Parenting Is About Judgment Calls -- And They Should Be Made By Parents, Not The Government
My mother often left us in the car at the grocery store when we were kids. And not for two minutes. While she did all of her grocery shopping.
She did this in temperate weather -- and because we could read (me) and color (my younger sisters) instead of dragging around the store with her, bored (and probably whining, at least a little).
Well, there's a case before the Supreme Court in New Jersey to decide whether leaving a kid in a car for a few minutes equals child abuse. It's a "zero tolerance" question. No, "Well, it was just a minute while I went in to get eggs at 7-Eleven and left her strapped, sleeping, in her car seat."
If the case goes against the parent here, the government will get to decide -- to act in loco parentis, even though you're right there, just paying quickly for your eggs and getting back in your car -- and you'll be marked for life as a child-abuser. No pleading. No evidence. No discussion.
Lenore Skenazy writes at Yahoo
A mom left her son in the car for what everyone agrees was under 10 minutes to run an errand. The toddler slept through the whole "ordeal," but the mom was found guilty of neglect, even upon appeal, when the three appellate judges ruled that they didn't have to list the "parade of horribles" that could have happened to the child. Which is, of course, fantasy as policy again: Just because the judges could imagine a kidnapping, or carjacking, or a big bad wolf, doesn't mean that these are at all likely. They aren't. As the Washington Post just wrote:"There's never been a safer time to be a kid in America."
...To label all parents as "negligent" because they let their kids wait in the car during an errand is just like labeling the Meitivs in Maryland "negligent" for letting their kids go outside unsupervised: Nothing bad did happen to those kids as they walked home from the park. Nothing bad was likely to happen to the kids -- we are at a 50-year crime low and Silver Spring is hardly a hotbed of crime, as it was recently voted "the most caring" suburb in America. But because some cops and CPS workers could imagine something terrible happening, the parents are under investigation.
Fantasy cannot be the basis for policy. If it is, any made-up idea can be used as rationale to lock folks up or put them on a list.
Parents must be allowed to make decisions -- even ones that others consider sub-optimal -- so long as they are not putting their children in immediate, obvious, and indisputable harm's way....
Like letting them get anywhere near those delusional New Jersey appellate court judges.
Per lawyer David Pimentel, who, with Lenore Skenazy, filed an amicus brief on behalf of the mother:
We remain hopeful that the Court will uphold the mother's right to defend herself, and that it will allow the lower court to consider the reasonableness of the mother's action, the likelihood of harm, the imminence of the danger, before labeling her as a child abuser, stigmatizing her for life and making it virtually impossible to ever to get a job working with children, to adopt a child, etc.If the N.J. Supreme Court upholds the lower court, child-left-in-car cases in New Jersey will be very straightforward. Even if the investigation shows that no criminal child endangerment occurred (so charges are dropped), absent extenuating circumstances, it will be virtually automatic that the parent will be branded as a "child abuser" for the rest of his or her life. Not only is the parent presumed guilty, the parent is not even entitled to a hearing to prove his or her innocence.
Again, we're seeing our country slowly but surely being transformed into an English-speaking, McDonald's-eating Mini-Me of the USSR. We need to speak up -- and how great that Pimentel and Skenazy are volunteering their time in this case -- before we wake up in a country we really, really do not want to live in.
via @Overlawyered
This is what happens when Snowflakes finally leave school and become CPS employees and judges.
Wfjag at May 25, 2015 7:32 AM
Over the age of 5 I was left in the car if if it was a run into the dry cleaners thing or for a quart of milk. Otherwise it was breaking off pieces of fresh crusty bread or a box of animal crackers to keep me quiet. Animal crackers and carbs are probably verboten now too.
CatherineM at May 25, 2015 9:45 AM
We were routinely left in the car with the key in the switch, so that we could listen to the radio. (And roll down the windows, when power windows came along.) We were under strict orders to not attempt to start the engine.
I've been reading some local history lately of the town I live in. About a decade before me, when there were still city buses, it was routine for children to ride the bus downtown to see a movie (admission: six bottle caps from a particular brand of soft drink), get a sods, and then get on the bus and ride back home (or walk). All unaccompanied, and nobody thought twice about it.
One of the greatest tragedies of the collapse of American education is that no one, except college math majors, ever learns anything at all about probability or statistics. Consequently, we have almost no citizens who are competent to judge relative risks. You can ask almost anyone this question: "Which is more likely to happen to you, getting carjacked or dying in a crash that you were at fault in?", and nearly everyone will say "carjacked". Barriing certain specific circumtances (high-danger ghetto areas, driver known to be in drug trade), the opposite is true, by about 100 to 1. Yet you'll find all kinds of government publications about how to avoid carjacking, but no useful advice about how to avoid a fatal accident.
Cousin Dave at May 26, 2015 7:47 AM
The irony is parents seem more likely to get in trouble if nothing happens to the kid. If Junior dies because Mommy or Daddy is so busy and distracted that he or she "forgets," half the time it's written off as a "tragic accident" and someone trots out that Gene Weingarten article for the 500th time. Every time I hear law enforcement say that the parents have "suffered enough," I think, "Yeah, the kid really had an easy time of it."
Kevin at May 26, 2015 7:52 AM
I used to be left in the car by myself frequently as a child while my mother shopped. I actually requested it so I could read. She'd do grocery shopping, errands at the mall, etc. This was in the '80s and '90s. Nobody thought anything of it back then. I'm paranoid about leaving my baby in the car for two minutes while I use the ATM literally a few feet in front of my car. I half expect some busybody to call the police and report me even though I'm right there and car with baby are in view.
BunnyGirl at May 26, 2015 11:27 AM
and someone trots out that Gene Weingarten article for the 500th time
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I don't know it - which one is it, exactly, since he's written plenty?
lenona at May 26, 2015 1:54 PM
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