I’m not convinced that your friend in the original post did anything wrong. Nor am I convinced that the couple who called the police did the right thing either.

I guess I’m rather inclined to follow Natasha’s thinking. The dangers of slumber parties are more serious to me than leaving your kids in the car for five minutes while you run an errand.

I live in Australia, and something happened just last week. A mum in Brisbane (Queensland), had her 10 week old baby in the car. She had to pay a TV repair guy some money for the quote she had gotten. His business was under his house. The house had a long curved driveway, away from the road. It is very hot here in December (unlike you guys), and as it was a 3 min exchange, and baby girl was asleep, she left the car running for the airconditioning. Yep, I am sure you can guess the story. She came out to her car…. and it was gone!! Baby and all! I live in North Qld, and there were alerts on the TV on the lookout for the car. I prayed to the Lord for the safe return of the baby, as I am sure countless other Christians would have.

Blessings,
Amanda

Ok, for your post about us as moms always worrying that we will be judged, worrying about relevant risk (come on, most of us have been pretty real about the risk ratio we use every day in making multiple small and big decisions concerning our kids’ safety).

I saw the post, and actually chose to allow my kids to stay in the van after reading it (I hadn’t yet read all the comments, I might not have left them if I had). I was at Walmart, and my oldest is 9. The 4 year old is a little iffy, but the 9 year old was ‘watching’ the 7 and 4 yr old. I was gone less then 8 minutes to have a coupon attached to a receipt(I had already completely taken them inside, done my shopping, returned to the van, buckled them up, and then realized I forgot to use my $2 coupon off a product.

My risk ratio is that if I had a .25 coupon, of course I wouldn’t have gone back in the store. But when I had specifically dragged out the coupon and meant to use it in the store, I chose the risk that the said 9 year old could work better on his homework and the kids stay in the van while I ran back into the customer service desk. Had there been a line, it would have altered my risk ratio. I probably would have backed out of the store and tried to remember to bring the coupon with the receipt another time and asked them to take it off (yes, I’m anal that way). But there was NO line.

Now, one time I did have another time where I had done all the shopping w/ the kids (again at Walmart), and had everyone completely buckled before I remembered that chewable children’s tylenol had escaped my shopping list, and we all know how important it was for me to replenish that supply for my kids. So I left them all while I ran inside, trying to keep a low profile, more because I was worried someone might call CPS/police on me for negligence, not because I was concerned that something bad might happen to my children; I felt the risk was extremely small for that. (Interestingly enough, I feel really, really strongly about pools and would own one because of the incredible danger factor of drowning being one of the most quick and silent child killers) My van was locked and turned off, in a crowded parking lot in bright sunlight with lots of customers traipsing between vehicle and store. The chance that someone would see my kids through the tinted windows and attempt to break them out is, again, extremely small, and the chance that someone would want to steal my non-running car is even smaller still.

Anyway, I didn’t make direct eye-contact with anyone, and I saw a mom park and look at me (out of the corner of my eye I noticed this, of course), and not get out of her car. I ran inside, grabbed the tylenol, lucked out with a short line, and was back in under 4 minutes, 5 minutes tops. Then the lady got out of her car and went inside, looking concerned.

I wish I had been brave enough to thank her for keeping an eye on my kids, or at least make eye contact with her, but I was too scared of the judgment she might feel, or that she would tongue-lash me, and the truth is, I did take a risk. In the van as I drove away I reflected, and quietly thanked her out loud for being so responsible to stay and watch to be sure I didn’t neglect my kids.

My neighbor once said that she waited by some unattended kids at a store for over 30 minutes before she called cops, so I feel this lady did the right thing in my case. Also I once went to drop by someone’s home who I visit-taught, only to have her just barely 7 yr old open the door to me, who was playing video games while his 3 year old sister wandered around the little apt. with a huge open sore on the heel of her foot (I kid you not, it was at least an inch deep, like someone had taken a cone-shaped chunk out of her heel), and the baby playing in her crib (maybe 6-7 months?). My vt companion happened to be just as prompted as I was, and also happened to stop by unnanounced. We couldn’t find any food in the house, or even a can opener to open a can of formula we found to try and feed the baby. I got my first aid kid and dressed the girl’s wound, and had some sandwiches in my car to feed the kids. I can’t remember if we found a way to feed the baby any formula. Even though all of this together looked bad, like there were no sheets on the kids’ beds, the little girl and baby both had diapers on that had not been changed that day (it was nearly noon), and the baby had a bottle that had not been rinsed or washed out within the last 9 or 10 times using it (you know how gross bottles get, quick), you could catch me at any given day with any one of those factors, a bandaid has fallen off a wound, a bottle has gotten extra dirty, it’s been awhile since I changed a diaper, the sheets are all in the laundry from kids who wet beds, etc.

But as the vt companion and I stayed with the kids to ensure their safety, we waited an entire HOUR before the mother returned, with valentine gifts in a shopping bag for her husband (she later claimed that her babysitter took off because his brother was shot, without calling her. though we lived in a rougher area, I do not believe there was ever a babysitter, I think she thought she was safe to leave them at home for well over an hour unattended). In this case I prayed and worried and asked the bishop what I should do, and it is the only time I have ever called CPS. The mother was so upset when they came out several weeks later, and knew by the date the call was made that it had to have been me or my companion. I was honest and told her it was me, and she was furious that I didn’t just talk with her about it. I explained that if there was danger for those kids, and I had talked to her about it, she could have hidden the signs of danger before someone checked the place out. I reassured her that I was acting in her kids’ best interest, and that if she had done nothing wrong, she had nothing to worry about. I do think it was a wake-up call for her, and I truly don’t judge her.

Anyway, it’s nice to know people are honest enough to admit that we worry about these things and actually talk about it. Seeing hard statistics is always really helpful. Like people being terrified of airplanes (I mean, what if it crashes?, they say) when the statistical chance of them getting in an auto accident is quite significant, at least 100 to 1. And here they’re going around in their cars every day, ‘feeling’ much safer, even though they’re at much greater risk for accident.

I’ve left a window open for my neighbor’s housekeeper when I ran down to the school to pick up a sick kid, so she could hear if my baby woke up. I’ve walked down the street and talked with neighbors as far as 6-8 townhomes away, once my kids were asleep, sometimes up to 30-40 minutes inbetween stepping home to check on them, ‘just in case.’

Then again, I was home watching TV, exhausted mentally and emotionally, when I was prompted in my zoned out state to go check on my sleeping boys. I didn’t really hear any noise beyond normal crying, whining, that often doesn’t warrant checking into. When I entered the room, to check, ‘just in case,’ (which is why we continue to do the ‘just in case’ checks on our kids), my baby (under 1 year) had somehow crawled up the bunkbed ladder and then somehow wiggled between the bed and the wall, and was hanging by his neck, literally, his head stuck above the frame of the bed and the wall, his body hanging down below it.

I still shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn’t checked on him. I’m hoping it had just happened, because there never appeared to be any lasting damage. I rushed to him and supported his weight for over 15 minutes from underneath, trying to figure out how to move the bunkbed by myself (hubby was at work) while supporting my baby’s weight. It was a terrible time. I didn’t dare leave him even for a moment to go grab a phone and call 911. After quite some time, I yelled out enough to my 5 year old that he woke up and got out of bed and helped pull as I was pulling, and together we got the frame to move half an inch or so, just enough that I could get the baby out. My shrink was really nice to me about that one, and helped me process my “what if” fears.

Or there’s the time my oldest was less than a month old and chocked on some snot/spit and stopped breathing. My mother heard it from three rooms over and came running because she recognized from his strangled cry that he was not getting oxygen. She, a volunteer EMT at the time, performed the baby heimlich on him while I called 911. Whatever it was eventually dislodged and he swallowed it and then breathed, even before the ambulance arrived. How grateful I am for her medical training in saving his life. Despite being pale for the rest of the day, my baby had no lasting effects. And, in fact, this summer my mom taught baby heimlich, baby, child, and person CPR at our family reunion, which was an awesome refresher course for many of us.

It’s just made me realize, there are so many things that could go wrong. Some of them we can minimize (they’re saying now that a fan in a baby’s room hugely cuts down on the risk of SIDS), like having the right carseats for our kids and making them get buckled in them correctly, but if we just stress about all the risks all the time, we literally would fall apart from the burden of stress.

So we look at the relevant risk and make decisions every day, and don’t freak ourselves out playing the What IF game, hoping to make the best choices possible and stay sane, and praying for protection from a loving God, and understanding that we don’t fully understand God’s plan for us if we end up being one of the statistics that everyone hopes they’ll never be.

Good luck, everyone! Try to be safe with your kids, but don’t drive youself so crazy that you can’t be a nurturing mother to them.

Sorry for being so wordy, and probably after all the commenters have already moved on to other blog topics. So, Jane, enjoy.

Since my oldest is 6.5, and the younger one 3.5, I trust that they know the rules for the 3-4 minutes it takes to wait in line to pay for gas, and in gas stations, the front wall is frequently all glass, and I can see my car.

My fear is usually not abduction or car theft (nobody would steal my car, lol), but being rear-ended. Thankfully I haven’t got airbags in the back seat, but the “what if someone DOES disobey and unbuckle” is there in my mind.

Oh, and heat stroke. We live in FL, and just the other day (yes, in Jan) it was 89 degrees outside, and probably 95 in the car. I would never leave them in the heat!

I read on one website that if it was 60 degrees and sunny outside, the greenhouse effect could turn the temperature in the car dangerous/lethal within (15?) minutes. Scary. — Jane

What about the question: if you were the passerby who witnesses such an *innocent* “maternal-attention-lapse”, what is the appropriate response? IE the person / couple that comes across 1-2 children strapped inside? I would love to think that someday I would have the maturity to stop what I was doing, stay and watch over the children, patiently awaiting the return of the mother, then when she returned, smile, tip my hat, and leave without a word of any kind, and without a critical thought, knowing that mothers do love their children, and do sacrifice so much already, and that I would like to lessen their load somehow. That is what I would hope to someday be able and willing to do. I love and honor all you mothers!

Grandpa Hyatt

I think that the kinder thing for those people to have done would have been to wait a a few more minutes.

The law is very difficult to research. And it is VERY expensive to pay an attorney, who might not be able to help anyway.

What is really bad is that the mother had to feel so badly over it. This is an area where the atonement is really really helpful in allowing us to let go of what we can’t control in the past and gain more confidence in our present.

Life happens. I’m sure my mother thought nothing of letting her 16 year old son have a medicine cabinet in his bathroom with a glass door. As I’m sure she thought nothing of letting her 2 year old daughter play on her bed while she got dressed in the same room. And how many of us have fans in our house during the summer? And yet all of these caused far more damage than leaving my pre-schoolers in the car for less than 5 minutes while I ran in to get pizza.

No one is saying these things don’t happen. I’m saying they’re rare. Do you want me to give you a list of every bad thing that happens more often than this, to strike fear into your heart so that you’ll never let your kids do anything? My husband has prosecuted three cases where people died from ONE punch in the head. Immediate death. Turns out there’s some people whose necks or something are vulnerable to this and the same thing can happen by a strong knock to the head… like in hockey or football, or whatnot. And you wouldn’t want to let your boys rough house play because they could accidentally be paralyzed or die.

I’d like to know how that three year old knocked the gear shift into drive when his or her mom got the mail. Shouldn’t a 3-year old be strapped into a carseat? My kids have never been able to get themselves out of their carseats.

this is actually my fear as well. Its strange to me, I was allowed to stay home with my lil sister for short times when i was 9-11 and had a full time babysitting job the summer I was twelve, and yet the thought of leaving ANY 10-12 yyear old that i currently know with my kids is enough to strike fear in my heart. I think its frightening how much less prepared most kids, teens, collegians are prepared for life than i feel like my generation was 20 years ago. (and I was unprepared compared to many of my friends). I find it shocking that we are sending our 3 and 4 year olds to school full time in the interest of them being prepared for education, but what is being taken away from them in common sense and personal responsibility?
We talk about things like this with our kids, just like we do guns, and pools, and trampolines. We have actually had all of these conversations with our boys in the last 6 months. My boys (4 and 5) got BB guns for Christmas from their daddy. They also got a list of rules to go with them and EVERY gun in our house is in a 30 guage steel safe bolted into both the floor and the wall. We are also planning on putting in a swimming pool this summer, but the pool isnt as big a worry to me as the river thats 1/2 a mile down the road from us that I know my kids can both get to and play in…my pool is much less likely to be snakey…
Now the trampolines…completely 100% forbidden….but we have also forbidden skateboards…risk is relative, and it is related to what you know and where you are and what part of the country you are in.

Yes KIDS IN CARS these things all happen, but so do every other scenario we have mentioned on here…

I havent done it in years, but in my teens and twenties I had a habit? not sure thats the right word…i would relax so in the shower that I would pass out….I do not take showers with the infant alone in the house with me…its a reasonable fear to me.

The first year we lived in this house I had an 8 month old and an 18 month old. I was changing the diaper of the 8 month old and heard the back door. I walked out of the bedroom, and could see a string of clothes to the back door. I grabbed my shoes because our yard is covered in rocks, put them on, put the baby back in the play pen so i could run and ran out the door….
When i got to the front of the house i could hear the 18 mo old calling for his daddy….
he was 200 yards down the road out front naked as a jaybird with our boston terrier on one side and the choc lab on the other….
when i yelled his name, the dogs split and ran into the woods on either side and K fell on his bottom.
Thank heaven we live in the middle of nowhere and on a good day back then there might be 4 cars on our road all day…
The point is THINGS HAPPEN….
we need to quit justifying everything we do and judging each other as parents because lets face it in ANY situation the truth is THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD…..
Steff

The mother of the 22-month-old and 3-year-old children, Bridgett Radake, 36, told police she left her 1991 Ford truck to retrieve mail Tuesday night when one of the children apparently shifted the vehicle into drive, sending it rolling into a private pond near their home.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/10/2-toddlers-die-after-pickup-submerges.html
***F.Y.I. If your vehicle does not have a brake shift interlock system, the car does not have to be on for this to happen.

Police: Car Rolls Over, Kills Toddler:
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/17014132/detail.html

Authorities release name of girl who died in accident in Chickasha
http://newsok.com/authorities-release-name-of-girl-who-died-in-accident-in-chickasha-still-no-cause-of-death/article/3334079

Slain mom’s kids plead for help finding her killer
Tina Davila died defending baby from carjacker: ‘She was the coolest mom’
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/25490690/

Police continue search for 4 suspects in boy’s abduction
CBS 42, TX – Feb 8, 2008
Police are still searching for the four suspects who kidnapped a boy as he sat in his mother’s car Thursday morning

Four Year Old Abused and Buried Alive
The Fresno County Sheriff’s Department has confirmed with KSEE 24 that a 4 year old disabled child was snatched from a van, abused, and buried alive in a vineyard.
http://www.ksee24.com/news/local/36736144.html?video=pop&t=a
KSEE 24 News= Fresno, CA

And the sleepover facts are just creepy.

I do think that everyone’s experience growing up along with where they live (small town v. big anonymous suburbs v. large busy city) colors their view on this. I know living in the same region as the two cases of moms whose little ones died in hot cars definitely affects my own perspective on this issue.

It’s a judgment call, all of the scenarios of leaving your child for just a minute or two, one that each of us makes individually based on our best knowledge.

What’s sad, no matter whether you agree with leaving them just for a second or not, is the eyes of scrutiny we moms face. Was it Natasha (? would need to scroll up..) who mentioned all the abuse that happens to kids at home and in the home?

It’s sad that good parents (none of us are abusive, I imagine) are afraid to exercise their best judgement because of the potential that some one might make a call to the authorities.

I’ve talked to my hubs about this, particularly during the heydey of my youngest’s terrible public tantrums last summer. Everyone is watching you – and so few people in public seem to genuinely want to help stressed moms, just criticize.

Another brave post, Jane!

I don’t believe we are talking about real serious threats. If your kids can get out of their carseats and the vehicle is running, maybe that’s not wise. But if they’re strapped in, can’t get out, and you’re dashing into a store, and the vehicle is locked, any fear you have is not reasonable. It’s not a reasonable amount of fear for the tiny risk that’s there. It’s TINY, the risk.

A real fear I have is that we are raising a generation of paranoid agraphobes. When I was a kid, my mom slept with a knife under her pillow. She was always afraid that someone would break in. Now, that’s my number one fear, too– that someone will break in and steal my kids or kill us or all sorts of things. It’s not a rational fear. The chances are so tiny but the fear is ingrained in me.

When you’re too afraid to leave your kids for a few minutes, around people, when you have to give them five different warnings before you leave them or before an activity, you teach them to be afraid of people and maybe even life.

Anyway, I guess I’m in luck as my oldest is 14 and youngest is 7. I can leave them if I want. And I do. Not for long, but 12 minutes in a store is actually a remarkable short time to be in and out if you really think about it.

Thanks for stopping by. I will graciously accept that you did not vote for me. And I will not vote for you. Good luck to you. I am mostly grateful someone nominated me, but I’d not have signed up for this kind of pressure. Not this week, anyway. I like your blog. I’ll be around.