I read this article (picture for reference so you can look it up) and the writer believes that women are shamed and even prosecuted by law for their parenting choices. In the 80s and 90s, parents would leave their children in the car alone while running into the post office/grocery store and no one thought a thing about it. Today, bystanders will take pictures and report them to the police for negligence. A study was cited that asked people to quantify the perceived danger the child was in while left alone. The subjects perceived danger was correlated with how selfish they deemed the mother’s reason for leaving the children unattended. I.e. if the mother left her child in the car alone for 10 mins to get an eyebrow wax the child was in more danger than if the mother was injured and couldn’t get to their child. For fathers, this wasn’t the case and the perceived danger wasn’t as strongly related to morality.

By all means, some examples I did not agree with. For instance, the mother who left her children unattended for a long period of time in a car to go to work. That’s too long. What if they have to go to the restroom? Or if they get hungry? Etc. I did agree with a different scenario. If it’s 60 degrees, car windows cracked and door locked and a mom doesn’t want to wake her child while she runs into the post office for a minute, then I don’t see a big deal.

Is this article over dramatic or is there truth in it?

UPDATE: it’s not a hot car. The article is talking about appropriate temperatures. We can all agree hot cars are bad. The controversy is how people’s perceived danger is linked to how moral they view a mother.