What Would You Do?

Corrie and I were at Toys-R-Us this week, and I was loading my packages into the back of my mini-van.  While I stood there, a woman pulled up into the parking place next to me.  She drove a new Ford Expedition, and she was smartly dressed.  She climbed out of her door and walked around to take her baby out of his car seat.

His rear-facing carseat.

His rear-facing carseat that she had in the front seat next to her. 

And I think my mouth involuntarily gaped open a bit.  I thought anyone with access to an episode of Dateline NBC would know how dangerous this is.  I thought it was beyond common knowledge that you never put a rear-facing carseat (or any carseat) in the front.  And (let's just go ahead and not deny that we form judgments based on appearances, whether it's right or not) she seemed to be the kind of person who has the resources to know better.

I shuddered just a little, and I gave a fleeting thought to saying something to her.  I knew nothing good would come of that (how would you react to a complete stranger giving you advice in a parking lot?).   I worried a little about that baby's safety, and I wondered about my own instincts and prejudices--would I have been more or less concerned? more or less surprised? if the mother in the next parking spot had been a young teenage mom in a beat-up old Datsun. 

Mostly, it just made me curious.  What would you do if you had seen this?  Or if you had been at a dinner party with a very pregnant friend while she downed two glasses of red wine (that's happened to me, also).  Or you had seen a parent angrily and hurtfully disciplining a child in a store (I think we've all seen that)?

When would you speak up?  Would you ever?  Why, or why not?

Comments

[Amy]

I once saw a woman driving with a small child (4 or 5 years old) hanging out of the window in the back seat. Seriously, the kid was standing up, probably on the arm rest on the door, and the window was lower than her hips. It was absolutely terrifying. We followed her, and called THREE different police departments (city, county, and state) as we moved from district to district, and none of them did anything. I was on the phone as we passed the state police post, saying, "Please, please, this kid is going to get seriously hurt!" and no one came. So I made my husband follow her all the way home, and I ripped her a new one.

So, um, yeah. I would've said something! I'd rather get punched than find out later that some poor innocent child died, and I didn't do anything. (And the story about the dad working on the car just broke my heart...)

[Emily Kay]

"the only time it is allowed to have a child (someone under 18 years of age) in the front seat of a car is when the child weighs at least 100 pounds. if you are an adult that weighs less than 100 pounds you are sitting in the front seat at your your own risk/choice. if you are a child and weigh less than 100 pounds you do not have the right nor inclination to make that decision."

God, I hope that's not true...I'm doing some research after I post this comment. :) So I've been risking my life by driving a car since I was 18? I've NEVER (aside from being pregnant) weighed over 100 pounds or been taller than 5'. If what you're saying is true, car manufacturers should be sued for making "dangerous" vehicles for those of us who are "vertically-challenged." :) Because of my size, I know my children won't weigh much either...am I really expected to place my 14-year-old child in a booster seat because she weighs 75 pounds? (Yes, that's what I weighed in middle school.) I would have DIED from humiliation had my mother done that to me!

Okay, Jenn from Texas, no offense, but where did you get your information? I just did some research and found the following:

"As of September 1, 2005, Texas law requires all children younger than 5 years old and less than 36 inches tall to ride in a safety seat that is appropriate for their size and height. All children younger than 17 years must ride buckled up, whether in the front or back seats."

Everything else is merely "recommended" for a child's safety. Thank God, I was beginning to get a bit worried. :)

[Emily Kay]

^ Sorry, that was me...I forgot to fill in my information. :)

[Overwhelmed With Joy!]

I had a car seat violation situation within my own family not long ago (well, within my in-law family).

We wer all in Mexico on vacation and Oronzo's parents wanted to show us a neat shell beach that they said was only 5 minutes away. There was no way the 4 kids we had with us were going to fit in one car with the adults unless we didn't take the carseats and just sat them on our laps.

Oronzo and I refused to do it and got much grief from his parents and one of his siblings. We stood our ground and said it wasn't safe (even if it wasn't illegal in Mexico) to have the kids in the car without carseats.

Another of Oronzo's siblings sided with us and refused to go in that one car with their small daughter as well. So, the 4 of us and our 2 kids piled into another car and followed behind, as Oronzo's sister rode with her 2 kids unrestrained in the car.

The 5 minute drive ended up being much longer than that. No, there were no accidents but what it came down to is that we were not willing to jeapordize the safety of our child in that situation.

Can you imagine having to live with yourself if something DID happen to your child because you did not have them restrained properly in your car? No thank you!

As for when do you say something? I don't know. If I see a child being physically abused in my presence, I'm not only going to step in and try to protect the child, but I'm also going to report the parent!

But if there's a way to try to difuse the situation before the abuse happens (as one commenter suggested), I'm going to try that too!

Good post!

[Naomi (Urban Mummy)]

FUnny you should post this. Just a couple of days ago I saw someone picking up (or was it dropping off?) their toddler at preschool. They were driving a smart car (it's a 2 seater) and the toddler seat was, obviously, in the front. And it got me thinking, and I thought that you couldn't do that!

[Lisa P in California]

I would have DEFINITELY said something as nicely as possible. ie: "Excuse me, you may not be aware, but they passed a law that putting any child car seat in the front is illegal and they can ticket you pretty severely for it."

If I was rudely ignored, I would feel obligated to call emergency services. It may sound severe, but a child's safety is at risk and I can't have that on my conscience.

I've seen children brought to preschool while sitting in their grandparents' lap. In that case, I discretely said something to the director and she relayed my concerns.

[jenn]

emily kay:
^Okay, Jenn from Texas, no offense, but where did you get your information? I just did some research and found the following:

"As of September 1, 2005, Texas law requires all children younger than 5 years old and less than 36 inches tall to ride in a safety seat that is appropriate for their size and height. All children younger than 17 years must ride buckled up, whether in the front or back seats."

Everything else is merely "recommended" for a child's safety. ^

not ONCE in my comment did i say that a child did not have to be in a carseat!!!! i said it was not recommended for A CHILD *someone under 18 years old* under 100 pounds to sit in the front seat. these are recommendations made by the state and trained carseat ADVOCATES.
i completely support carseats hence the name "carseat advocate". that is why i went on explaning the size of a car's seat not matching the size of the child. i also nowhere stated that a 75 pound child needs to be in a carseat. i apologize if that mistakenly crossed over in my comment.

but this misunderstanding further explains the whole issue and my point. it IS very confusing. and unfortunately, yes, cars are NOT made for small drivers. they are made for average height drivers. i totally understand your issue in that itself as I am 4 foot eleven myself! :0)

if my recollection of information was misleading i apologize.

[Dawn]

I don't know what I would do in that situation. The other day a girl, about 21 years old, at my work was telling me how she went to the store that was right next to her apartment complex. She didn't have to drive on a main road to get home, just a small road into her complex. She had her two-year-old son on her lap. A man in the parking lot saw her and stepped in front of her car. She rolled down her window and told him to move. He said he would as soon as she put her son in his car seat. She explained that she was only going next door. He said he didn't care and that if she drove off he would call the police. She was telling me this story and acting like the guy was an idiot. All I could think was good for him. I wish I dared to be more like that.

[Tara]

I was thinking about this issue more and thought of the woman's perspective. It has been mentioned I'm sure, but perhaps the woman wasn't the child's mother and didn't know the safety concerns about having the car seat in the front! ;)

[Erin]

I think I would have had to say something about the car seat thing. That is one of my big things - my 7 year old is a little over 40 pounds and her friends are not riding in boosters any more. However, if they ride with me, they ride in my extra booster. I am just fanatic about that! The red wine thing I don't think I would say anything about because some doctors say a glass or two of wine is not going to hurt the baby. The discipline thing I have learned the hard way with a difficult child - I have no idea what that parent has been going through, so unless they are physically abusing their child, I let it go. I would hope someone would do the same for me if my girl was having one of her stinker days!

[thara]

I probably wouldn't say anything to the carseat person or the wine drinking person, I probably would offer support to the mother in the grocery store (because I have been there before). A situation that I came across recently had to do with two children 5-6 yr old boy and his baby brother/sister (not yet one)being left (with windows down on a not very hot day) in the parking lot of walmart, the problem (beside being left alone by themselves) was that the 5-6 year old was HITTING the infant and telling it to shut up!(which only made him/her scream more) I didn't know what to do.... should I start talking to the kid to distract him? should I tell a walmart employee. I was so worried about that baby but I did not know what to do.

[Heather O.]

What is sad is when you DO say something, and nothing happens. I'm not one to speak up very often, but one time Dh and I pulled up to a convenience store, and there was a car next to us, engine running, with a small child bouncing around in it. I pegged him to be about 3 or 4. He was not strapped in, and THE CAR WAS RUNNING! I thought it was surely a mistake, so I left DH and my own 4 year old in the car, and went into the convenience store. There was only one other person in the store, so I went up to her and said, "Is that your blue car?"

"Yeah".

"Is that your son in it?"

"Yeah"

"Did you know that the car is running and that he's not strapped in?"

"Yeah. He'll be fine. He won't touch anything."

I didn't know what to do after that, so just stayed in my car and waited until she left, to make sure her son didn't touch anything. In this case, she was right--he was fine, but I still can't get the experience out of my mind. I have no doubt the woman thought I was an interfering twit, and my comments made no difference to her. Oh, how my heart ached for that little boy. Should I have done something more pro-active? Maybe. I don't know, and these situations are so very hard.

[Sparks]

We frequently have our 5 week old baby in a car seat while riding on a wagon pulled by our draft horses...and it's not attached to anything. It just sits there and rocks back and forth with the motion of the wagon. Does this make me a bad mom?

Also, there was a time that in putting in the carseat the seatbelt lock malfunctioned and allowed the seatbelt to loosen up. I went around a corner and the whole carseat, base included (which was in the back seat) tipped to the side, and my little guy was dangling there in the harness happy as a clam. Does this make me a bad mom?

[Tina]

Sparks, I don't think you're a bad mom...I've had mine tip over, too! And there have been a couple times that the kid has been safely in the carseat in the back, but I'd forgotten to buckle him into the harness.

What I keep thinking is that when I was a kid, we didn't even HAVE carseats and we would frequently have 6 people in the front seat of the pickup. We all survived!

[Sally]

I don't see anything wrong with the women having the glasses of wine. There's no way for you to know if that's a regular thing or a treat at a holiday party, and if it's a treat, then she isn't doing anything to harm her baby and it's her choice. I have a ton of friends who are pregnant right now, including me, and we've talked about how we'd all like to go out to a nice dinner together and get a bottle of wine to share...but we're too afraid of being approached aggressively by judgmental people to do it.

I would probably say something to someone being too harsh with their kid in a store, but I don't know what I would do about the car seat thing -- she could have turned the airbag off.

Tough situations!

[Rachel]

I don't know what I'd do in these situations but I do know the one I would panic about most is seeing a pregnant woman drink anything alcoholic. And so would any other adoptive mom who is raising a child damaged because of drinking. There is NO known "safe" time or amount, a pregnant woman can drink and not harm her baby. Why take the chance?