On Trial for Letting Kids Wait in the Car — It’s “Child Endangerment”

Hi Readers. Here’s the latest kids-in-car/mom-arrested story.  I know it seems like I’ve posted a flood of these cases lately and I’ll pause for a bit after this one, but this woman is asking for support and I’d like to provide some.

As you’ll see, it’s strange that somehow her 3-year-old got out of the car — that’s certainly something to look out for — but should she have been investigated by Child Protective Services? Should she have to go to court? Is she an irresponsible parent? No way. – L.

Dear Free-Range Kids: I have found you through researching issues related to child endangerment.  I have been charged with second degree child endangerment, in Arkansas, for leaving a sleeping baby and a three-year-old locked in a warm minivan on a cold day for under five minutes.

This happened in December.  I immediately hired an attorney, who explained that I hadn’t actually violated the statute, and so was not guilty.  Then, in February, I was visited by a child protective services worker.  He toured my home, and asked me questions about the incident.  I figured he was following protocol and that he would close the case.

Today I received a letter stating that I will be placed on a child maltreatment list, and that my employer may be notified, unless I request an administrative hearing, and at that hearing they overrule the family service worker’s opinion. Here is the source of all this mess:

On December 16, a Friday, which is my day off, I was driving with my two youngest children.  Benjamin is my baby, and Aurora is my three-year-old.  We had just met up with May, my six-year-old, for lunch at her elementary school.  I remembered suddenly that this was the last day I could buy a gift for May’s first grade teacher.

We were in a touristy and safe part of town, very close to the math and science school at which I work.  Benjamin had a bronchial cough, and Aurora was eating cookies (messy), and didn’t want to leave the van.

I considered the cold air outside, the baby’s cough, Aurora’s messy face and hands.  I figured that the time it would take to get the children out of the van and back into the van would be nearly twice the time it would take to just run into the shop myself.  They were both locked in their car seats.  I parked as close to the shop as I could get, locked the car from the outside, double checked the lock, literally ran into the store, grabbed two items without checking the price, checked out with no wait, since I was the only customer, and ran out of the store.

There I found two police officers standing with Aurora outside of the van, with the van’s sliding door open.  When they saw me running toward them, one of them shouted to get back, and not to touch my daughter.  He said “Sit your butt down!” so I sat on the pavement.  Aurora, who had been calmly talking to them, was upset by their treatment of me.  Finally, they let her come to me, and I held her.  The officers claimed that they stopped because they saw her standing outside.  This seemed really unlikely to me, but I figure it must be true, because how else would the door have been unlocked?  Inside, the baby still slept.  They cited me but did not call child protective services, and did not arrest me.

At the hearing my lawyer appeared and entered a not guilty plea.  A trial was set for February 4.

At that trial, the judge said immediately, “Didn’t I just see a case like this earlier this morning?”  The “similar” case was one in which a parent left children alone in a Walmart parking lot while he cashed a check inside.  My attorney started explaining that my facts were different, that the time was much less.  Then my attorney mistakenly said I left only one child waiting.  The prosecutor pounced, saying, “No, it was two children, on Central Avenue, and one was only six months old!!”

My attorney asked for a continuance.  The next date is April 5.

Since then, my attorney has changed his strategy from arguing for my innocence to making deals with the prosecutor.  He insists on waiting until the court date to show her my acceptance letter to the University of Texas Law School (I had applied when the incident happened, but I found out I was accepted right after attending that Feb. 4 trial).  He expresses doubt that she will be helpful, and he doesn’t seem to want to argue before the judge.

So I have fired him, and hired one who was recommended to me.  He seems much more willing to fight.  However, I just received a certified letter from child protective services that says they have found me guilty of neglect, based only on this incident, and that I will be placed on a child maltreatment list, unless an administrative hearing determines otherwise.  I have told my attorney.  This afternoon, more people from protective services came to my house while I was working and my husband was babysitting.  He expressed frustration and referred them to our attorney.  We are not going to speak with them.

I’m scared, and confused and angry.  I am afraid that a guilty conviction could compromise my chances of becoming an attorney.  I am afraid of being permanently labeled a bad mother from a judgment call that happened to be out of line with that police officer’s opinion of good parenting, even though my actions didn’t actually violate the Arkansas child endangerment statute, which is quite vague.

I’m just reaching out for support and strength, and maybe some good ideas.  — A Mom Who Feels Thrust Into an Alternate Reality.

N.Y. State Senate Passes Bill Outlawing Kids Under 8 Waiting in Cars

Hi Readers — My very own state — New York — just passed an overprotective, unnecessary, parental-decision-damning bill. Here’s the scoop, according to the Queens Chronicle:

In order to better ensure child safety, the state Senate unanimously passed a bill on Feb. 29 that would make it illegal for parents or guardians to leave children under the age of 8 alone in a motor vehicle. Multiple infractions would constitute a misdemeanor.

The bill applies to any person legally charged with care of a child and states that they cannot be left alone or with anyone under the age of 12, “under conditions which would knowingly or recklessly present a significant risk to the health or safety of the child.”

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The problem is that what I consider a “significant risk” may be quite different from what the authorities consider a “significant risk.” So even if I think my 7-year-old can wait in the car, reading a comic book, while I go in to buy stamps, someone else with a badge or gavel might consider that treacherous. After all, what if there’s a carjacking? What if the child is snatched? What if the car overheats in ten minutes and somehow my kid can’t figure out how to open the door? Or (to paraphrase some folks interviewed in the Queens Chronicle article): What if the state needs to make money and penalizing my parenting decisions is an easy way to grab it?

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I understand the actual issue driving this particular law: Trying to save children from being forgotten in the car and left to die a horrible death by hyperthermia. But it’s not as if anyone MEANS to forget their child in the car all day. So saying, “Forget your child and you will get a ticket!” is not likely to have a bigger effect than, “Forget your child and he may DIE.”

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As I’ve said before on this topic, the best way to keep your kids safe is to put your purse, briefcase, phone and/or wallet in the back seat next to the car seat. That way, even if somehow you WERE about to forget your sleeping infant (which is the way most of the deaths happen), now you will open the back door and see him/her there.  My new motto: Make sense, not laws. — L.

Kids! Cars! Are they ever safe while waiting in one?

What Can Happen if You DO Take Your Kids Out of the Car for Every Errand

Hi Readers! Just yesterday I was being interviewed by a reporter who admitted she had let her kids, ages 5 and 2, wait in the car while she ran into UPS to drop off a package. This took all of a minute or two, but when she told her husband about it, he said, “That was so dangerous! Promise me you’ll never do that again!”

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Why was it “so dangerous”? Answer: It wasn’t. It was only dangerous if some very strange, unpredictable thing happened, like a predator passing by UPS at just that instant who was eagle-eyed, lightening quick, and desperate for two kids at once. Need I remind anyone here how rare — nay, almost unheard of that scenario is? (60,000,000 children age 15 and under in America, about 115 kidnapped by strangers/year.)  

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As unlikely as that scenario is, it plays out in a lot of folks’ heads. So maybe  we should try to get them playing the FOLLOWING scenario instead. After all: Unpredictable is unpredicatble. — L.

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Dear Free-Range Kids: Here in Auckland, NZ we had a tornado this week — nothing on the devastating scale in the US, but a very unusual thing here, and with no warning.  Tragically one man was killed, but this article is about the narrow escape of three small kids whose mum left them in the car for a moment while she popped into a shop…only to have a practically unheard of tornado strike that carpark at that moment, throw the car in the air and dump it on its roof!!  NOT in the realm of predictable risks  I would say!

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Great thing — the kids, being secure in their carseats, were only scratched and shocked. Because of the way the car fell, if mum had been in the car with them she probably would have been killed. Second great thing – NO criticism of the mum in the article, just praise for her great use of secure carseats.  And it occurred to me, that given the extra time it would have taken for her to get all three out of the car, they would probably all have been standing by the car when the twister struck, and…probably not such a great outcome. — A Kiwi Mum

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Let’s all try to remember that we can never predict an unpredictable occurrence. It’s pretty much up to fate, not “good parenting” what happens.  — L

We would be a less blame-obsessed society if we remembered the role of fate.

Beware the Vultures

Readers: This is a topic we have visited before, but it continues to grow as an “issue.” Today in my inbox I got this notice from “Safe Kids,” urging people to call 911 whenever they see a kid in a car, and using this tragic story as its rationale — the story of a mom who forgot her child in the car for 10 hours.

Seems to me there is a rather huge difference between accidentally forgetting your child in the car, and deliberately choosing to leave him there for a short while while you run an errand. But the “Safe Kids” people obscure that and — as is so popular in our culture today — paint every kids-alone situation as a disaster waiting (perhaps seconds) to happen.

So then what you get is this other letter I got in the mail today. Read on! — L.

Dear Free-Range Kids: This is going to have to be anonymous because I learned I could actually get into serious trouble with social services for this??!! My 4-year-old goes to pre-k. My 9-month-old had an ear infection and an upper respiratory infection. It was a 20 degree windy day, and it is a 100 foot walk from the car to the building, so I decided to leave the baby in the heated car while I took her sister in, so she wouldn’t be exposed to the wind.

I was in the building out of view of the 9-month-old for approximately 30 seconds — at worst it could have been 45. The car was locked, the car alarm set. I return and the 9-month-old is sleeping peacefully exactly where I left her. I move on with my day and forget about it.

The following week I pull into the pre- k and a cop blocks my car into the parking space and proceeds to interrogate me about my “dangerous habit” of leaving my child in the car. He threatened me with “consequences” if it continued. This, in front of an entire parking lot full of curious, staring parents and children, the former probably wondering if I was dealing meth or crack to their 4-year-olds…

What exactly did they think was going to happen in that 45 seconds? Was a giant vulture equipped with a huge can opener going to swoop down and extract the baby from the car? Is a terrorist going to blow it up? Will she be kidnapped in spite of the car alarm in 45 seconds in broad day light from this suburban parking lot? And as a parent, could my presence have protected her if she was? And more importantly for me: who, exactly, has so much time on their hands that they are peeking in other peoples’ car windows checking for unattended babies and monitoring the behavior of their parents? And why isn’t this person being properly medicated for THEIR condition? (signed) — Mik

Progress. And a Carjacking

Hey Readers: Here’s an odd story of a Texas mom who took her 2-year-old son fishing, early in the morn, with her boyfriend. The mom decided it was too cold, and put the boy back in the car while she went to retrieve the gear. In that window of time, a guy came, stole the car, drove off with it, ran a red light and turned around — after realizing there was  a kid in the back seat!

The mom yelled at him. He yelled at the mom: “Why’d you leave a kid in there?” He fled, cops came and — here’s the progress — the mom was NOT cited for depraved indifference to a child, or endangerment or anything!

Because she WASN’T indifferent. She was sensitive to her boy (it’s cold!) and not being irresponsible (going to get the gear and return to the car) and once in a while, weird things happen.

That is not negligence and kudos to the Galveston police for realizing that!  — Lenore

What Could Happen to Your Kid in the Car While You Pay For Gas?

Hi Readers — Over at Parentdish I wrote a column saying that sometimes you CAN leave your child in the car for a few minutes while you run in to pick up a pizza or pay for gas. Yes, crack the windows. Yes, take out the keys. Yes, always keep your purse or wallet in the back seat so you have to open the back door to get it and be reminded that your child is back there, and make your decisions accordingly. No one wants to see kids forgotten in the car that could quickly heat up, etc., etc. But I’m talking about a four-minute errand in a place where you get something and leave. Anyway, here’s a typical response:

By making a conscious decision to leave your child in the car, even to pay for gas, you are putting your child in harm’s way. Car thieves and child abductors lurk; your child could unbuckle them self and get caught in the power window or move to the front and put the car into gear.

This is what I call “What if?” thinking.  Not thinking about will PROBABLY happen 99,999,999 out of 100,000,000 times. It’s the modern-day compulsion to think of the “worst first” and work one’s way back from it (the child COULD get kidnapped, so let’s never leave him there), giving no credit to the parent who HAS considered the real-world odds and, based on a reasonable risk assessment,  decided she can and will trust to fate and probability for a minute or two: “My kid’s asleep, it’ll take me 4 minutes to pay, I can see the car from here — seems fine.”

What’s really off, though, for folks like that letter writer, is the “probability” part. Many people have gotten to the point where they really BELIEVE the worst case scenario is very likely to happen in the very next minute to their very child.  And that’s why I harp on the way “the media” has changed us parents, for the worse. Nightly, the news will cull terrible stories from literally around the world (Maddie McCann, Natalee Holloway) and put these on TV. And if you are fed a steady diet of one tragedy after another, you DO become convinced these are happening “all the time,” because, on TV, they are. And Americans, on average, watch over 4 hours of TV a day — far more time than they spend in the “real world” that is their neighborhood, walking around and getting to know their actual neighbors.

And since TV never shows the millions and millions of non-events that happen every day — the children NOT snatched from the bus stop, the 29 year olds who never spent 18 years in captivity — and since people aren’t out seeing normal ol’ non-headline life for themselves, their perspective gets skewed. It’s like they LIVE in the world of  TV. And when you’re stuck in that world, everything looks like a potential disaster, including my brain, possibly about to explode, as I try to explain this over and over and then people say, “Fine.  But what if it was YOUR kid snatched from the car…” — Lenore

It's only recently we've decided leaving a child in the car for a few minutes is incredibly risky.