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Colorado Dad Lets Daughter Wait Briefly In Car. He and His Wife Lose The Chance to Adopt

What happens when something safe is seen through the eyes of cultural prejudice, and thus declared dangerous and depraved?

Well, in the olden days, a woman who seemed powerful or spooky might be considered dangerous and depraved: a witch. That sometimes ended in stoning. More recently, a black man looking at a white woman might be considered dangerous and depraved: the equivalent of a rapist. That sometimes ended in lynching. And today, a parent who lets his or her kid wait in the car while running an errand can also be considered dangerous and depraved: A monster.

That sometimes ends an adoption, as you will see in my piece over at Reason. Click here.

Please note that before reading it that, tragically, some children do die in parked cars. The average time is 4.6 hours, and these kids were usually forgotten there. Or they got into the car while no one was looking, couldn’t get out, and their parents didn’t find them till too late. It’s excrutiatingly sad.

But they weren’t snoozing in the car during an errand.
Some day we will come to our senses, as we’ve done from earlier moral panics, and recognize that we were wrong. Parents consciously taking their eyes off their kids for a bit are not guilty of blatant disregard for their safety. Doing this is not evil. It is not depraved. And it should not derail an adoption. – L
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