Reaction at Metafilter to the (very long) Salon piece "The day I left my son in the car/I made a split-second decision to run into the store. I had no idea it would consume the next years of my life."
I'd skimmed the Salon piece yesterday, but chose not to blog it, in part because I thought it was way too long. Why does the author (Kim Brooks) think we have that kind of time? It's ironic that she imposes such a time-consuming burden on us, when she portrays herself as so bizarrely short of time that she "made a split-second decision" to do something that got her in trouble with the criminal law. But the car was parked, so what was the basis for the short time for deciding whether to take the kid into the store or leave him — as he wanted — in the car? Now, I know that the author probably didn't write the headline, and — to be fair — she never said "split-second." She said:
I took a deep breath. I looked at the clock. For the next four or five seconds, I did what it sometimes seems I’ve been doing every minute of every day since having children, a constant, never-ending risk-benefit analysis. I noted that it was a mild, overcast, 50-degree day. I noted how close the parking spot was to the front door, and that there were a few other cars nearby. I visualized how quickly, unencumbered by a tantrumming 4-year-old, I would be, running into the store, grabbing a pair of child headphones. And then I did something I’d never done before. I left him. I told him I’d be right back. I cracked the windows and child-locked the doors and double-clicked my keys so that the car alarm was set. And then I left him in the car for about five minutes.So it was a 4-or-5-second decision, and nothing pressured her not to contemplate longer. And time also mattered because she calculated that she'd get through the shopping faster "unencumbered" by the "tantrumming" child. Anyway, I didn't have 5 minutes to read through her elaborate justifications. She was intent on buying "child headphones," because they were going on a trip and she needed to make sure the kid could be plugged into a movie-watching device, a way of controlling him, and meanwhile he's controlling her with tantrums. Where's the insight? I know it gets around to how mean the legal system is and how bad it was for some bystander to call the police, but I'd had enough 1-tenth of the way through.
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43 comments:
We were left alone in parked cars all the time as kids.
That was before hysteria became the organizing force in know-it-all people.
"It only takes an instant to break a window to steal the car, the kid, the iPad, or all of the above."
Contrary to media-driven perceptions, kidnappers do not lurk around every corner.
What does stealing the car or the iPad have to do with anything?
Child Left in a Car in the Parking Lot says:
I hope Mommy is buying ice cream. I like ice cream, I hope Mommy is buying chocolate ice cream. I don't like vanilla ice cream. Sometimes I hate Mommy.
Another comment from the metafilter thread:
"As Lenore Skenazy mentions in the article, statistically speaking, the kid is muuuuch more likely do die in a car accident on the way home then they are do die in some misadventure in the parking lot. How is leaving the child in the car for a few minutes any less responsible than driving to the mall with them in the first place?"
She didn't go into a mall. She went into a strip mall after parking right in front of the door. That's completely different.
Things probably more likely to happen than someone smashing in a car window to steal a child left unattended for a few minutes:
A child dying in a car accident on the way to the store.
A child slipping, falling, and dying inside a store.
A child being hit by a car in a parking lot.
An escaped monkey biting a child in a backyard.
Now would I leave my children in the car to go inside anywhere that would take them out of my line of sight? No way. Not because I think they'd be in danger, but because the world is full of hysterical parenting busybodies.
Child Left in a Car in the Parking Lot says:
I like the stranger who came up to the car. I bet he had toys, I bet he would've let me play with his toys in his white van. He must have had toys in his pocket, he kept trying to find them, he moved his hand in his pocket back and forth and I think he was looking for toys.
I think that our society makes parenting ever more onerous while giving less and less respect for doing it. Give parents some slack.
Child Left in a Car in the Parking Lot says:
The stranger tried to open the door but mommy left it locked and so I couldn't play with the stranger. She leaves me to do Mommy things all the time and now that there is a friend to play with I can't play with him the car is locked. I want to know what that toy was in his pocket, I bet it must be fun to play with, he seemed to like it a lot. I think you must have to shake it to make it work. Sometimes I hate Mommy.
As for the idea of keeping children occupied with electronics for every second of non-activity, that's an actual problem, as this post highlights.
I remember being left, from 3 onwards, in the car at the Bet-R store in Baton Rouge when I was a kid - for long enough for my mom to get a weeks groceries from a semi-full service store - all the canned goods were out but the loose and meat were behind a counter. I had the a toy or the Hardy boys and didn't want to go. Of course the windows were down, it was a bazillion degrees.
I also recall being sent out a restaurant to wait in the car because I interrupted an adult. I fell asleep and woke up in my own best. Again, well before age six.
And survived.
My kids have spent tons of time locked in the car with the windows down, from age 6 upwards, at their request.
And survived.
I'm sure I could have gotten in trouble, and knew it at the time.
My wife was not such a big fan. :-)
-XC
Tell the grandparents to quit letting the kids play with the iPad in the car.
What's the deal with grandparents and constant media? This seems to be a big Boomer thing. Rare are the grandparents these days who aren't trying to plug the grandkids into electronics all the time.
Child Left in a Car in the Parking Lot says:
Mommy sometimes leaves me at home with Uncle Alan. I do not like Uncle Alan's games. He says they are secret just between us and not to tell anyone. I bet the man with the white van has better games.
I don't think leaving your child in a non-hot car is a criminal act.
This woman wouldn't have to justify anything if our society weren't so out to over criminalize choices and be ever more life-ruin-y.
Child Left in a Car in the Parking Lot says:
Sometimes Mommy's friend comes by the house when Daddy is at work and they have me watch TV while they play games in the bedroom. They must be fun games because Mommy really sounds like she is having fun. Mommy says her visits with her friend are a secret and I can't tell Daddy. Grown-ups have a lot of secrets.
Child Left in a Car in the Parking Lot says:
Sometimes after Mommy's friend leaves she gives me a big bowl of chocolate ice cream while she takes a shower. I like chocolate ice cream the best.
Child Left in a Car in the Parking Lot says:
Daddy sometimes asks me if Mommy sees any friends during the day but I can keep a secret. I like the chocolate ice cream.
People blow this kind of thing way out of proportion. There are so many know-it-alls in the world, especially when it comes to parenting. Young mothers have read all the books and know what's best for everyone else; to these assholes, raising a child is a village activity, whether you want it that way or not.
"You aren't feeding that to your child, are you? We only feed our child x, y, and z. Here, let me give you this book ..."
"You aren't going to spank your child, are you? You are teaching him to be violent. Please, stop. Let me give you this book ..."
"Oh, your boy wants to play pop warner football? I'm so sorry. Thankfully my boy wants to play soccer. Have you read about all the concussions in football? It's such a violent game. Soccer is great, no one gets hurt, the boys and girls can play together on the same team and you get to have orange slices at halftime. It's so much fun!"
I've done that, but not for four or five minutes. And not when the car would be out of my sight for more than a few seconds. Most importantly, our children weren't allowed to throw tantrums.
Wow, that is a police force with a lot of extra time on their hands. If I lived in that jurisdiction, I would be really annoyed at the waste of my tax dollars.
Of course, such concerns may seem foreign to state employees.
Great! On account of these silly child-protection rules the rest of us have to put up with tikes screaming and yelling and running around the grocery-store aisles.
To add injury to insult, we also pay high taxes to support more breeding.
It's not responsible, she shouldn't have done it, but the fact is, our society habitually over-reacts to actions deemed unsafe.
In much of the world, leaving your child unattended for a couple minutes is not a big deal.
I posted the original article with this response on FB: Honestly, this article just infuriates me. You know who I think the REAL bad guy of the story is? The self-righteous, smug-*** person who called this poor woman in. Now, was this the best decision the author ever made as a mother? No. But who among us is a perfect mother? Who hasn't made mistakes as a parent or just as a human?! Who is BEYOND thankful that there isn't someone following them around with a camera all the live long day to judge their parenting successes and failures?
What that holier-than-thou anonymous person SHOULD have done if they were so genuinely concerned was to watch the child from afar, and then when the mother returned, politely confront her, saying something along the lines of, "I know you were only in there for a few minutes, but I saw your child alone in the car, and you never know when a kidnapper might notice that, too. I just want that to be a warning so nothing bad happens in the future." Instead, she calls the cops over a FIVE MINUTE errand, probably with hopes that this child will be taken away from this "negligent" mother. That was not the outcome, thankfully, but notice how the child was still traumatized: "Mommy, don't go outside to let the dog out, the police will take you away!" That child has been permanently scarred for no good reason other than the fact that someone hiding behind the coward's cloak of anonymity decided that leaving a child in a locked car for 5 minutes is enough to revoke your parenting license and rip a family apart.
Now, if it was 90 degrees outside? Yes, call the cops. Heck, break the window open to let the hot air out, and call the cops. The mom is inside for 30 minutes or more? Sure, call the cops. A quick trip inside for less than five minutes? Again, arguable not the BEST decision, but is the proper punishment trying to take a child away from his otherwise loving parents? No. A million times, no.
Not because I think they'd be in danger, but because the world is full of hysterical parenting busybodies.
Why I adore Freeman Hunt in one sentence.
And who honestly believes that being ripped from your family and being put in our abysmal foster care system is going to be better for those kids than being left in the car alone for 5 minutes? That anonymous stranger was on the brink of causing a LIFETIME of psychological damage for those kids over something that was none of his/her damn business.
"the world is full of hysterical parenting busybodies."
They are everywhere and it's not just kids. We had Easter brunch and came out of the restaurant to find cops had broken into a car driven by a friend of my daughter. She had loft her dog in the car while she went to brunch. It was a cool day and the car was in front of the restaurant. It took most of an hour to get her dog back. They probably would have taken the dog to a pound and euthanized it if we had not come back so soon.
1. The kids sounds like a brat and I would have told him 'oh well, you won't have headphones' and left.
2. That said, don't think he was in danger. If you saw this occur, you should go to the car and make sure the kid was alright, maybe wait for the parent and talk to them, not call the police if they were obviously fine.
3. At what age can you leave a kid in the for 5 minutes? I had this thought when I was thinking about leaving my 7 year old nephew in the car for a minute to buy tickets for a movie. I mean, honestly.
When I was a kid, my dad was in the Navy. It was against federal law for anyone to shop at the commissary who didn't have a military or dependent's ID card. You couldn't get a dependent's ID card until you reached a certain age, probably 12 or 13 or thereabouts.
So when mom when shopping for groceries she, just like every other mom, would leave us outside the store while she went inside and shopped. There was no one watching us. And no one was kidnapped or died from loneliness.
We did mess up the stacks of shopping carts from time to time though . . .
I second rhhardin's comment about being left alone. It wasn't unusual, in the days before helicopter parenting was considered the only acceptable form of parenting.
In Phoenix leaving your kids in the car (especially in the summer time) is a big deal. You can cook 'em pretty quickly even with the windows cracked. I wouldn't be so concerned in cooler climes but in the Phoenix summer you can't do that. I'd probably wait for a few minutes to see if the parents come back but longer than that I'm calling the police.
I left my eight and 3 year old in the van yesterday because they didn't want to go inside our rec center to find my 5 year old's hat. I didn't think anything about it. I was completely out of sight for a least 10 minutes (5yo needed to go to the bathroom once we found the hat). But 8 is a lot different than 4 and strapped, trapped in a car seat. I have left them before at younger ages but only when I was at a place that had windows and where I would next to the windows the entire time (like the Post Office). It is a reaction not so much to their well being, but other people's perceptions of their well being.
This joke isn't funny anymore.
It's depressing how many Calvin and Hobbes jokes aren't supposed to be funny anymore.
Ms. Brooks should count herself very fortunate that she is not held to the standard of predictive neglect.
Her fear of tantrums reveal that her four-year-old son has already gained the upper hand, effectively employing the feminine tactic of changing his mind. Her arguments are just as weak: "free range" kids are those locked in cars?
Perhaps the busybodies can be abated by attaching timers to cars used as babysitters?
The doctrine of zero tolerance frees one from the burden of discriminating by applying judgement to any particular incident.
My children rode bicycles to Middle School.
I was once visited by CPS because my son didn't stop, get off his bike, look both ways and WALK across the railroad tracks - he just rode right on across with all the cars.
One of the overly-caring parents who drove her children the 1/2 mile recognized mine and REPORTED it to the STATE!!
It would be bad enough had she only called ME - but she thought I must be a questionable parent and the State should check things out.
Had the same experience as Michael K. Someone left their dog in the car, windows cracked, cool day in the parking lot outside my office while they took their kids to the pediatrician. Someone called the cops who were standing there waiting for the family when their doctor's visit was over. I thought that was crazy.
Recently, one of my patients brought her newly rescued kitten (as in rescued just before her appointment with me) into the office with her. I wasn't too crazy about an animal in the office, but then I remembered that dog in the car and decided to let her bring it in so she wouldn't get arrested or anything.
Expat(ish) - Nice to see a fellow Baton Rougean around here. Like you, I was left in the car while mom shopped at Bet-R on occasion. Still live in the neighborhood, still shop there.
I'm with the mom on this one, too. Ridiculous that something like that results in a call to the police. God save us from busybodies and the police who are far too willing to do their bidding. We've become ridiculously risk-averse as a society.
" you never know when a kidnapper might notice that, too"
Actually, you do know: the probability is so close to zero that zero is a good first, second, and even third approximation.
" you never know when a kidnapper might notice that, too"
Actually, you do know: the probability is so close to zero that zero is a good first, second, and even third approximation.
I stayed in the car all the time when my parents went to buy stupid shit that I couldn't eat or play with. I think this childhood trauma will stand me in good stead as an extenuating factor if I ever become a serial killer.
When I was in 4th grade in Tulsa, our grocery store had a small room (with no door) at the front of the store with a TV playing cartoons in a loop. Mom dropped the kids there, did her shopping, collected them on the way out. There were no employees guarding the place, no checks to make sure you weren't kidnapped, just unsupervised children watching cartoons. Since that's not possible to do anymore, it's only natural that parents are going to, on occasion, leave their kid in the car instead.
"Actually, you do know: the probability is so close to zero that zero is a good first, second, and even third approximation. "
Oh, I agree with you! But the person who called this mother in to the cops would have been wiser to talk to the mother herself and give her this warning rather than call the cops because she believed the kids was within seconds of being kidnapped. Obviously the odds of that kid being forcibly taken from a locked car in a public setting are very, very slim.
Five will get you one that the busybody snitch thinks that free and easy-to-get abortions are an essential human right.
No one has mentioned whether it was appropriate for the police to accept the complaint from the "concerned citizen" or for her mother's state legislature to pass laws prohibiting what she did.
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