Strollerderby
Can You Leave Your Kid In a Locked Car?
Oh lordy, this is a doozy. A woman in Illinois parked at a Wal-Mart to put some money in a Salvation Army can. Her two-year-old was asleep, so she left the toddler in the vehicle, locked the car and walked with two of her kids and a neighbor’s child about 30 feet to make the charitable contribution. When she returned to the car an officer arrested her for child endangerment and obstruction of justice. She goes to court next week.
The case has sparked responses ranging from passionate defense of the mom’s actions to accusations that she’s a bad mother. I dunno. I can honestly say I’ve never left my kid in the car, but there’s reasons for this: 1) I’m paranoid, and 2) most importantly, I only have one child, which I think makes a big difference. I know my mom, with two toddlers, did leave us in the car for brief periods of time, though I don’t know what age my sister and I were when she did. So I’d be interested to hear from folks, especially those with more than one child: Whaddya think of this case? Child endangerment or pretty reasonable parenting?
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21 Comments
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI’ve been reading about this, the woman is a photographer and wanted to take some pictures of her older kids donating money (for scrapbooking??). She left her car illegally parked on the curb, so I really don’t think she was going to be away for a long time.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amOh, and I just wanted to ask… who goes to Wal-Mart for the soul purpose of putting money in the Salvation Army bucket? I’m not passing judgement about this situation but it seems kind of odd to stop and take all the older kids out in an icy parking lot for that purpose. Seem more likely that she was planning on going in to shop and just got caught before she got there. I would think it would be more appropriate to go when you were out shopping rather than make a special trip with a sleeping baby in the back seat.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI personally would NEVER leave my children in the car alone. I once left my son sleeping in his car seat just to take my toddler up the stairs to our apartment but I still felt guilty and won’t do it again.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWhat happened to this mother could just as easily happen to any one of you, to all of us. I suggest everybody get serious about limiting the powers of the police and our government. It is not ok to hurt innocent people in the interests of safety or security… in that case, none of us are safe and no one is secure.
The founding fathers would be oiling up their muskets over this one. Don’t tread on me Crestwood Police, and you better never tread on my family.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI have left my kids in the car for a few minutes while picking up takeout. I think it’s ok as long as you are watching the car. I also have a fatalistic view of these things. I live in a relatively low crime big city and have never had my car broken into so it seems as though if it were ever to happen, it would have just been bad luck for lack of a better description. I have two kids under the age of 3 so I guess I feel that at any time I could be walking down the street and have one snatched from me and be unable to give chase while hauling the other child behind. How could you prevent that? At what point do you draw the line? At some point it’s about faith.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWho is supposed to be the parent… a woman who loves her child and cares for her or some outraged and detached police officer?
Who can the child count on to protect her as she grows up… a woman who loves her child and cares for her or some outraged and detached police officer?
Who has the best interests of the child in mind… a woman who loves her child or the abusive police officer that takes her away from her mother and puts her mother in jail?
I’m outraged. I am my childs mother and the government had better let me do the parenting. The Crstwood police should be prosecuted for this.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amTreffly was 30 feet away for less than 4 minutes. She could see the car the whole time. The entire incident was caught on video and the police have that video. The community service officer who first came on the scene has done this before… three other mothers complained to the police. The responding officer who ordered the arrest was the CSO’s boyfriend.
The worst thing is that the Crestwood Police forgot about the other three little girls and just abandoned them at the Walmart. What irony.
Bottom line is that the police broke up a family, jailed mom, took a two year old away… for what?
They said mom wasn’t looking at her child.
Can you allow your children under 14 to legally walk to school without you?
We’ll find out in court on March 13th.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI heard about this yesterday on a talk radio station I listen to regularly. This woman’s lawyer called in and said that at first the police weren’t called. The man who turned her in was a rent-a-cop who is paid to patrol the parking lot. He called the police when the woman wouldn’t answer his questions. By the time the police showed up, she had called her husband and he told her to say nothing also. The police got mad when she also refused to talk to him and he took her in. I don’t know what I would do in that situation. I don’t leave my kids in the car alone. If I am afraid they’ll fall asleep and I need to run errands, I either leave them at home with dh or a sitter, or I’ll give my 18 year old $10 to sit with them in the car while I’m in the store. I realize that not everyone has that luxury so I’m not gonna judge this one.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI was actually just talking about this w/ a friend the other day: when is it “safe” to leave your child in the car. My parents sent me and my sister to the car by ourselves once (ages 6 and 8 or so) when we were being complete buttheads in a restaurant, so they could finish their dinner in peace. So far I’ve only done it when I’m unloading groceries/other purchases from my garage into my house, or dropping off books at the walk-up library book drop off 3 ft away, and the main reason I haven’t gone any farther than that is paranoia that some judgy person will call the cops on me.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amWe live in a pretty rural area in Maine and while I would never advocate leaving a child at any age alone in a car, I see it every day here. It’s cold as heck up here and if a kid’s asleep in the car seat and Mom or Dad just have to run into a local store (you can see the car, nothing like a big grocery store parking lot) it’s just easier for the parent to leave them there. My kids are 10 and 5 and I actually called our local police station to ask what the state law was when my oldest started asking to stay in the car instead of running in to the store with me. They said that in Maine there is no law against leaving kids in cars. Nice. She said it was up to the parents judgement. She asked me how old my “baby” was, and when I answered 10, there was dead silence. It’s my choice not to leave my kids unattended..there are just too many variables and I just can’t be cavalier about my kids safety.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI will occasionally leave my boys (3.5, and 13months) in the truck, locked and running, while I run the 10 feet to the ATM, no drive ups in our town. That’s it. And even then I feel loads of mommy guilt.
This is heart breaking.
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=c3d81a61-be88-492f-b8fb-599f976b2aa6&k=52382“The six-year-old boy heard the girl crying in the back seat and released her from her seatbelt, police said.
The boy then fell asleep and the tot began playing with the power windows and somehow became stuck.
A passerby heard the girl crying for her mother and walked up to the vehicle, realized the girl was stuck and freed her from the window.
The passerby placed her back in the car seat, then ran into the nearby building to call for help.
Meanwhile, the mother returned to the vehicle, buckled both children back in their seats and drove away, believing her youngest was sleeping.
After dropping the boy off at school, about 10 minutes after the toddler had become caught in the window, the mother noticed the girl was unresponsive.
“She tapped the young one’s foot and realized something was definitely wrong,” Berti said.”
There is no excuse for this, EVER!
Treespeed commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amPhillipa, that is a terrible story, but I’m talking about a place where I park two steps from the front counter and would fall on my car if I tripped out the door.
mnijtnc commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI occasionally leave them in the car–in car seats, with the doors locked, never for more than a minute or two, and never where I can’t see them. Like the first poster, I wonder if that woman was actually just 30 feet away, if the cop had time to respond like that.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amTreespeed: In Sydney a few years ago a woman left her 10 month old in the car while she went in to pick up Chinese take out (two minutes inside, only a few feet from the car, AC on) and the car was stolen, and abandoned, and in two and half hours the baby was dead. So unbelievably sad. Story linked below. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/16/1034561211503.html
mcglory13 commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amParanoid mom with one kid here. I don’t leave him in the car. Ever. My parents left us all the time. Of course occasionally they’d come back and the windshield would be cracked cause someone chucked a hairbrush at someone else… so maybe that was a bad idea on their part too.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amOut of curiosity, how old DO they need to be before it isn’t considered endangerment in the eyes of the law?
As an aside, my neighbor taught my four-year-old how to start a car, and I will not leave him alone with keys in a vehicle, ever.
Not to mention that he has locked me out of both my house and my car on separate occasions.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI leave my two locked in the car while I run 10ft to drop off a book in the book drop and I’ve considered it to run in and pay for gas when the credit card do hicky wouldn’t work.
Princess Ariel commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amAt least cooper will keep the car warm, but an icy night can be just as bad as a hot day. Personally, I’d never leave a baby in a car by itself for a second – I’m too paranoid that something bad would happen (forgot the keys,takes extra long to check out, baby is kidnapped/car stolen, any number of things). When I was in elementary school I might ask to stay in the car to avoid going in a store, and I’ll do that with my family today, but I wouldn’t allow my own children to do that until they’re much older – too many “bad people” out there these days. I know it can be a pain lugging children around everywhere for even a “quick” stop, but you’d never live down the guilt if something bad did happen. Just my opinion.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI’ve done it a billion times, but, like this mother, never where the car wasn’t in my line of sight and never for more than 5 minutes. There have been many times in my daughter’s 5 years where locking the door and running into the gas station quickly instead of dragging her in with me seemed like the better option. When she was really little I even went so far as to carry a second set of keys so that I could leave the car running and lock it to keep it warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amA minute or 2, 30 feet, and an icy night (not likely for the child to overheat) – I don’t think that specific incident is child endangerment. Though that lady who left her child in a car seat all day at work would probably say differently.
Treespeed commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI
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