Reason.com has yet another
example of how the US child care and protection authorities are horribly overreacting.
A mom, dad, and their preschooler went to Home Depot in Valley Stream, Long Island, last Saturday to get some Christmas lights. The boy fell asleep in the car, so the parents cracked open the sun roof and let him snooze while they ran their errand. A passerby saw the boy and called 911 to report a child in a car, "unconscious."
When the parents came out about 20 minutes later (the lights had been hard to find), they found a huge commotion at their car. Cops! Firemen! An ambulance! A fireman had smashed open their rear passenger window and was extricating their son as if the car was on fire.
Then, rather than seeing that the boy was startled but fine, the safety kabuki began.
I was just thinking, there is no way I would leave a child sleeping in a car for twenty minutes when I read the following:
"Now, maybe you wouldn't let your child wait in the car for 20 minutes. But chances are that your parents did that with you, because this was once universally acceptable."
It's true. As children we were always left in the car when my mother did the supermarket shopping. She would not have dreamed of dragging us around with her. And she was a teacher.
