I wanted to respond: I practice law in Alabama, with over half of my practice in family court. To these people who think it is okay to leave a toddler in a vehicle in a parking lot by himself or herself for any length of time, I ask, "you're kidding, right?" I can see at least one reason why you may have lost custody of your child in court! (Although I do not know anything about the other choice for custody.) I remember last year reading the newspaper about a (Georgia?) family court judge (juvenile court, I think) getting in trouble for allegedly leaving her young children home alone one night while she left the house for a few hours. I am not sure what ever happened to her, but the press sure did make a big deal out of it! Most of these stories do not make the news, I guess because of the low regard our culture has for the mundane tasks involved in taking care of children, but throw in a juicy fact, like the father was in a strip club, or the mother was a judge in a juvenile court (or even better, Brittney not putting her baby in a car seat, and the press just snatches it up! Why? It sells advertising!Yes, the press likes these silly stories because they sell ads. They give excuses to express disapproval of a sleazy pop singer, a strip club patron, or a hypocritical judge.
The newspapers and family courts do indeed show a low regard for the mundane tasks of child rearing when they make a big deal out of isolated minor incidents of no consequence.
This picture shows Britney Spears driving with a baby on her lap. This is an example of a parent who is actually violating a law. Had she been caught by a policeman, she could have been fined $100 or so.
5 comments:
We should not confuse why the story made the news with the facts that it is a bad idea to leave a kid in a car unattended. It is illegal becase it is a bad, unsafe, foolish, thing to do. Not good for the kid, not good for society, not even good for the car.
We also should not confuse bad ideas with illegal acts.
IT IS AN ILLEGAL ACT IT IS CHILD ENDANGERMENT
Leaving a child unattended in not necessarily an illegal act. The San Jose paper says that in California, "leaving kids home alone is not necessarily against the law -- no matter how young they are or how long their parents are gone."
Leaving kids AT HOME is different from leaving them in a car. A car is a dangerous instrumentality. A child of three should not be left in a car anywhere. I could make assumptions about the dangerous local of a strip club or make assumptions about the clientele, but that would just give you another soapbox to get on and avoid the point that neither you nor the father who left the cild in the car have any appreciation for or understanding of children.
Post a Comment