I was at Target this weekend with my teenager.  As I waited near the entrance to the dressing room I witnessed this scene:

Mother walked up to the fitting room with two children – a little girl approximately three years old and a boy who was no more four or five. The mom and little girl went in to try on bathing suits.  They had at least six different suits in hand (this is relevant as it shows they were going to be in there a while).  The mom parked the little boy well out of reach and out of view of the dressing rooms and instructed him to stay in the cart and wait there.  Away mom and sister went – out of sight, out of ear shot and out of reach.  The little boy was left totally unattended.

I understand that mom may have wanted her son to stay in the cart to keep him out of trouble; yet he was a sitting duck. The store was very busy and there were a lot of people coming and going.  It would have been so easy for anyone to grab the cart and sweep the little boy away without anyone noticing.

If you’re thinking that no one could get away with taking the boy because the young lad would make a lot of noise and start screaming, think again.  Have you ever heard a screaming kid in a store?  I sure have.  I have heard kids who won’t stop hollering and I have also experienced this first hand.

I like to remind my teenie bop how the one time she threw an out of control, temper tantrum we were in Target (she was young).  She wanted to get out of the cart and started screaming her little lungs off making a huge ruckus.  As I exited the store to deal with my terrific two year old, you would have thought I was kidnapping her and there was no way I could have been her mother the way she was carrying on.  My point is that it would not have been terribly out of place for a young kid to be causing a disturbance in a store.

Back to the dressing room scene:  My daughter finished in the dressing room and we departed for another part of the store.  We later circled back around to the area near the fitting rooms and low and behold the little boy was still sitting in the cart alone – mom nowhere in sight.

What is wrong with people?

I get that it can be challenging when a mom has a little boy with her – or a dad has his daughter.  Yet there are plenty of work-arounds.

1. She could have brought the little boy into the dressing room and had him turn his back to the corner as his little sister changed.
2. She could have brought him into the dressing room area and had him stand immediately outside the fitting room door. Mom still would have been able to see her son’s feet as he waited.
3. She could have left her son in the cart and parked it much closer to the entrance, selected a fitting room up front, sent her daughter into the changing room while mom stood outside the door able to keep an eye on both of her children.

I hung around long enough to see the mom and sister eventually exit the dressing room and be reunited with the little boy. But what is really sad is that this mom (and countless others like her) saw absolutely nothing wrong with leaving a young child unattended.

How do we create a paradigm shift to change this mindset?