The first report was here in Atlanta, Georgia and the father, Justin Ross Harris was arrested and charged with murder and child cruelty charges. The news has been rampant with reports of how the father researched a child being left in a hot car and what it would take for a child to die in a hot car, and so forth.
The second report was in Wichita, KS where a 10-month old little girl was left in a hot car by her foster father and died after two hours. In that case the father had returned home after picking the little girl up, gotten another child out of the car, and left the infant inside the car while they went into the house. Apparently he and his partner saw something on TV two hours later that triggered his memory of the baby still in the car. He was arrested as well.
Last night there was another arrest here in Atlanta, where a mother left her four children, ages 6, 4, 2, & 1 in a hot car while she went into the store. The doors were locked and the windows rolled up. The mother was arrested on four counts of child cruelty and given an $8,000 bond, which she has not been able to post at this time.
It saddens my heart to hear of such incidents happening to our babies all across the nation. I cannot begin to imagine, or even want to imagine the suffering they go through in those hours of being locked up in that heat. I think about how miserable I become when I simply get overheated at times because of not being in the air conditioner.
After seeing the report this led my husband to pose the question to me, how old would kids have to be for me to be comfortable leaving them in the car to run in a store. Then he brought back to my attention how as children we were quite often left in cars during the 70's and 80's, while our parents went into the stores. During those times it was the norm rather than the exception. Car manufacturers even made safety precautions (e.g., child safety locks, steering wheel locks, prevention from knocking the car out of gear, etc.) because of instances such as these. However, now it is the exception rather than the norm. The world has changed so much since then.
I have never left them in the car for any extended period of time. I have only left my children in the car if I was going into the gas station to pay for gas and that has been seldom. But even that hasn't been until these later years now that they are teenagers.
I never felt comfortable leaving them alone, and even now as teenagers they still go into the store with me.
My discomfort does not stem simply from the heat, but also from the times that we live in. Born and raised here in Atlanta, I recall the Atlanta child murders, carjackings, kidnappings and so much more. Because of the fear that I have about such incidents, I keep my children with me at all times when we're out and about. Call me an overprotective mother, or just scary, but that's just me. I don't judge others for having a varied opinion about this, I just have to go with what is most comfortable to me.
How old do you believe is old enough to leave the children in the car alone?
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Come check out my books, and learn more about the woman behind the blog at my website www.cmichelleramsey.com. Until the next time I'm just...
Come check out my books, and learn more about the woman behind the blog at my website www.cmichelleramsey.com. Until the next time I'm just...
