Looks like they developed “the wisdom to know the difference.”
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I remember reading another similar story about a woman that was going to be arrested or charged with child endangerment (something like that) because she walked into a pharmacy to pick up a prescription and left her kid in the locked car for like 5 minutes (within sight of the door the entire time).
By the time we were about 10, my brother and I regularly rode our bikes or walked to the park alone. I don’t consider this an unreasonable parenting decision.
That original story from Florida is mind-blowing. So he got home early, was locked out, and had to shoot some hoops outside til his parents got home. Good lord. I’m pretty sure this exact thing happened to me a few times as a kid (usually my own stupid fault for not remembering to have a key with me).
EDIT: here’s the story I was referring to in my first paragraph.
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I mean, as a new-dad-to-be, I read stuff like that and I’m terrified. You mean if I stop at the gas station with my sleeping baby in the car-seat and walk inside for 2 minutes to buy a coffee & get some cash from the ATM (with my car in sight and 15 feet away), I can be arrested and CPS will be involved? Good fucking lord.
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Same boat bud. Luckily the town I live in isn’t as crazy as some others it would seem. My sister has 4 youngins and they roam around quite a bit. Always seeing kids on bikes just like when I was a kid - so I don’t think it’s as crazy as the news would have us believe - at least where I’m at.
Congrats btw - when is the Mrs due? My wife’s due mid-June
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Early/mid July.
Your first?
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Congrats!
I’ve mulled that over a billion times, and finally said screw it, better safe than sorry, but thats just me. There’s always tinted rear windows though.
Its kinda nice when the cashier goes all crazy over the cute little baby though.
Yep - can’t wait
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I mean, that’s probably where I’ll land too - I just feel awful for someone that has CPS called for walking into a Wawa to buy a donut, with the car and baby in sight the entire time, and is back at the car within three minutes. Seriously, don’t we have bigger things to worry about?
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I would hope so. I chalk it up to another facet of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The people who would do best to mind their own business usually don’t know it because they’re minding everybody else’s.
But hell, I was raised in the '70’s, back when you could smoke in grocery stores and doctors offices.
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Disclaimer: anecdotes and no data inc.
My mom works in the social system in a suburb of my local metro (and has worked in the daycare industry my entire life). The vast majority of CPS cases end with no action taken. Unless there’s a pattern of neglected/etc, most cases spend 5 minutes with a parent apologizing profusely to a judge and the charges immediately dropped.
My mom called CPS a little while back because one of her kids told another kid about this “white powder mom uses to feel good” and it was overheard by a teacher. As the parent had a criminal drug record but no prior CPS record, she was given 2 scheduled home visits and then nothing.
CPS is a lot like the IRS, a ton of bark and barely enough time in the day to utilize the bite.
Don’t take this as gospel though, idk the laws in your specific area
There was a woman who left her kid in the car and it was stolen with him inside. They found the car with the kid, who had been shot dead. Just something to think about.
I can already tell this tangent is going to infuriate me today…
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There are actually a surprising amount of gas station car thefts around here that end up involving kids in the back seat, thankfully not ending up horrifically like that though. Sometimes the cars are actually left running too though, which is hard to imagine. (There, that’s for the stupid thread, staying on topic).
Congrats to you both, it’s truly amazing. Once the kid comes I think our brains get reprogrammed a little too, I can see not really thinking much of this before my daughter, but now I’m in more of a Liam Neeson from Taken mindset. Just without any skills.
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As an Oregon boy, who had my gas pumped for me, when I moved to the Midwest this was shocking. During the winter, everyone pumps gas with the car on. Turning it off might cause frost bite.
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@ The pressure to watch your children every second, never leave kids home alone, not let elementary-age kids play outside alone…
This is a cool study about what motivates this behavior, and the risk of moral judgement, fear of being seen as a “bad parent” by other parents.
Fun thing. One of the authors is a friend of mine!
https://www.collabra.org/articles/10.1525/collabra.33/
An article from Reason that cites the study above.
“… the only socially acceptable mom has become a mom who never takes her eyes off her kids. With that in mind, whenever we see an unsupervised child, we automatically assume the child has a bad mom. And once we are harshly judging that mom, our minds unconsciously judge her “crime” extra harshly, too. We believe it to be more dangerous than it actually is. So it’s a feedback loop: unsupervised kids have terrible moms, terrible moms endanger their kids.”
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Ha, yeah, that never seems quite right to me either, but I meant in the cases of the cars being stolen with kids in them (hoping they were at least locked and running, but still).
So after moving did you figure out the gas cap the first time or just pop the hood and spray some everywhere?
Just one more thing.
The research article I posted above talks about heuristics. The idea that we overestimate the risk of child abduction, the risk that the house will burn down while your 10-year-old is home alone watching a video for 20 minutes while you run an errand. Actually, car accidents are FAR more likely. Your kid is probably safer home alone, than going with you on the errand in the car.
It’s not rational.
I’ve had several negative interactions with other parents over this kind of thing. Being questioned for letting elementary kids walk two blocks on a quiet residential street alone, or for letting my kids stay home alone, or play outside alone. My daughter was stopped by two adults in the neighborhood when she was 13, and asked “Where’s your mom?” She said, “I’m thirteen,” and they responded, “Where’s your mom?” I have neighbors who will not allow their junior high kids to walk a few blocks to a friend’s home alone.
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If I could like this 100x I would. I JUST had to explain myself to my wife the other day when she had a really nasty 'lasted half the day’s headache, and google had convinced her she was having a brain aneurysm.
She goes “how are you not worried, would you not care if I died?!?” And I said “of course I would care, I just understand basic math.”
Ended up regretting that statement
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Lol, my wife was practically in tears the other day because she thought she had a brain tumor. Why? Because she forgot she had already told me a story…
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Hahaha I laughed waaaay to hard at that one…rookie move!
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