Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper elementary, I think? I don't think I was bratty, she didn't ask, it was just something she sprang on us and it was a movie I absolutely did not want to see. Well she trotted off with my 2 brothers and left me in the car to stew for an hour and a half.

So in general regardless, it seems like it was somewhat common to allow kids to hang out alone in cars while their parents shopped or ran an errand really quick in the 80's. It's just not like that now.

Last night we went to an event where a lot of families gathered and a mom was there with her young el aged son laying on a picnic blanket. At one point she just got up and left for 10 minutes. Turns out she went to buy a drink at the food truck by the street near the park. Nothing happened and all was fine but I definitely was thinking you really can't do that in this day and age.

I see nothing wrong with picnic blanket scenario

+1

But I’m a 70s baby who regularly spent time in the car while my mom ran errands. She dropped me off at the pool and the movies in late ES. My grandmother would send me to the corner store to pick up an item or two. All totally normal. And my mom was pretty overprotective by 80s standards... like we couldn’t just roam the neighborhood or go into friends’ houses without permission.

I have a kid in ES, and I’ve been watching that show about Japanese toddlers running errands on Netflix. It definitely makes me feel like we coddle our kids too much. Parents in my neighborhood don’t even let their kids walk to the park alone.

My mom routinely left 3 children for a week in the care of our alcoholic stepfather so she could have a fabulous summer vacation. Very summer, in fact.

Also allowed same stepfather to shuttle us to after school activities, plastered drunk. He’d drop me off at one evening activity, go around the corner to a liquor store, down a bottle of vodka then pick me up and drive me back home.
Again, for years.

So it was nothing to have our lazy and negligent mom allow us to sit in a locked car while she went grocery shopping or clothes shopping. I still remember sitting in the car with my sister and brother (I was the youngest) and some man banged on the window and intentionally thought it would be funny to yell and scare us. It worked! We started screaming and I wet my pants!

I’ve been in therapy and on meds for decades. No kidding - the trauma I endured makes me fantasize that my parents would have lost custody of us.

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like your mother was just putting you in your place

+1 That mama was showing a spoiled little girl who was the boss in that scenario- mama bear won that round.

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like your mother was just putting you in your place

Her place? WTF.

Anonymous wrote:Upper elementary, I think? I don't think I was bratty, she didn't ask, it was just something she sprang on us and it was a movie I absolutely did not want to see. Well she trotted off with my 2 brothers and left me in the car to stew for an hour and a half.

So in general regardless, it seems like it was somewhat common to allow kids to hang out alone in cars while their parents shopped or ran an errand really quick in the 80's. It's just not like that now.

Last night we went to an event where a lot of families gathered and a mom was there with her young el aged son laying on a picnic blanket. At one point she just got up and left for 10 minutes. Turns out she went to buy a drink at the food truck by the street near the park. Nothing happened and all was fine but I definitely was thinking you really can't do that in this day and age.

I see nothing wrong with picnic blanket scenario

OP it sounds like your mother was just putting you in your place

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper elementary, I think? I don't think I was bratty, she didn't ask, it was just something she sprang on us and it was a movie I absolutely did not want to see. Well she trotted off with my 2 brothers and left me in the car to stew for an hour and a half.

So in general regardless, it seems like it was somewhat common to allow kids to hang out alone in cars while their parents shopped or ran an errand really quick in the 80's. It's just not like that now.

Last night we went to an event where a lot of families gathered and a mom was there with her young el aged son laying on a picnic blanket. At one point she just got up and left for 10 minutes. Turns out she went to buy a drink at the food truck by the street near the park. Nothing happened and all was fine but I definitely was thinking you really can't do that in this day and age.

Oh sweetheart you were a brat if you were that old and refusing to get out of the car. And she may have left you to stew for an hour and a half, but you chose to stew for over 3 decades. I agree with pp about therapy, maybe address being so quick to judge others while you’re in there.

NP and you are insane.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper elementary, I think? I don't think I was bratty, she didn't ask, it was just something she sprang on us and it was a movie I absolutely did not want to see. Well she trotted off with my 2 brothers and left me in the car to stew for an hour and a half.

So in general regardless, it seems like it was somewhat common to allow kids to hang out alone in cars while their parents shopped or ran an errand really quick in the 80's. It's just not like that now.

Last night we went to an event where a lot of families gathered and a mom was there with her young el aged son laying on a picnic blanket. At one point she just got up and left for 10 minutes. Turns out she went to buy a drink at the food truck by the street near the park. Nothing happened and all was fine but I definitely was thinking you really can't do that in this day and age.

Oh sweetheart you were a brat if you were that old and refusing to get out of the car. And she may have left you to stew for an hour and a half, but you chose to stew for over 3 decades. I agree with pp about therapy, maybe address being so quick to judge others while you’re in there.
NP and you are insane.

The only insane one I see still blames her mommy for something that happened 40 years ago

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Upper elementary, I think? I don't think I was bratty, she didn't ask, it was just something she sprang on us and it was a movie I absolutely did not want to see. Well she trotted off with my 2 brothers and left me in the car to stew for an hour and a half.

So in general regardless, it seems like it was somewhat common to allow kids to hang out alone in cars while their parents shopped or ran an errand really quick in the 80's. It's just not like that now.

Last night we went to an event where a lot of families gathered and a mom was there with her young el aged son laying on a picnic blanket. At one point she just got up and left for 10 minutes. Turns out she went to buy a drink at the food truck by the street near the park. Nothing happened and all was fine but I definitely was thinking you really can't do that in this day and age.

Oh sweetheart you were a brat if you were that old and refusing to get out of the car. And she may have left you to stew for an hour and a half, but you chose to stew for over 3 decades. I agree with pp about therapy, maybe address being so quick to judge others while you’re in there.

NP and you are insane.

Anonymous wrote:Upper elementary, I think? I don't think I was bratty, she didn't ask, it was just something she sprang on us and it was a movie I absolutely did not want to see. Well she trotted off with my 2 brothers and left me in the car to stew for an hour and a half.

So in general regardless, it seems like it was somewhat common to allow kids to hang out alone in cars while their parents shopped or ran an errand really quick in the 80's. It's just not like that now.

Last night we went to an event where a lot of families gathered and a mom was there with her young el aged son laying on a picnic blanket. At one point she just got up and left for 10 minutes. Turns out she went to buy a drink at the food truck by the street near the park. Nothing happened and all was fine but I definitely was thinking you really can't do that in this day and age.

Oh sweetheart you were a brat if you were that old and refusing to get out of the car. And she may have left you to stew for an hour and a half, but you chose to stew for over 3 decades. I agree with pp about therapy, maybe address being so quick to judge others while you’re in there.

When I was a kid, we used to go to England for my dad’s work. One summer, we went to visit a castle or something and I had a stomach bug. Undeterred, my parents left me in the car alone for HOURS with a bottle of ginger ale and a pack of saltines. I don’t remember any adult talking to me or being concerned. I was 7 or 8 at the time.

I leave my kids in the car when I’m running in to get donuts or pick up something very quick. I can’t fathom leaving them for hours the way my parents did.

Yep, I’d get left in the car when she’d double park. I was instructed to tell the cop or security guard that she would only be in the store for a couple of minutes. Or, to come find her if they wanted it moved sooner.

Anonymous wrote:I left mine to go inside a donut shop on the way to a soccer games yesterday. Gone about 3m, all of us going in would have made us late.

My kids are somewhat used to it. But I usually leave a phone so they could technically call for help should a problem come up. And, I set the phone’s stopwatch when I leave, so they can know how long I’ve really been gone.

I’ve done it for dropping off an orthodontic check. I’ve done it for dropping a box in the indoor container of the post office. I’ve never done it in a Walmart parking lot. Would never.

It’s like the situation where the lot is *right there,* it’s a drop off /pickup 2 minute thing.

I spent A LOT of time alone in cars in the 70s and 80s, including 2 times that my mom forgot to set the parking brake and the car rolled. My mom also tells a story about leaving me in the car and going into a pharmacy to buy some codeine cough syrup. The pharmacist wouldn't sell it to her because he thought she was a hippie drug seeker. She was insistent that she had a sick baby in her car. At no point in this dispute was leaving a child alone in the car ever brought up as problematic behavior. Cultural norms (and laws) change over time.

I left mine to go inside a donut shop on the way to a soccer games yesterday. Gone about 3m, all of us going in would have made us late.

My kids are somewhat used to it. But I usually leave a phone so they could technically call for help should a problem come up. And, I set the phone’s stopwatch when I leave, so they can know how long I’ve really been gone.