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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think it's wrong to leave a child in a car while you are at the hairdresser?

16 replies

ttalloo · 04/06/2010 20:31

I took my two DSs to the shoe shop this afternoon, while DH stayed in the car parked just outside. I was gone about 20 minutes and came back to find DH outraged because a woman who'd gone into the hairdresser's next door to the shoe shop had left her young child in her car parked across the road. As soon as word got back to her that we were leaving, she shot out of the hairdresser's with her head half-full of foils to move her car into our vacated space, undoubtedly so that she could keep a better eye on her child.

But it seems wrong, wrong, wrong to me to leave your child in a car on a busy road, so that you can go to the hairdresser for a couple of hours, even if the car is eventually parked outside the shop you are in.

Is it just me?

OP posts:

BouncingTurtle · 04/06/2010 20:34

20 minutes was too long, especially as it was a very hot today!
Fine to leave your lo in the car while paying for petrol or posting a letter, but going to the hairdresser's? That is far too long!
Personally I would have called the local police.

PortiaNovmerriment · 04/06/2010 20:36

It's definitely just you, OP. Everybody on mumsnet approves of leaving children in cars unattended for as long as possible. Just wait and see. Oh yes, you are most unusual.

dizzydixies · 04/06/2010 20:40

did DH do anything about it? call the police or something? was the child sleeping?

addictedisalmosthalfway · 04/06/2010 20:40

bouncing turtle it must have been longer than 20 minutes, because she hadn't finished, if i've understood that correctly.

yanbu

Bushers · 04/06/2010 20:45

Very wrong. If she had foils on it would have been much longer than 20 minutes. Not just the heat, what about safety? what if the child got hurt?

lovechoc · 04/06/2010 20:45

that's daftness at it's best. if I go to the hairdressers I arrange a babysitter (usually a relative or DH) and head off on my own. Couldn't imagine going there and leaving DS in the car so that I could get pampered It's bloody selfish. I'm sure she had other options she could have explored.

belledechocolatefluffybunny · 04/06/2010 20:46

I'm getting a very stong feeling of being in groundhog day.

diamondsandtiaras · 04/06/2010 20:54

I detect a whiff of Troll...........you wouldn't leave a dog in a car on a day like this, never mind a child. If it's real then definitely unreasonable. And your DH was unreasonable for not doing anything about it.

BouncingTurtle · 04/06/2010 21:01

yes I realised it was more than 20 minutes, should have said EVEN 20 minutes is too long!

MintHumbug · 04/06/2010 21:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

babywalks · 04/06/2010 23:00

why didn't you say something to her? this sounds a bit made up tbh, nobody in their right mind would sit back and watch a child bake in a car in this heat.

Original poster

ttalloo · 04/06/2010 23:21

I know this story sounds bizarre, but truly, I am not making it up. I can't believe anyone would leave their child in a car just to have her hair done, and that the staff at the hairdresser's all seemed to be supporting her in what she was doing.

DH said that the car windows were rolled down, so there was no chance of the child overheating, and given how quickly the mother came out of the hairdresser's when he started the engine, it seemed clear that someone in there was keeping an eye out for a space freeing up outside.

I only got the story from DH as I commented on the woman running out of the hairdresser's in a gown and foils, and we were pulling away from the kerb - it didn't occur to me at the time to go back and say anything (two grumpy children in the back, hot day, etc.), and the car windows had been down - DH says that he would have said something if they hadn't been, given how hot it was today.

I wish, though, that I had made DH pull over so that I could say something - I feel that he and I made the wrong call. But would I have gone so far as to call the police if the mother had ignored what I had to say? That I don't know.

OP posts:

ABitBatty · 04/06/2010 23:23

"why didn't you say something to her? this sounds a bit made up tbh, nobody in their right mind would sit back and watch a child bake in a car in this heat."

...and then ask people on Mumsnet what they thought about it clearly pointing out that they thought it was quite unreasonable and wrong, but didn't say anything at the time.

You could have called the police, or phoned the hairdresser from home voicing your obvious concerns?

ABitBatty · 04/06/2010 23:25

Even if the windows were down, the sun could have been shining right in and onto the child directly.

MintHumbug · 04/06/2010 23:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bodenbore · 04/06/2010 23:35

how old where the children?

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