I walked my kids to the door of the dojo this afternoon and walked back to the car to wait like most of the other parents. While I was waiting I noticed a mom walk outside peak through her closed back passenger window and go back inside to watch her other child in the dojo. Classes are about an hour long.

I immediately knew that her baby MUST be in the car. I watched her come out again and do THE same thing 10 mins later. And repeat.

To set the scene we are in a parking lot along one of the main roads in our town. We are in central Florida and it is 82 out and probably 80% humidity. The car is parked in full sun and she is inside the door of the dojo which has screens over the front so you can barely see out at all.

I eventually pulled my car to a spot one away from her car near the front. The car was running and all the windows and doors were closed. Baby was probably somewhere between 12-18 months old.

Eventually through the window I could see the baby was awake and her arms moving and picking her head up out of her infant seat trying to look around. That’s when I decided I needed to go get her.

I wasn’t even going to say anything but the final time had been over 20 mins and she hadn’t been outside and now the child was awake. I’m not sure if she was crying.

I went inside and told her “hey I think your baby is awake” she followed me outside and started walking toward her car. I walked up next to her and said in the gentlest, calmest way I possibly could “hey… I understand what you were doing, but you really shouldn’t do that. SO MUCH could go wrong. I know you wouldn’t want anything to happen to your baby.” I also added at the end “besides it’s illegal.”

She just stammered a “yeah” and stormed away from me. I am a mother of 5 myself and I have also made mistakes, especially when I was a new young mom. I didn’t want to say anything at first, but I thought maybe she just didn’t realize how dangerous it could be?

She seemed pretty upset. My husband said I shouldn’t have said anything… especially the part about it being illegal, but I felt it added credibility to me not just being a crazy person.

TL;DR AITAH for telling a young mom she shouldn’t leave her baby alone sleeping in a running car in Florida on an 82 degree day?