If you are a parent, have you ever left one in a car in your drive way while running in to get something?
How about while going in to pay for gas?
If you are a parent and haven’t, do you live in a high-crime neighborhood?
I suspect that most of the people with the attitude of NEVER and who make these phone calls have no experience of actually raising children or are, if one digs deeply enough, hypocrites.
I’m not a parent, but while in college, I was a regular babysitter/mother’s helper for a family with 3 kids who were 1, 4, and 7 at the time. I drove them around a lot on errands. Never, ever would I have thought of leaving them in the car while I ran into a store to get something.
um... i raised my kid, and she was NEVER alone in the car. NEVER. it only takes a second for someone to jump in and either take the car, the kid, or do damage. it isn’t worth the convenience.
If you are a parent, have you ever left one in a car in your drive way while running in to get something?
No.
How about while going in to pay for gas?
No.
Yes, many years ago I let my 7 year-old son and 10-year old daughter remain in our car near the entrance to a store I needed to run into for a very few minutes. Safe neighborhood, etc., but this was out of character for me at the time.
As I was paying for my purchase, a clearly distraught older man hurried into the store carrying my bloody son in his arms. The bottom line is that my son was amusing himself flipping a nickel in the air while my daughter read, and accidentally flipped it out the car window where it rolled under the car next to ours. He got out and spotted the nickel, and reached under the back of the car to get his coin.
Meantime, the driver returned from the from the other direction, got inside and started the car and began backing out after checking his mirrors. His bumper caused a serious gash and scrape on my son’s side, and I rushed him to the ER since the emergency services couldn’t decide who had jurisdiction.
He eventually healed ok but had a very painful injury, still has a bad scar in his 40’s. He now has two small boys of his own (the ultimate parental revenge) who have heard how Dad got hurt. I would not do that again, and would never assume that normally “responsible” kids can’t get into a bad fix very quickly. It happened too fast for my daughter to realize what was happening and call out. It could have been much worse, of course. I always regretted not taking them with me that day. Since then, during my working years, I saw far too many innocent situations go sour. For the record, neither of my kids turned out to be timid or fearful, and both are very productive, responsible adults. 7 year-olds just do dumb things at times, period.