What an odd condition of the law!

[elfs]

Yamaraashi-chan yesterday asserted that it was "illegal" for me to leave her in the car. I asked her if she knew there was such a law in Washington State, or if she had just heard this third-hand. She was sure it existed.

Well, I went and looked it up.

RCW 9.91.060: Leaving a child unattended in a parked vehicle.

Every person having the care and custody, whether temporary or permanent, of minor children under the age of twelve years, who shall leave such children in a parked automobile unattended by an adult while such person enters a tavern or other premises where vinous, spirituous, or malt liquors are dispensed for consumption on the premises shall be guilty of a gross misdemeanor.

I wonder why the "condition" is there at the end? I would bet most kids who've died baking in a car were left there by someone who was forgetful for some reason other than drink.

It's also illegal to leave a child in a car if the motor is running.

Comments

[dossy.livejournal.com]

Thank goodness for this law, you know, so that when a neglectful parent leaves their kid in a running car and someone comes and carjacks it with their kid in it, the police can arrest the parent -- you know, just in case they're not feeling bad enough already about their car and their kid being stolen.

Stupid laws.

[kengr]

A friend hade her kid act up in a restaurant. Since their table just happened to be a window table and their car was parked agisnt that window, she hauled him out to the car. she could see him clearly from the table.

Didn't matter to the cops that somebody called. At least back then (almost 30 years back) they just gave her a warning after making her haul him back into the restaurant.

So, you have a choice between letting kids disrupt things for everyone in the store/restauirant/whatever or going home. And you can't just leave the kid at home without an adult to watch them.

Thus the plague of ill behaved kids in stores and restaurants. Many of the parents don't have a *choice*.

Similar laws are why a friends 11(?) year old kid wouldn't help with packing for an emergency move, wouldn't quit bothering those of us who were packing, and threatened to call the cops if we laid a hand on him to get him to either work or go somewhere else.



Me, w

[ladyerin.livejournal.com]

Thus the plague of ill behaved kids in stores and restaurants. Many of the parents don't have a *choice*.

They have the same choice my parents had....don't go out. If they needed to go to the store, one of the parents stayed home with the children, the other went to the store. When they were working separate shifts, so there would be someone home with us most of the day, they left us at the sitter/preschool a few minutes longer so they could stop and get a few things. We didn't go out to eat, we didn't get hauled through a grocery store at 3 in the morning. If we did happen to be out in public and caused any fuss we were taken directly out of the store and taken home....and it wasn't exactly pleasant.

Any child who decides they would rather call the cops than obey their parents should be sent to spent time in Juv. Hall. Let them rot there for a month and see if they don't like the rules at home a little better.

Kids are allowed to run all over their parents these days. Hardly do I ever see children being disciplined or listening to their parents. I was recently walking though Target in the toy section, where I was actually doing research for a paper I was writing. A mother was telling her child to put the toy back and he kept whining at her to buy it. I looked at him, and said why don't you just listen to your mother and put it away....and don't even give me the look like you don't have to do what someone tells you to do.....He actually put the toy away and followed her out of the area. I felt bad for her, and hope I didn't embarrass her too much but geez, it was really making my day unpleasant and I couldn't deal with it.

Currently I will not have children in this society for fear of not being able to raise them properly....which does include disciplining them. I am certainly not suggesting that one should beat their children to get them to behave, but getting odd looks for lightly smaking my nephews hand when he was trying to put his fingers in a light socket proved to me that I just couldn't raise children within the 'standards' of this society.

Ok....off my rant now...honestly.

~E