The one who needed to pay the fines and sit in jail thinking it over is the busybody who couldn't wait to call the cops.

It should have to be proven that the kid was in danger. A kid sitting in a locked car on a cool and cloudy day for five minutes is not.

I'm so sick of the overprotective attitude toward kids in this country unless they're poor kids who don't get enough to eat. Those brats are on their own.

if that person saw her leave and was really concerned they should have told her when she was going to the store that they didn't think she should leave the kid in the car.

The little brat is going to be a monster. She lets him do whatever he wants. She was on a trip to placate him in the first place, he said he wanted to go, then changed his mind about going in. She should have told him he went in or didn't get the headphones. Good grief, she was getting those because he would be a brat on the plane.

Here in Japan it's usual to leave children alone in cars or at home while a parent (let's face it, mothers) runs errands, and punishment for being naughty is locking the child out of the house or apartment, not in. I doubt if the death toll for such things is that much higher in Japan than elsewhere, and usually they're left for a long time when something bad happens.

I used to live next door to a homemaker who'd leave for a couple of hours a few times a week after the older kid came home from elementary school. I assumed the two little girls took a nap or played because it was peaceful at first, but after about forty-five minutes one of them started crying and the other joined in and it was continuous loud wailing and weeping for the last hour or hour and a half until the mother returned. EVERY SINGLE TIME. I resented the fact that if there was a fire or major earthquake, I'd have to sidle over the barrier to their balcony and break the sliding glass door and save them, but what are you going to do.

Where I live now a former next door neighbor, when in his cups, would slap his wife around late at night -- the walls aren't that thick. The wife regularly locked the daughter out of the apartment until she apologized for whatever, but the kid was stubborn and stood outside the door kicking it methodically for quite a long time. I admired her persistence. I finally made my husband call the cops when the father beat the daughter one night. The screaming was terrible, yet if the foreigner here hadn't made a fuss, guaranteed nobody else would've. My Western conscience kicked in, I'd feel guilty if anyone died and I didn't do anything. The Japanese police are getting much better at taking domestic violence seriously. And who knows but that it made it worse (they moved out soon afterwards but planned to anyway, we heard from the landlord).

So the busybody in the Salon story who dropped a dime on this woman is wrong and bad. If any of these types of people lived in Japan they'd be on the phone to the police all the time. Life is a gamble. Everything is dangerous. This is why I prefer to stay in bed as much as possible, but sometimes one must get up.

She made a really BAD choice.

Jail? Police involvement bad choice? I don't know.

But if I saw a kid left in a locked car, I'd be pissed and probably stick around for a few minutes to make sure he was safe. If no parent returned after a few moments, I would call the police, too.

And I do have to say, as a parent of a three year old who does like to throw tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants, you NEVER capitulate to them. I don't care. Drag his ass into the store or drive his ass home to his grandmother without the headphones. It sounds easy in hindsight, but tantrums are a no win situation for my daughter. She will NEVER EVER get what she wants that way.