Not everyone will call the cops, and not everyone bothers to look and see if anyone is there in the back seat. It happens.
I enter this thread with a bit of hesitation, but some of the smug self rightousness grates on my nerves. First, let me say I agree that this lady was wrong, flat wrong.
I would rather have been left at home also, when I was younger. Problem was that we didn’t always have a home to stay at. So yes, there were times when my mom took us to work with her, and we stayed in the car (in California, me and 2 sisters), usually in the back seat. We had some crayons and books, and snacks, but that was us in that car for hours.
You people with your homes and stability and somewhat normal lives could probably never understand.
And no, I will never ever leave my child unattended, especially in a car, come what may, so please don’t waste pixels on that.
aenea,
I can see where you’re coming from, and neither circumstance is safe for the children. My issue is that she put them in the TRUNK (where they easily could have suffocated) and claimed that she “didn’t know better”. I say that she did know better, since she hid the fact that she was doing this.
I understand that parents sometimes have to take extreme measures (such as leaving a child in a car with something to do while working), but locking a kid in the trunk is the far end of the “This is a bad idea, but I have to” spectrum in my opinion.
Why are you picking on those who were dropped as children.
Both my brother and I were dropped, and you don’t see us putting children in cars. (Of course, in his case he died in the accident, but I have to believe his sense would have survived if his body had.)
A few years ago, something similar to this happened in NJ. Single mom, worked in a department store in a mall, kept her child in the back of her car (I think it was a hatchback with the cover pulled shut). She went out every hour or so to check on the kid, but that’s where the kid was. Her reason? She worked the afternoon/evening hours and couldn’t find affordable child care and had no neighbours she trusted or family nearby to leave the kid with–and she HAD looked. For a while, there was a big statewide, and then nationwide, fuss about the high cost of child care, AND she became a spokesperson about the subject.
At first I was all set to condemn her. Then I heard how much she made in a week and how much child care would have cost her per week–and it was more than she made.
After that I didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, there was sympathy for a woman who was TRYING to keep a roof over her and her kid’s head, and food on the table, without going on welfare. (Mind you, any money she earned while on welfare would reduce her benefits in kind, so going on welfare and working wouldn’t have helped.) On the other hand, there was “She locked her kid in her car! During winter!” Then there was, “sheesh! why is childcare so EXPENSIVE?”. And lastly, “well, people who are looking after kids have to live, too.”
It’s a conundrum I’ve never been able to resolve. People who take care of our kids need to be paid fairly for what they do, so they can (a) take GOOD care of the kids, and (b) be able to support themselves; but the prices they have to charge to do this are often out of reach for the people who need them the most. It’s a big problem, it’s been a big problem for years, and it will continue to remain a big problem until enough people spend enough concentrated effort on it to solve it.
Now everyone remember, when you are cooking your babies in the trunk of your car, be sure to turn them every 15 minutes for a juicy and tender baby. Serve with kitten frappe, and a puppy dog pudding. Parsely optional.
Very true. Both my parents worked long hours for not very much money, sometimes leaving us home alone to care for each other. If my Dad had bailed on my Mom and my five brothers and sisters, we would have been beyond fucked.
“Why did you have six kids if you couldn’t care for them, lady?” might have ended up being some poor shlub’s last words.
Isn’t that a bit harsh? Circumstances can change without warning (divorce, major medical illness, death, job loss, etc.). Or are you seriously saying that people below a certain income level shouldn’t have kids?
