How can there still be people in North America that don’t know that it is wrong and dangerous to leave your small children in an unattended vehicle? I just got back from Safeway, and sure enough, some wretched excuse for a parent had left two cute little boys (about 1 and 3, would be my guess) alone in the back of the mini-van. Oh, of course the windows were left fairly widely open; that makes all the difference when the sun is beating down on the vehicle relentlessly, you know. And of course, this is Calgary, where there are absolutely no crimes and no bad people who would ever do anything to two cute little boys.
Oh, and the customer service clerk I talked to about this in Safeway? Thanks for doing abso-freakin-lutely nothing about it. Not even a message over the intercom asking the asswipe parent to come to customer service and be asked to go look after their children. Once again, Safeway comes through with flying colours in the “We Care About Our Customers” department.
Jim and I were just talking about this, and we figured that the best thing that could happen in this situation is for there to be a towtruck handy to move the vehicle in the parking lot, and wait for the parent to come back out and get the scare of their lives. Gives me a warm feeling in my stomach just thinking about such poetic justice.
Yes, every summer it’s the same horrifying stories. Over and over and over. Makes me so sick.
What did you wind up doing? Did you notify the police? I would have called Child Protective Services, or whatever is the equivalent in your neck of the woods.
I’m so sorry that you had to witness such sickness and neglect.
Actually, airdisc, in some jurisdictions, you can be protected from prosecution for exactly that if you have legitimate reason to believe that the children are in immediate danger.
I think what bugs me the most about these situations here (we’ve run into this twice in the six months we’ve been in the 'burbs), is that the people only leave the kids for a little while. I’m glad that the parents come back quickly and the kids aren’t (usually) injured, but just leaving them for 5 or 10 minutes still isn’t a good thing. I think most parents who have lost a child to an accident will say “It happened so quickly - I just left him alone for a minute, and when I came back, he was dead.” The parents don’t stay away long enough to make calling the police feasible, and they get away with it, so they keep on doing it.
I like the idea of putting something on their windshield to let them know that their atrocious parenting was noticed. Something along the lines of “If I had been a kidnapper, your kids wouldn’t still be here right now.”
(I understand what you’re saying, lissener, but I don’t equate putting your children into dangerous situations with an extremely addictive substance.)
Well, as I see it, my own future longevity is my own to fuck with, and if it doesn’t mean so much to me in comparison to the pleasure of smoking, it’s my own choice to make. I, and everyone else with a very few exceptions, know that smoking is bad. I can still make an intelligent decision based on what my own personal values are. I know of no moral code which requires one to strive towards the maximum possible lifespan.
Leaving kids in a sweltering vehicle endangers their lives, which aren’t mine or yours to discard. At best, it’s willfully stupid. If the decision is an informed one, it’s murder, or at least reckless endangerment.
This makes me sick…you have to wonder what on earth these people are thinking.
I used to think I’d just call the cops…Now I think I’d take the kids out myself (assuming I could get in), THEN call the cops and Child Protection. Parents would be pissed off, but tough shit.
I’m still having nightmares about the Michigan case. Those poor, poor babies.
[wanders off to hug babypoets again…]
~karol
I hate anonymous notes – I think they’re almost always cowardly – but the anonymity is part of the lesson here: You don’t know who left the note, just like you wouldn’t know who took your kids. So FEATHERLOU’s suggestion is exactly what I would have done – left a note: In the time it took me to write and leave this note, I could have taken your kids. Never leave your children unattended."
Last summer my friend Rick put his four-year old into the car seat, closed the door, and realized the car was locked and the keys were in the ignition. Now, mind you, the car was running and the air conditioning was on. He gave it about five minutes while we tried to coax her out of the car seat (they do it, but not when people are watching) and while the neighbors tried the coat hanger trick. Five minutes, and he was done.
He didn’t want to wait for police to arrive.
He didn’t want to wait for a locksmith.
He headed to the garage to get something to break the window with. Luckily, she finally squirmed out of the car seat and unlocked the car (smart girl!)
Was he over-reacting? Possibly. But I’ll tell you this - after the countless stories I’ve heard about babies locked in cars, my friend’s fatherhood rating shot through the frickin’ ROOF. If he knew one thing (A/C or no A/C), it was that baby locked in car equals BAD.
It still boggles me that people lock their kids in the car on PURPOSE. In-fucking-credible.
OK, so the parents do their shopping and rush right back to the car.
Maybe only 5-10 minutes have passed.
So what? Why were these children left alone AT ALL?
Maybe it is up to the rest of us to mind the children who are being abused and neglected…maybe it is up to the rest of us to make that phone call to the police. I have been known to do this. So what if the parents get mad!
And of course it’s okay if you only intend to leave your children in the car for five minutes…
And if you happen to collapse in the store having a seizure, or a heart attack, or choke on a sample sausage-and-biscuit and pass out, everyone seeing it will INSTANTLY know that you have left your children in the car, in the parking lot, and while one kind person is giving you medical assistance, someone else will go get them out so they don’t die a horrible suffering death.
We all know that trips into the store NEVER take longer than you expect. And you always have the opportunity to go back for your kids when something’s tying you up.
There’s a case that was reported in the Washington Post newspaper in the last couple of days. A babysitter has been arrested for throwing a nine week old baby out of a window while she was drunk. The baby is in the hospital with a fractured skull, the last time I checked. I hope that nutcase spends several years in jail.
<hijack>
At a shoping center parking lot today, a young mother locked her keys in her car. As she went to open the back door to get her baby out, she let out a little scream when she discovered what happened. I was parked nearby and heard, asked what happened, Told her not to worry. She was panicing slightly. Took out my handy, dandy “Auto lock-out kit”, in less time then it took me to type this the car was open. Baby was still asleep. Very happy mom. She had heard of people who left kids in cars on purpose. She happy with me. Too bad she was so young.
</ hijack>
I checked out the story-- and I am relieved to say that the story doesn’t mention anything about a fractured skull or anything, and said that the child was in stable condition.