My twins, about 8 months old at the time, were asleep in the car. To have them both asleep at the same time was not a small thing.
But we needed milk. So I parked by the front door of the store, cracked a window and ran inside. When I got back a few minutes later, they were both still asleep.
This would have been in the late 1990s. It was in the cooler months, though I forget which one. I thought it was OK then, and I still do.
Fast forward to the Ross Harris case and the horrific death of his son Cooper, trapped inside the car for hours while his father worked nearby. And now the game has changed.
Now such cases seem to be springing up everywhere. In the days since the blockbuster July 3 hearing in the Harris case, I found eight arrests of parents in metro Atlanta for leaving kids in cars. Nearly all have extenuating circumstances of some sort. Some were judgment calls by parents. But after alert citizens spotted the kids and called the cops, it was the police who were making the judgment calls.
So what's your judgment? Is it ever OK to leave your children unattended in the car? Are there occasions on which parents can make acceptable decisions based on circumstances?
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