I was changing a diaper and wiping their faces with baby wipes in the back seat, when the police pulled up. Somebody had called and said three kids were left alone in the parking lot in a car for an hour. Apparently they had issues with time awareness and thought I was a child, since I have only 2 kids. I guess I was the third kid? I got out of the car and the lady who called was standing there going on about how worried she was. Asked me where my mother was... I told her she was a fucking idiot and I'm a 30 year old woman, thank you, mind your business.

When I see kids in the car, I check for danger and tell myself to check on them when I leave the store. They are usually gone by the time I get back, otherwise I stay until the parent comes, and that has never taken longer than a few minutes at most. I just tell the parent that I was making sure they were coming back. I have always gotten a thank you. No need for extra drama, just a bit of observation. It takes time but it's less traumatic for kids.

This automatic calling of the police is scary. It's almost like you have to shoot a video of yourself and the environment each time you might leave them in the car so you can prove it was done responsibly. I like your approach better.

I don't like the idea of kids going to foster care because the parents were not aware of the laws. I usually remind the parents that people are quick to call the police for stuff like that. Just so they know.
If the cops come they should probably not arrest the parents unless there is abuse involved. A warning is enough for most people.

Should I wait for that if I see one left in a car?

No errand is worth harm coming to your child.

You have a house, and a child, and the child is in one room watching TV (likely to continue so, therefore a "safe" environment). You go down to the basement to switch the wash.

How is that any different?

it was okay when you left the room because you had (large) dogs that were with them.

That sounds like leaving kids along with a dog while out of the car.

Just arguing for debate's sake, but I have to get to sleep soon (next 5 minutes). I'm just trying to point out that it's hard to claim it's okay to leave the kids in the care of the dogs in your house while you're in another room/floor or something doing laundry, but it's not okay to leave them in a car for a few minutes with a dog. Where's the difference?

I took the kids with me down to do laundry so they would not be left alone upstairs with the dogs. I can see how my description was ambiguous.

Have a good night!

because small kids just don't understand that they can't/shouldn't do certain things to the dog, even if it's been a family pet for like forever.

Dogs can't talk, so if they're not feeling well, nobody's going to know until they do something that hurts the dog and the dog bites or snaps.

Too many people spew out the really stupid statement, "Oh MY dogs wouldn't hurt a fly!"

Bullshit. Never ever assume your dog won't bite or snap, I don't care how "well behaved" he is.

Oh, and here's something that really makes me wonder about people...my two girls were never properly socialized as pups. We got them at ten months old, and we don't get a lot of visitors, and taking them anywhere was majorly stressful for them because they would vomit in the car every time. So people come to the house. I either put them in their crates, or I keep them in the kitchen which is open to the living room except there's a gate and they can't get to the other room. They're barking and snarling like mad, showing teeth, the whole bit. And most people who have seen this will ask, "Will they bite?"

WTF??

Ummmm....yeah. They'll bite.

duh....

Stranger abductions are vanishingly rare, dog bites are common. Even perfectly well behaved dogs get freaked out by kids doing ordinary kid stuff.

Maybe I'm the overprotective paranoid type, but I would never leave a small child in a car, even for a minute or two, while I was out of sight.

The room containing the TV doesn't have a gear shift.

One day my mom left my little brother in the car at the cemetery while she went to put flowers on a grave. In a matter of seconds, my brother put the car in neutral, and it hit a tree. Minor accident, but it could have been worse.

One day I left my two kids in the car while I stopped to visit a friend. I wasn't more than 15 feet from the car, which was on a slight hill. One of them put the car in neutral. I spotted it rolling and jumped in and slammed on the brake. Then I swore never again to leave my kids alone in the car.

Yeah, a parent could put on the emergency brake, and that would solve the problem, but it's not always possible to remember that sort of thing.

This isn't a zero sum thing. There are lots of cases where the danger of the parking lot might be greater than the danger of being alone in the car for a minute.

Do you bring your kids into the bathroom with you? Kids are alone sometimes.

but leaving kids alone leaves them open to danger without the benefit of adult help. My kids wouldn't be walking alone in a parking lot; they'd be with me.

When my kids were very young, I'd take them into the bathroom with me - I didn't really leave them alone, even in the house. When they were a bit older, I might let them play right outside the bathroom & leave the door ajar. Though, knowing me, I probably waited till they were in bed to pee.

of children not maturing and developing in the ways they have in the past, and of children not getting as much outside play time because they aren't allowed to be out without their parents, which leads to higher obesity levels.

You say "very young" and "a bit older" and I don't know what that means. We might be thinking of different age kids and talking past each other.

But I wouldn't leave a 5 or 6 year old alone in a car, either.

They can't come in with me now.

First, all the moms were in there and they would get to talking. And god forbid you run into someone Irish. That is twenty minutes gone there.

And what if you ran into Mrs. Kennedy? Indefatigable . That woman, with one breath, could talk for two hours.

No, stay in the car, turn on Larry Lujack and read. Animal stories.

I could only pick up WLS at night thru early morning tho.

there are a whole bunch of cases of kids being left "for a minute" while parents runs off to the store, or whatever, and somebody jumps into the car and takes off.
I don't find any need to be supportive of people's rights to leave their kids in cars if they feel like it.

Here is one. Mom left the baby in the car for a moment to go pay for gas. Car was stolen with the baby inside.

http://www.wlwt.com/news/20dayold-baby-reported-missing-in-stolen-car/30302082

ran into store to get cigs and car and baby gone. They found it thank God.

It amazes me to no end that some posters here would act as if it was unheard of.

Despite Hollywood imaginations and a few news reports that are repeated over and over again year after year, very few people want to steal babies. On the other hand, there are lots of people who like to steal cars, and leaving the keys in the ignition makes that more likely to happen. This kind of thing happens but it's a case of someone stealing the car with a baby happening to be in the car, not a case of a person abducting a baby because they want the baby. And there's an easy solution that doesn't include waking the baby up - take the keys in with you and lock the car (so long as the car isn't in the sun and the temperature is moderate and you'll only be gone for a very short time, like to walk into an ATM vestibule or something.)

but you also didn't mention that taking the keys with you would solve the problem, so I'm mentioning it.

Which one should you pick?

That is should NOT lead to people getting arrested. That's the reason people are talking about this.

Windows down when hot, and closed when cold. Radio going, crawling from the back seat to the drivers wheel. Honking the horn, if you were lucky enough to have electric windows, that was always fun. Then here comes mom or dad, and I climb on the back of the front seat with my legs and arms dangling from front to back, and we're off.

One day my mom parked on a hill and left us inside the car. I jumped in the front seat like I always did and started playing with the levers and next thing I knew the car was rolling backwards down the hill. Some man on the street at the time did a Superman dive into the front window and stopped the car.

Good times, lol.

But yea, another danger of leaving kids in the car is that they can get into front seat and start playing with the levers and buttons.

That incident made it impossible for me to ever leave my kids in the car for any reason. No matter how much they fussed, they went with me, lol.

Here in Japan, parents leave their kids in cars all the time to go into the store for a few minutes. Sometimes they leave the air conditioning (and thus the engine) running.

Occasionally, however, there will be some news story about a parent who just had to play pachinko (a kind of pinball game) at a pachinko parlor and left their kid out in the car, and the car would run out of gas while the air conditioner was on and then it would become too hot inside.

My old buddy used to have one and it was a gas.

I also left a sleeping kid alone at home while I ran off to do a quick errand. So glad that was long enough ago that the police were never called on me.

What I NEVER did was leave the car running so that some idiot could hijack the car. Plus, I drive a stick shift, so most thieves probably couldn't drive my car anyway.

I accidentally dropped my keys on the floor of the car when I put my daughter in the car seat and then closed the locked door with her and the keys inside. I never left the side of the car. I called the police and waited for them to come them jimmy the lock open.

Just about the time they arrived, some self-righteous twit decided she needed to get mouthy and berate me for leaving my child in the car. Perhaps she thought someone had called the police on me because I had left my child in the car alone. Who knows - but it made a challenging situation worse, and that kind of abusive behavior seems in line with what these parents experienced (even though I had not left my child in the car).

As to the general question -

The busybodies in this article dramatically overreacted. Leaving a child strapped in a car seat from which s/he cannot escape (and cannot reach car levers, etc.), in a locked car, in the shade or reasonable temperatures, for a few moments, especially one who has just fallen asleep, is no more risky than sleeping in the next room while your child is asleep in the house. Yegads, you could die in your sleep and no one could rescue your child!!!

If the car was unlocked, the temperature high or low, the keys in the ignition, etc. etc., etc., it would be a different story. But I see nothing in any of the stories in the article that is any riskier than sleeping while being a parent. No child's life will be risk free - and on the big scale, the situations described are pretty low risk.

about 8 years old sitting in a car with the engine running. A big old Buick, and the pistons were knocking so maybe the mom left it running in fear it would not start again! Made me a little nervous, but my car was out of range if he started moving. He would have headed across the lot to a wooded area. I saw the mom inside with her smaller son, sitting there on her phone. I wouldn't have said anything, much less call the police. I would not have made the choice she made. Maybe the kid knew not to put on the brake and put it in gear, but lots of times kids do things they know they shouldn't.
When I came out with my grandson, we walked very quickly past that car! Mom and the other two boys came out shortly after.

With the things I have seen the cops do, calling them does not always seem like the best choice. If anything, I would have said something to the director or the mom directly.

The pay at the pump came around right after my kids were older. It would have been great when they were small. A few times I had to leave them in the car (NOT running or in extreme weather, and in a low populated area) and run in to pay, keeping my eye on the car as best I could.

Being a parent is hard. Life can be dangerous. Sometimes I am amazed anyone makes it to adulthood!

if you have to leave the car running (for a/c or heating) then you probably might not want to leave your kid in it. I haven't constructed an opinion on hard-to-start buicks. But there's also a difference between a toddler strapped in a car seat and one slightly older and loose. In no case would I leave the car running. In an automatic, if I took the keys, that should prevent problems. I don't think I'd leave a child under 10 (minimum) in a manual shift loose in their seat, preferably not at all.

Abduction by strangers aside, the other argument seems to be that you should never leave your kids alone, yet people are willing to leave them alone for a few minutes while they do their laundry or take a shower or go to the bathroom. This has to be reconciled.

When my child was a toddler and I had to leave him for a few minutes in the house I either took him with me to the laundry/whatever, or he had to be asleep and likely not to wake up (or in a crib, if earlier enough). But if you have an exhausted 2 yr old that you know is going to sleep for the next hour (after being overtired for many hours), I'm not worried as long as the physical environment is safe (temperature wise et al). If you are worried about stranger abduction, you should lock the doors. Under no circumstances should a loose child be in a car with the engine running. And it's hard to lock your doors with the keys in the ignition, so you should take them with you. If the temperature requires you to run the car, then maybe you should bring them in.

The whole point, though, is that kids who are responsible, or old enough, or safely placed, shouldn't necessarily get their parents a felony child endangerment. There are other ways to handle it. Egregious errors - like a toddler in a closed car on a hot day - aren't what I'm talking about. I'm talking more about filling up the car, the kid's asleep in their car chair, and you run into the gas station to pay for the pump or get some snack, and it's a mild day. That's where we seem to go overboard.

I used to beg to be left in the car. Shopping/church/errands were boring to me when I was a kid and we had a mini van that was awesome to play around in. I always stayed in the car, most of the time with the keys so I could listen to the radio. I probably spent a few hours a week in the parked van and no one ever called the police.

I had a contractor come up to do work on the house. He left his dog in the car, and windows rolled up (it was okay, it was a moderate day) or maybe the windows were cracked, but he stupidly left the keys in the car, and the dog jumped up to see his master out the window, hit the "all lock" button, and the guy comes out, his car is running, his dog is in it, and he's locked out.

Moral of the story: take your keys or at least roll down the window so you can get back in. In this case he had to call someone (AAA, or his wife, I don't recall) to get back into his truck.