^^^It’s hard to say without knowing the particulars of this mom’s situation. I’ve never been without a family or the possibility of daycare for an afternoon, so it’s hard for me to put myself in her situation.</p>
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<p>This happened in my community. I knew the mother. She had been going through an anguishing situation with her older (still very young) child and forgot about her baby in the back seat. What is especially awful is that the car was parked in the employee parking lot all day and no one noticed. The way she realized what she had done was when her husband went to pick up the baby at day care and the baby wasn’t there.</p>
<p>Someone I know recently left her 4-year-old in the car to run an errand and ordered her to stay in her seat, only to find her behind the steering wheel when she returned. Needless to say she learned a lesson that day and will not do it again.</p>
<p>The incident I read about with the dead baby in the car seat (also with a parked car in employee parking lot) was in HI, but don’t recall more details. Incredibly sad! Would never trust my kids alone in a car because they were incredibly good at escaping their car seat, under the best of circumstances. Never have thought it was a good idea for any child to be left in a car. Am uncomfortable leaving adults in my car, even tho they are drivers and often leave them with the key, so they can turn on the AC, roll down (or up) the windows, or lock the car & come in & join me. It’s harder to get adults to come into the store with you than our youngsters.</p>
<p>When my kids were young I would leave them in the locked car as I went in to pay for gas. If it was summer I would roll the windows down a bit. I watched the car every second. I do recall running into the dry cleaners when my then toddler daughter was sleeping in her car seat. I was parked in front of the door and again watched every second. </p>
<p>My H and I were recently talking about this same thing. When I was a child my mother would run into the grocery store for a quick trip. My sister and I always wanted to stay in the car. We were probably 3 and 4 at the time. Car seats were unheard of then. </p>
<p>Good grief, no. I never left my kids in the car locked or unlocked while I went somewhere else. I was thankful that the gas stations had pay at the pump so I never had to leave to even go into the cashier. </p>
<p>There was a case in St. Louis where two Washington U professors left a baby in a hot car and it was found dead. The wife put the baby in the husband’s car and he forgot to take the baby to day care and in the St. Louis heat it cooked to death. Frankly I don’t see how anyone could forget a baby. Even with a lot on one’s mind, thinking about the baby is or should be a parent’s first thought.</p>
<p>I remember when I was younger, moms would leave the baby in the carriage while they went into a local store. Yup, on the sidewalk, by the door. Ironically, when any of us rode into town, we locked up our bikes.</p>
<p>As for the author, agree, if this had happened to me, I sure wouldn’t be talking about it in public, except to warn other parents not to do this. If she was so flustered, leave the kid with grandma. Instead she claims to be unaware it can be a very big deal. The old “Me? I didn’t know” defense. “But I’m a good mother.”</p>
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<p>I remember that so well - including the mom’s mug shot with tears streaming down her cheeks. Whatever happened in that case?</p>
<p>When I was wheeling twins around, I always used the handicapped stall in the ladies’ room so there would be room for the strollers. That way they were never out of sight. </p>
<p>I recall a case in which a Danish couple left a child in a baby carriage outside a New York restaurant and were arrested. Their defense was that this was done in Denmark. </p>
<p>Shanesha Taylor, the woman in Arizona who left her kids in he car while interviewing for a job? She spent 10 days in jail before making bail and is just now being granted supervised visits with her children. I didn’t realize she was a vet…</p>
<p>^Her story makes me livid. In the case of the woman I knew, she wasn’t even charged even though her baby died. I try not to speculate as to why she wasn’t and people like Shanesha Taylor are, but…</p>
<p>When I was seventeen, my 25-year-old sister left a litter of puppies – eight or twelve weeks old, I think – in the back of her station wagon for about 20 minutes. It was a mild spring day. I was with her, and I thought of objecting, but she was the adult, and we expected to be back sooner. Those 20 minutes slipped by before we knew it. When we came back to the car, it was very hot and the puppies were dying. It was a horrible thing, and I won’t describe it here. By the next morning, all the puppies were dead.</p>
<p>So, no, I never left my kid alone in the car until she was pretty old.</p>
<p>Not at that age.
I once encountered a small child alone in a car at a parking lot of the local grocery store. I’d guess he was about 3. He looked like he had just woken up and was crying hard. It wasn’t particularly warm so I wasn’t worried about him stewing in the car but I did worry he’d go in search of his mommy. Another parent and I tried to open the door of the car to calm him down and help him wait for his mom. Unfortunately that just set off the car alarm and further upset the child. We sent someone into the store to make an announcement for the mother over the PA, but no one answered the announcement. We called the police, as concerned about the welfare of the mother as we were about the child. Just as the police rolled up the mom came running out of the store with a baby. She hadn’t heard the announcements and she was furious that the authorities had been called. I felt for her but I didn’t feel she’d been responsible.</p>
<p>Interesting account of an incident that borders on big brother. Yeah, not to society standards but a judgement call that was over ruled by a “police” bystander and thrown into the system.</p>
<p>My question in these situations is always “what if?”, as in “What if the 4 year old had decided he needed to tell mom he wanted the blue headphones instead of the red, climbed into the front seat, unlocked the doors and gone off to find her?” or “What if instead of being a busybody that person who took the video had been a pedophile who lured the boy into unlocking the door?” This kind of mental exercise kept me from being lazy and doing foolish things on more than one occasion when my kids were young. And that’s what I think this mother was being here-lazy and foolish. She neither wanted to drive the boy home to be supervised while she bought the headphones, nor did she want to deal with a temper tantrum. Parenting’s not easy. Too bad.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m judging hard. Put your story out on the internet and that’s what you get.</p>
<p>NO! And we know of more than one case in our very small town where the parents were charged for doing this. </p>
<p>Yes, child was probably a year old and sleeping, and the car was parked in front of the cleaners. I ran in, picked up my dry cleaning and never had the car out of my sight for more than a few seconds. And no, I’m not a bad parent. :)</p>
<p>How about this one? Same child is now 1 1/2-2 years old. I open the front door of our house to go out to our walkway leading up to the house to pick up the newspaper, which is maybe 10-15 feet away. I hear gleeful yelling behind me as my child runs down our front hallway and slams the front door, locking me out! He liked to slam doors-thought it was fun. 
I ran around the house looking for the smallest window I could break and still get in the house. Climbed over and on top of bushes, broke a bathroom window and hurled myself in. Landed on the toilet, LOL, a bit cut up from the glass. Found kiddo just fine, playing with some toys. This same child is getting married in August. No damage done. :)</p>
<p>Do I really want to read a 5000+ word article written just to justify leaving a child inside a car by himself? The problem with thinking, “It’s only going to take 5 minutes…” is that you can never really be a 100% sure it’s just going to take five minutes. Unless there are zombies about to attack your kid and you need to distract the zombies away from the car then I don’t see a good reason why you would leave a kid inside a vehicle or house by himself. The mom upthread who had to pay the gas station but can still see her kids is okay with me though.</p>
<p>One’s worry about “big brother” could be lessened if we worried as much about “good parents.” Especially when posters are quoting tragedies. The state didn’t hunt her down. She left the kid, went out of sight. </p>
<p>Sometimes children can get locked in the car by themselves. The teen son of my friend hid himself in the rear trunk of the car and could not get out. Luckily my friend went to look for him in time.</p>
<p>My mom (an RN) used to leave us in the car for much more than 5 minutes. Granted, it was usually in a small town with good weather and windows cracked (I was 5-8 range). I had to sit in the parking lot at a hospital in Colo. Spgs when I was 8 because kids could not visit the maternity ward there. Probably was there for an hour. It was June. Yes, there was a shift as my situation was not all that different from many of my peers.</p>
<p>I never left mine for more than a minute or two to pay for gas. Much more risky to pull car seats out and waddle across an icy parking lot for a 1 minute transaction than to leave kids in a locked car in full view of their parent.</p>
<p>I love the extremes nowadays. No one seems to be able to handle grey anymore. </p>