Funny, I did that too, except my children were perfectly capable of walking next to the cart, or slightly ahead of it. They were fine.
My youngest is 8 and loves to walk to the next aisle and shop for what is needed there. I guess someone could kidnap him. But I like to encourage his independence.
My kids are with their grandparents on vacation. I guess I just have to trust them since they are way out of MY sight!
So a friend and I took the opportunity to go to dinner tonight. We passed a ten year old pushing a stroller with a toddler in it, no parent in sight.
At first we commented "where's the parents?" but then we realized we could have done the exact same thing. I was riding the bus home alone in 4th grade and watching my sister who was a kindergartener from 3-5 each afternoon. Both parents were no more than 10 minutes away from home but they trusted me at 10 y/o. We can say nowadays that parents have to be hyper vigilant, there are alot of crazies out there. But what's wrong with an older sibling taking a younger one for a stroll? We live in a very safe area, but we realize things can happen. We yearn for the days of our youth and independence is still a good thing. Sometimes we just have to trust our kids and have faith that things will turn out okay.
It made us sad that we automatically questioned the parents for allowing an older sibling to take a younger one out for a pre-dinner walk.