Would you leave your child in a car alone?

pigpen

peachyprice wrote: »

But what if they chocked on the banana/juice/ipad? :rotfl:

Life if full of 'what if's' and we all perceive dangers differently, all our children are different and we (hopefully) all judge where we feel our children will be safest, that doesn't make us worse/better parents.

or the house exploded?
Or the cat ate them...

One less to deal with next time I shop

goodwithsaving

We were left in the car all the time. Rules were no touching the handbrake or steering wheel, and we obeyed them.
It's down to parental judgement in my opinion, and news outlets should not be naming and shaming ordinary people just trying to do their best.

HurdyGurdy

It's difficult, isn't it. On the one hand, if you take all the "what ifs" into consideration, you'd likely never leave the house. But then, what if there was a gas explosion in the house, or a car ploughed into it.

On the other hand, having watched a car just go up in flames in a supermarket car park last year, I now would never leave any living thing, child or animal, unattended in a car. I know the likelihood of this happening is remote, but when that car went up, no one stood a chance of getting near enough to rescue anything inside it.

On the whole, I don't like seeing children left in cars. There are too many "what ifs" that *are* feasible.

theoretica

HurdyGurdy wrote: »

It's difficult, isn't it. On the one hand, if you take all the "what ifs" into consideration, you'd likely never leave the house.

Isn't the house the place of most accidents for children though? I would love to see that as an accidents per hour statistic though as many chidren spend much more time in the house than elsewhere.

bylromarha

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I did leave him outside shops though.

I would not do it now.

Why not? Genuine question...wondered what you feel has changed? (besides him being too big to fit in the pram anymore)

GwylimT

Newly_retired wrote: »

How does a lone parent manage to get the baby, the toddler and the buggy and the shopping into the house in one go, if they don't actually have a drive to park on, or even if they do?

Baby in a sling, toddler holding your hand (or a wrist grip etc) shopping bags in the other hand. Pushchairs tend to cope quite well unattended in a car boot.

Tygermoth

As someone who worked with a lovely dude who as a small child was badly injured and his sister killed after being left in a car park and the car caught fire - it makes an impact.

I know in my youth i was left in the car all the time. I also crashed the car into a small wall by taking the handbrake off and not have the strength to re engage it.

Mum used to regularly leave us on our own at night (we were 8 and 9) had little clue what we did with our long summer days as long as we were not under her feet.

I also was left outside a shop in a buggy by accident. My mum nearly all the way home on the bus before realising what the nagging 'you have forgotten something' feeling was.

Ok, my mum did have issues so some of my childhood experiences a normal mum would not have done - However i seem to think it was the norm to leave kids in cars and out from under feet during the holidays. It seemed about seven of us used to take to our bikes travel miles exploring and having fun, to be home for about 5 for dinner. No phones, no contact, no idea where we were and no one seemed at all bothered.

Slinky

hazyjo wrote: »

Blimey, when I was a youngster, it was the done thing. Kids would be left in cars with a packet of crisps and bottle of something with a straw in a pub car park. And we would always be left in the car when mum nipped into a shop (she left the handbrake off once too and we rolled. Don't remember the outcome but she must have got in and yanked it quick...).


Back then, I'm not sure we even had seatbelts, let alone had to wear one by law. We'd lay in the rear footwell when out, or on the back parcel rack thingy, or we'd lay with our heads under the seat and feet up towards the roof of the car.


Jeez... my dad must have gone seriously mental at us. I don't remember that bit though...


The world is a different place - usually for the better (in these instances) but sometimes there's too much 'cotton-wooling'.


Sorry, just reminiscing. Hope I've not started an off-thread discussion lol.


I don't have kids, so can't really be sure what I'd do. It's a tricky one. Is it actually illegal?


Jx

I could have written this, was exactly the same as my childhood. Sometimes I'd get dragged out shopping with parents, brother could well have been left on his own at home as he didn't want to come, and when we got there I'd prefer to stay in the car reading a book. Parents didn't think twice about leaving brother on his own in his own home, or me in the car. We were sensible kids and I'm probably talking maybe aged 8 for me and 11 for him at the time.

thorsoak

Look back at old photographs of shopping centres in the 60s and 70s ....there are always many prams outside. When we didn't all have access to cars, we walked with prams to do the shopping. A shopping tray underneath the body of the pram could hold a whole week's shopping!

In the past, tiny babies were put in their prams, and prams put out in the garden/on the doorstep in all weathers (apart from fog).

In 1974, we were unusual in that we installed child seat belts and a baby seat for no 3 baby. However, baby no 3 - at age 18 months, managed to undo his seat belt, climb into the front seat, knock the handbrake off ...and the car, parked on the sloping drive, gently rolled into the garage door, smashing it to smithereens! All whilst my OH was talking to neighbour next door.

A different world, those days have long gone.

hazyjo

Slinky wrote: »

I could have written this, was exactly the same as my childhood. Sometimes I'd get dragged out shopping with parents, brother could well have been left on his own at home as he didn't want to come, and when we got there I'd prefer to stay in the car reading a book. Parents didn't think twice about leaving brother on his own in his own home, or me in the car. We were sensible kids and I'm probably talking maybe aged 8 for me and 11 for him at the time.

(And the others with similar childhoods.)


I bet these youngsters look at us and go 'nah, you're just making it up lol, that's just urban myths'. They prob don't even believe seatbelts didn't exist (let alone airbags or safety tests)


Saw the Back in Time for the Weekend programme and reminisced all through that episode.


We used to have a bit of empty land in our street. There was a massive empty concrete drain of sorts in it which we'd climb into and play in. My sis fell into stinging nettles once - there were loads over there. Mum and dad never came out to see where we were, we'd be out for hours.


I remember being on my dad's lap when he drove the car up our road so I could pretend to be driving :eek:


We went out in the morning and would play with a ball up against the garages in blocks all day and go into various friends' houses. I remember getting an absolute bo!!ocking once when my sis and I went into someone's house at the far end of the street without telling anyone to see their new baby (we didn't know them, but most of the street knew each other very well). They made us very welcome and got us drinks (nothing Jimmy Savile about them thank God), but my mum went mental at them and us (rightly so). She'd knocked on every door to find us. It was dark by that time. I was definitely way under 9 as we moved then, and my sis is 2 years younger. I also used to break into a neighbour's garden and steal their apples ('scrumping') with my dad when it was dark. LOL. Fun times


Sorry, off topic a bit again.


Oh, and Loose Women were discussing it too the other day. Colleen had a similar childhood


Jx
PS My mum denies a lot of these claims, but I remember them well