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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Leaving baby in car to get car park ticket

302 replies

IstheCartooFar · 25/05/2016 09:10

Name changed as chatted to husband and friend about this already...

I've tried to include all relevant details to avoid drip feeding etc...

Woman in car park annoyed me yesterday. I'd left baby in car to walk to ticket machine (at the end of the aisle next to mine, no closer spaces available). When I came back woman had parked next to me and getting her own children out.

She said 'excuse me, have you just left your baby in the car all on its own?' in an accusing way.

I replied I was just at the ticket machine, which she humphed at and turned away.

I felt pretty cross at her implication I'd done some awful dangerous parenting so I said I found her tone very judgemental.

She just said well you hear horror stories (and then said some confusing story about how some people have brain injuries and do weird things so you have to check). I just said you have to make lots of risk assessments as a parent of leaving baby in car vs lugging them through busy car park, she turned away and didn't answer.

Anyway, do people leave baby in car to get a ticket or is that just me being lazy??

And was she unreasonable to check or would you do the same? (to me it was pretty obvious I'd just gone to get a ticket rather than done a full shop, considering I'd walked past her car with ticket, put it on windscreen then was getting baby out).

OP posts:
Mrscog · 25/05/2016 22:06

Ldnmum2015 either you're a very clever satirist or you need professional help for anxiety.

candykane25 · 25/05/2016 22:15

My midwife suggested that if you ever get to your wits end, the advice was to place your baby in a safe place and leave the room for a breather and to get your wits together again. Baby may cry but so long as they are safe, this is fine.
I am a visually impaired mum by the way so the mirror suggestion would be very inappropriate. My DD survived her first year unscathed ( and has continued to do so). She's slso very happy and confident. I show her that I have faith in her.

MrsJoeyMaynard · 25/05/2016 22:25

Ldn - you do all that is in your power to keep them as safe as possible

I think that every parent on here wants their child to be safe. I know I do. But we clearly don't all have the same opinions on how to go about that.

I would never leave a baby alone in the bath, or with a jealous pet, for instance. There's a very real risk of harm there. Frankly, having seen the way some small toddlers roughly handle pets, I'd be wary of leaving any small child alone with any pet, jealous or not.

But I do not agree that leaving a baby alone in a safely parked car while I go to get a trolley or parking ticket is intrinsically riskier than taking them across a car park with me. I consider the risk of taking them around the car park for longer than necessary to be the larger risk, especially as I have more than one child to keep an eye on.
And as a pp pointed out, an accident in the car park serious enough to make me incapable of telling anyone about my child left alone in the car would have a very good chance of also leaving my child seriously injured or dead if they were with me.

FuckingFattyBitch · 25/05/2016 22:29

strategically place mirrors around your house
This has to be satire.

Original poster
IstheCartooFar · 25/05/2016 22:30

ldn surely if you live your life on high stress, little sleep, constantly expecting danger, then there is a huge risk of
A) child being harmed due to poor decision making due to exhaustion and stress
B) child becoming stressed/neurotic themselves and cannot assess dangers for themselves.

OP posts:
Fluffy40 · 25/05/2016 22:47

I'm sure I was left outside woolworths in a pram , it might have even been a hot sunny day. Some people ......

MrsJoeyMaynard · 25/05/2016 23:01

BIL told me that he got left outside the butcher's in a pram when he was a few weeks old. He said his mum bought some meat, then went home without him. Completely forgot about her new tiny baby until she got home. Apparently she returned in a panic to find some nice elderly ladies cooing at the cute little baby.

BIL thought it was a hilarious story, so it clearly did him no harm.

imwithspud · 25/05/2016 23:05

MrsJoey my dnan did the same with my dmum when she was a baby. Left her outside the shop (as was the norm in those days) then walked home. It wasn't until she got home that she realised she'd left her behind. Thankfully all was well. Makes me laugh when ever I think about it, but can you imagine the uproar if that were to happen today? Grin

whatsthatcomingoverthehill · 25/05/2016 23:07

They always have to overplay it don't they.

squizita · 26/05/2016 13:11

I've never once heard of a health care professional suggesting a parent turn their home into a house of mirrors in order to keep an eye on their child at all times. No one I know in RL has ever resorted to such measures, seems bonkers to me.

A good HCP would see this behaviour as a sign of postnatal anxiety!!
If you're one of the 'never turn your back' crew (the serious ones not the jokers) bear in mind at my darkest moments I used to show your shit judgey comments to my specialist MH midwife as I tried to explain I was not mental I was right, if i turn my back my baby will die and/or be scarred for life and/or SS will come! It's fine I don't eat and sleep and cry. Good parenting is SSAAAACCCRRRIIFFFIIICEE and everyone judges you... and she would rail against them as being toxic. Toxic and unhealthy.

It actually makes me fucking livid that attitudes which are part of a torturous medical condition are thrown about on mumsnet and other similarly named forums with more 'babe' and 'luv' and FB and peer pressured as good parenting.

It's like when you get pro ana stuff on dieting websites - a healthy person or someone a year down the line sees them as an issue. But what about the clueless or vulnurable person lapping up "if you're 5"2 there's no such thing as underweight" or "aim for 800 calories a day - 1200 is for lazy americans2 (both also MN posters btw).

squizita · 26/05/2016 13:15

Oh and Ldn I'm slightly sure I've said this before on another thread (your name vaguely rings a bell) but your post looks like anxiety to me. I'm a veteran of anxiety and if it's not satire then that stuff is oh so familiar.

Don't let anons on forums, extreme parenting websites or fb memes fool you: that is not being a 'good mum' it's a mental illness, albeit a mild form usually. If you genuinely feel that way do seek help.

squizita · 26/05/2016 13:22

Ldn btw sorry to knock you off your ill placed pedestal BUT you are way more dangerous than us.

Being so tired you are zombified is the cause for the VAST MAJORITY of accidents that harm and kill babies. I know, i have anxiety, I read and obsessed. Why?
-drops and slips ... tired parent
-SIDs/choking as mum fell asleep holding baby ... tired parent
-Car crash ... tired driver
-Run over ... tired parent and pram.

You chose to be seriously, seriously dangerous. Really badly so. Or rather, your medical condition did that for you.
I take it you were lucky and your kids are older now.
Hopefully no mental damage was done (...where do you think us anxious ones pick up anxiety...?) but don't set yourself up as a paragon of virtue eh.

zeeka · 26/05/2016 13:27

I haven't read the whole thread... But I used to leave my twins in the car to get petrol. I couldn't really manage otherwise; carry 2 car seats to the till? I also don't see the need.

zeeka · 26/05/2016 13:33

Ok now I have... brilliant :)

ElBandito · 26/05/2016 13:43

My local car park is ticketless, it reads the car number plate on the way in and you pay at a conveniently located machine on your way back. Soon all car parks will be like this and Mumsnet will come to a .

squizita · 26/05/2016 13:47

Hmm do the diy

This raises a satire alarm bell for me.

Because IF you are that safety focused, would you do DIY with a baby there?
DIY.
Either they are close enough to breathe the paint fumes/plaster dust/touch tools OR via the convoluted mirror system they are moving around out of reach while you are doing something you can't just pop down (especially not with kids in the house) e.g. hammer and nails.

IF you are obsessive enough to hang heavy glass mirrors around the place, would you then be choosing to do DIY?

00100001 · 26/05/2016 13:52

Lndn is joking!

You had me Grin

Cath40t · 26/05/2016 17:15

I wouldn't be comfortable leaving baby in the car even to just get a ticket....though not saying I wouldn't if it was torrential rain.......I would be worried for those whole 2 minutes that something awful would happen.
I feel even more uncomfortable about leaving baby in the car at petrol station.....that scares me.
I wouldn't make judgy comments to other mums and dads who are comfortable doing this.

Jonsnowscodpiece · 26/05/2016 17:16

I do it. Doesn't seem that much of a big deal to me.

nc74 · 26/05/2016 17:20

I always leave me kids in car to get the ticket (and petrol) I'm super speedy and even if I wasn't it's naff all to do with anyone else!

AgentPineapple · 26/05/2016 17:24

I don't see anything wrong with it, how long were you away? Under a minute? I might have been tempted to tell said person to fuck off and mind her own business :)

evileyes · 26/05/2016 17:36

Ldn is hilarious. Nice work on the wind up, laughing my head off here.

madein1995 · 26/05/2016 17:47

I think it's completely fine and that provided car is locked, and youre not leaving baby in locked car on boiling hot day for ages and ages (read half hour plus) it's absolutely fine. My mother did it with me and I can honestly say I didn't care a bit. I went through a stage of worrying if she'd been long in the shop but that was a very short phase and was only when I was an older child anyway. I don't hold any faith in the view that mothers need to have their child surgically attached to them, all this fuss in the media about not leaving your kids when at petrol stations is scare mongering, was there a spate of children being snatched from cars at petrol stations when left for 20 minutes, that I'm not aware of? Seriously op, don't worry it's fine. And the woman shouldn't have interfered, was none of her business.

chipmonkey · 26/05/2016 17:54

No, I make the children go to the ticket machine for me while I do my nails. Wink

BerylStreep · 26/05/2016 18:04

I can't comprehend why you even got into a discussion with her.

I probably would have done an eye roll and ignored her, but I tend to be on the PA side of things.