> would you leave your four year old alone in a parked car for 5 minutes while you ran into a store? Yes. No, not really, but yes if I lived in a different ti

> would you leave your four year old alone in a parked car for 5 minutes while you ran into a store? Yes. No, not really, but yes if I lived in a different time and day (a time and day I wish we did live in). As another commenter pointed out, the biggest reason many of us don't do this these days is purely the fear of running into ridiculous situations as described in this article. It really seems odd that you're avoiding the biggest data-driven argument that's raised in the article and has already been put directly to you. Namely, why do you assume that it's safer to take the child with you? Parents make tradeoffs regarding safety, risk, convenience, happiness, cost, temperament, health, development, etc. ALL. THE. FREAKING. TIME. It's great that "society" cares about how parents do their jobs. It's not so great that society mandates in great detail how that job should be done. Every parent, every child, every situation, every tradeoff is different. Until it's proven that they're no good at it, let's leave that work to the people who signed up for it.