So just yesterday I read in the New York Times the article entitled Motherhood in
the Age of Fear by Kim Brooks and was blown away. If you have not read this
article I will leave a link to it in the description box down below for you to go
check out. In this article, Kim Brooks describes how she left her four-year-old
son in a car and had a warrant out for her arrest. It sounds crazy right? hi! My
name is Shawn. Welcome if you are new this channel is all about faith and
motherhood and I would love for you to consider subscribing while you are here.
I post new content every week. Let's get into discussing this article. If you have
not, stop right here. Go read the article then come back and watch this
video. So if you see me looking down it's just me looking at my notes to make sure
that I get the quotes right from the article and the facts straight. In this
New York Times article the author, Kim Brooks, describes an incident where she
leaves her four-year-old son in the car. She's visiting another state. I think
she's visiting family out of town. And she leaves her son in the car to go
run an errand and then comes back. So she leaves the windows rolled down, it's like
a cool day, and she locks the car door. I can't remember if her son is like
playing on his iPad or has snacks in the car. whatever. Well she comes back. Her
son is perfectly fine and I think either that evening or the next day they get on
a plane and they fly home. And it's sometime later that she learns that
there's a warrant out for her arrest because during the time that she ran the
errand another person saw her son in the car alone, video recorded her son, and
then called the police. But by the time the police got there, she had already
gotten back in her car and had no idea that this had happened and had
driven away. Now I'm not saying whether this was the right choice for her or the
wrong choice for her but I'm saying this is something that all of us mothers
think about. Am i right? We all think about this. So Kim Brook,s the author,
is upset about this- and rightly so. You know she has a warrant out for her
arrest when nothing happened to her child. Her child was perfectly fine. You
know she returned to her car she had to run a quick errand she came in and out.
There's no law in the state that she was in there's no law that says you could
not leave your child unattended- unsupervised. So she ended up at the end
of the article- she ended up telling us that she got a lot of hours of community
service, that the charges were dropped and she got a ton of community service
hours. But in the article, she goes on to write that she reached out to several other
parents who had similar situations where they were either arrested or a warrant
was out for their arrest or something happened because they left their
children in their car by themselves. But I can also understand from the
stranger's point of view why they would have called the cops right? So if I saw a
kid in a car by themselves I would be like: where's the parent? where's this
kid's parent? Especially a four-year-old. you know it's like is that kid old
enough to stay in the car by themselves? you know where is the mom? where is the
dad in this situation? so I can understand from the stranger's point of
view why they would have called the cops. you know? but did they wait around
long enough to see if the parent came back? that's probably something that I
would have done- is just kind of hang out and see you know where's this paren.t you
know are they coming back for their kid? because most kids aren't gonna just -most
parents aren't just gonna -abandon their children in their own car right? you're
not gonna like park your nice car, leave your child in the car, and then never
return to your car and your kid. all right so in this article...
I'm gonna read here... Kim Brooks writes: "we now live in a country where it is seen
as abnormal or even criminal to allow children to be away from direct
supervision even for a second." so I definitely see this play out on the playground.
is this now the social norm? you know that you can't leave your kids unsupervised-
unattended? I see this on the playground. so when Ethan -my
son Ethan- was of playground age. he's no 10 but when he used to play on the
playground there was this one time where a popular park we were at in our
neighborhood- tons of kids playing around and everything. well there was this one
two-year-old right a two-year-old who fell down. I can't remember. I think they
were trying to climb the climbing wall. anyways they fell down. they were crying
and screaming for everyone. daddy daddy daddy you know. and speaking incoherently.
well a couple of moms instantly rushed over. we look around and no
parent is coming to this child and parents you know when a kid falls on the
ground and gets hurt and starts crying the parent usually rushes over. so we're
looking around. no parent. so we go over and we're like "where's your mommy?
where's your daddy?" and we're looking around. we're like it's okay. of course
the kid was scared because we were strangers coming up to him you know. and
then all of a sudden... now the bathrooms at this park were located a
ways away. they were not -they're not within sight of the playground. like they
are down a path, through the woods, you actually literally go over a tiny bridge
into the bathrooms. there's no way you can see the park from the bathroom. and all of
a sudden I would say ten minutes later after we're trying to - it was me
and two other moms we're like staying close to the kid. the
kid is like wandering around the playground looking for his parent. can't
speak that well. crying and screaming and of course trying to like run from us
because were strangers. and this dad comes from the bathroom direction with
an older child maybe four or five tugging on his hand. comes over... sorry you
guys I had to go get some water. I'm so thirsty. I am loving these waters. I know
I've talked about them before but I absolutely love these Hint waters.
they're not sparkling water it's just water infused with fruit and I just
feel fancy. and I love it. and I get it off of Boxed.com and sometimes Amazon
Prime... immediately grabs his two-year-old doesn't say thank you for looking after
his son. hey what happened? why is my child crying?
nothing! just takes his two-year-old and goes in the opposite direction to his
car and gets in. and we're all standing there going okay all right you know hey
we wouldn't have minded watching your child if you just told us that you
had to go to the bathroom. like one of us would have watched your
child. just let us know that you had to take your other child to the bathroom or
at least thank us for watching your child and trying to console your child
after they fell. so anyways that was a long drawn-out -sorry guys- that was a
long story without a point to say that I definitely think it's society's norm
that you can't leave your child unattended or unsupervised. people are
gonna think it's weird. now this is an interesting statement to make: a mother
can only be a mother can what what does it say a mother apparently cannot be
harassed, a mother can only be corrected. and so you think about this you know if
you are in public a lot of times strangers will feel the need to tell you
how to parent your own child right? if you are disciplining your child in the
store sometimes parents will feel -other people will feel- the need to tell you
you're doing it wrong. if your baby is crying they'll tell you: "hello you need
to do this for your child to keep them from not crying."
Kim Brooks describes this other mom known as the Starbucks mom. have you heard of
this mom? the Starbucks mom? who left her two kids- who took her two young kids- in
the car and ran into Starbucks to get a coffee. now to her credit, she could still
see her kids in the car. she could see them through the window of the Starbucks
so they were not out of her eyesight the entire time they were on their
electronics/ iPads or something. they were locked in the car. it was a cool day. it
wasn't hot. I don't remember if she had the engine running. so she felt like they
were perfectly safe. and by the time she came out somebody had called the cops on
her. and she a cop showed up and told her hey why
did you abandon your children to go get coffee? and one, she was like," hey you know
I didn't abandon my kids. I just went in to get coffee and I could see them the
whole time." now funny thing was, she was a lawyer. I
think she was a - I don't know!w I don't know!- she was some kind of an attorney of some
sort and so she knew the law in her state that she could not be arrested for
leaving her kids unattended. and so she told the cop that and then she goes on
to give some advice to other parents. you know to find out what the laws are in
your state. By Kim Brooks saying that mothers cannot be ... can not be
harassed. you know how many times we have people tell us how to parent in public?
and that's not considered harassment? you know someone's coming up in your face
and telling you hey you can't parent your child that way or this is how you
do need to parent your child and getting up in your face. that's not seen as
harassment. that's like seen as correction which I thought\ I found this interesting.
what do you think about that? do you think that statement is true? that
mothers in today's society can't be harassed but only corrected? I would love
to know your opinion on that. have you ever left your kid in the car alone by
themselves? when I was a kid, my mom left me alone in the car all the time.
especially if I was asleep. oh my goodness you don't want to wake me up
she'd just leave me in the car and go run her errand and I would wake up wondering
where am I? where is my mother? okay I'm still in the
car. well I guess I'll just wait here. you know I never tried to get out of the car.
no one tried to steal me or anything. yeah sometimes it was hot but the
windows were always rolled down and that leather... remember those leather seats?
pleather seats? you'd get stuck too. so I've done it once and Ethan was nine. this was
last year. I don't remember what the circumstances were except that it was at
the grocery store. I did worry about what other people would think but I
remember thinking I'm just gonna run inside. I have to get this one thing and
I'm gonna come back out. I actually left my cellphone with my son,
showed him how to dial 911- in case he needed to do that. the windows were rolled down.
I had locked in the car. it was a cool day. it wasn't hot or anything. and I came
back and he was just fine.
and then more recently- now that I have a baby- I had to take my son to camp this
week .my daughter keeps falling asleep while I'm driving him to camp. she's
asleep in the car and I literally park outside this camp and I'll leave my son
in the car with my daughter and I will run inside. there's big windows so I can see
them the whole time. I'll sign him in and then go back out and tell him to go in
and I stand outside my car and make sure that my son gets in the door safely. I
can see them both the whole time. would that be considered wrong in today's
society? well let me know. what do you think about this whole situation? do you
think that it is now society's norm to not leave our children unattended? do you
think that it is right or wrong for mothers- for parents in general -to leave
their kids in the car? to run in and do an errand? you know how young? what do you
think about this? I'd love to know your thoughts on this subject. leave them in
the comment section down below. please be polite.
don't be rude and nasty. please please let's have a civil conversation because
I have a feeling that people are going to be divided on this issue. all right
well I will see you guys in my next video. don't forget to subscribe while
you're here if you like to see content related to faith and motherhood. and I
will see you in my next video. thanks for watching
bye