mother left her children sleeping in the car and went shopping....one of them woke up....

[ruddynorah]

i work at a huge out of town m&s with an enormous car park. this woman left her small baby and her 3 year old daughter asleep in the car. she locked the doors and left the windows slightly open (it was very very hot) and went into the store to do some food shopping.

while she was shopping, the 3 year old woke up, unlocked the car door, got out and started wandering around the car park. so there she is, bare feet, half asleep, dummy in her mouth, looking for her mummy... when another customer saw her and brought her into the store for us to look after and find her mum.

the 3 year old tells me her baby sister is still asleep in the car. so we did a tannoy for her mum (at that point not sure if she actually was in our store or the asda next door, or the boots...or that the girl had given us the correct name) and the security guard went into the car park to look for this car with the door possibly wide open and a baby asleep in it( or maybe awake by then).

so i'm standing there with this 3 year old feeling slightly shaky at how awful the whole thing is, when the mother turns up with the security guard. she's gone to her car with the shopping to find her 3 year old missing. the security guard found her shouting for her daughter. she's apparently mildly concerned, but not terribly. she sees the look on my face and says... 'i know what you're thinking and it's not like that actually, i only left them for 5 minutes to get a few bits so don't look at me like that, how was i to know she could unlock the car?!' and off they went

i'm not quite sure how i was looking at her, my head was just racing with...what if someone had run this tiny child over, or what if she'd wandered off and no one stopped her...or what if someone reached in and opened the car door and took her... silly, silly woman. doubt she'll do it again.

would an adult like to sit in a car on a very hot day and wait?

i severely doubt it.

Actually my mum did today.

With DS. (8) It was bloody hot. Bit they just didn't want to come in shopping.

DS often asks if he can sit in the car because he hates shopping so much, but so far, I haven't allowed him to.

What age do people think is reasonable to say yes?

Message withdrawn

my friend leaves her 6 and 4 year old.

she's nearly 7.

"I've done a rough calculation - there are approximately 30 different posters on this thread and from what I can gather, only 4of us would ever consider leaving a child in the car so that means approximately 87% of us would always take them everywhere and I have to assume that this includes petrol stations, so why have I never seen this?"

Some fairly big (erroneous) assumptions there Voluptua . I think kids in car (at least kids of this age) when supermarket shopping is inappropriate, and I wouldn't ever do it.

However I do leave them in the car on the Petrol Station forecourt. I see no contradiction in this at all, and they are obviously completely different scenarios.

In the former case (Supermarket) the children are not less than 10 feet away and continuously in my eye line, but at the Petrol Station they are. So my particular concerns - which moreover are concerns which I think are relatively likely(child getting out of car / over heating / panicking at being left alone) are not risks at the Petrol Station, but far more problematic in the Supermarket scenario

icod you mean 6 if they're with an older brother?

But how old?

DS is now 8 and I still haven't been able to bring myself to say yes. Would certainly not agree to DD (5) staying with him as she is very different from him - not sensible, very adventurous, etc. Couldn't trust her, whereas I would trust him.

have only read the OP but i was so convinced that you were going to say one of them died that the real story was actually a relief iyswim

when will people learn leaving young child alone = risks which are unnaceptable. and IMO leaving young children alone is purely for the parents benefit and therefore not lookimng after the children's interests.

an earlier poster said that only when the child is afe and well can the parenting decisions be commented on, again thinking of the parents needs and not children's needs in general and i don't agree.

if i make a mistake/error in judgement and anything happened to my dcs (and i hope more than anything this never ever happens) i would want people to have the discussions and a message go out immediately that this is pain worth avoiding, please learn immediately. because my pain is nothing compared to what my inncoent child/ren has endured as a result of my decision.

why did this mother say what she said, 1) probably because she felt awful and reality had hit her hard so she didn't want to hear it from anyone else and 2) media attention recently has given the impression it's acceptable to put your own needs first.

my ds's could undo their car seat belts at 18months i kid you not (try explaining to a 18mth old why they must not touch the bright red button mid journey) and at 3 could undo door locks (and know they needed to climb through to the front seats as their had child locks on). petrol stations are different as you can see your dc at all times but otherwise young dc's need to be kept in eye/ear shot as anything could happen and they need a parent to guide/re-assure help them.

crossing road = risks unnacceptable

mylittleimps - I said about the 'safe and well' bit and I actually meant that about comments to the parents concerned, not to anyone else - IYSWIM. I think its perfectly acceptable to discuss any case with others, including the McCann case but if the child is still missing/in danger/whatever then its insensitive, and therefore not acceptable, to press the point home with the actual parents concerned.

Granted, the McCanns aren't (as far as I know) on MN, but the coverage is so vast that they or someone who knows them could easily read these messages so I'd personally not be happy posting something that could so easily be seen/heard of by the parents concerned.

Long winded but basically - warn others but protect the parents until the immediate crisis has passed because it's the sympathetic thing to do.

So mylittleimps, going on what you've said on this and other threads, let me get this straight. It's not OK to leave your children alone in a car for 5 minutes while you dash into a shop so that you've got food to give them for tea and you don't want them to be run over if they let go of your hand and run into the busy road, but it is OK to let them scream themselves to sleep lonely, afraid, exhausted and hoarse because they've got the temerity to wake during the night?

I frequently leave my DC's sleeping in their cots if I need something from the local shop (8 doors away from us)
I wouldn't leave them if they were awake, but I see no harm in doing this at all.

I have worried a couple of times, what if my key breaks in the lock on the way back in, or similar, but there are far greater things to be worried about as a mother than that miniscule risk.

I would not however leave them in a parked car, I think that is far too risky to ever justify.

I'd have phoned the police had I seen that.

Seriously, I will never understand this type of mentality and find it beyond defensible.

YES, it's a nuisance to take them inside.

Newsflash: Kids are a nuisance.

If you want an easy life, don't have kids!

handlemecarefully I agree with the ptrol station scenario, and always wait fo the pump closet to the door to free so I can do this. I have however seen plaenty of people taking their children in with them, so it's not everyone who thinks the same.

Abduction wouldn't be my reason for not leaving children and babies in cars. It would be what appeared to happen in this situation and the child wandering around a busy car park by herself. Other things have been mentioned too, children overheating in hot car, waking up and being frightened because they are on their own, waking up and exploring in the car. Many 3 year olds can remove their seat belts. There was a case (probably about twelve years ago in Scotland, hence I can't find anything on Google now) about a father leaving his two children in the car and the little boy played with a lighter and set the car alight. Both children were killed. Yes, lots of people leave their children unattended and they come to no harm, but I do not believe anyone who says that they have to go to an out of town shop and disappear into M & S without their children. Going to a shop like that always takes time.

expat i've got to say that my first instinct when seeing what ruddynorah wrote was 'call the police'. the consensus seems to be on here that she'll have learned her lesson etc and doing so would have been a waste of police resources, but i don't know... in the end, the woman took a (imo) HUGE and selfish risk. not the same as nipping out to the corner, not the same as leaving a baby in a buggy outside a shop, not the same as paying for petrol, a Huge Risk where she parked in a big car park and walked past a perfectly serviceable 'bits' shop because she preferred M&S to Asda. mind you, i don't really understand the whole out of town shopping thing.

On a similar vein....

A while back a woman popped into the Post Office near me, leaving her ds (2) asleep in the car. While she was inside he woke up, somehow got out of his car seat and followed her in... he toddled off to look at the sweet display and she didn't notice he had come inside. She left the Post office and drove off in her car with the ds running out of the shop after her calling her....

The police were called as it looked to bystanders as if she had left the ds behind deliberately. When she realised her ds was not in the car she immediately phoned the police and was told he had been found but it took her a long time to persuade the police to let her see her son and that she hadn't done it deliberately...

No comment as it has all been said but wouldn't it be marvellous and a lot more helpful to have drive-thrus that sell milk, bread, and a few other sundry items rather ones that sell fast food?

It's also really hot out, and people don't seem to realise how dangerous it is to leave pets and children in a car like that, even with the window slightly cracked.

Agree with expat

Playingmummy lolo how twisted you are!

Playingmummy lol how twisted you are!

i obviously didn't follow the same cc as you are aware of.

Children should NEVER be left alone in a car whilst the parents go shopping, regardless of how far the shop is from the car. In this day and age parents should take full responsbility for their children and take them with them. It is completely irresponsible to leave them locked up in a car. Cars can catch fire, can be hit by other vehicles and handbrakes can fail etc etc.....PLUS you can be fined/placed in prison for leaving a dog in a hot car so why do some parents think it is ok to leave a child? This also applies to petrol stations....it is complete madness that children are left in cars whilst the owner of the vehicle goes into the kiosk to pay...is no consideration given to the fact that directly underneath cars in petrol stations are huge enormous fuel tanks?? All you need is some idiot to come hurtling into the forecourt, collide with another vehicle and hey presto you have a firework display?

I have never left my children in the car on their own, ever. Nor would I consider leaving them in the house on their own, and especially not in a cot asleep whilst I nip to the shops 8 doors down....children can choke on their own vomit etc etc.

I am not saying I watch my children like some demented possessive over-protecting Mother but there are boundaries and leaving your child alone whilst you go shopping is quite unbelievable and those women do not deserve to have children in their care. If its too much trouble to get shopping with children (my kids actually enjoy a trip to the shops!) why not try internet shopping?

Plus there are some petrol stations, ie Tescos, whereby you can pay for your fuel at the pump - far safer and not leaving your child alone in a car in the middle of a busy forecourt.