When The Nanny State Actually Tries To Nanny

ANYTIME YOU HEAR the words “for the safety of our precious children,” grab your little ones and run. Someone who thinks he cares more about your kids than you do is about to make you grovel. If he’s from the government, run faster.

- Lenore Skenazy

Chicago mom Kim Brooks learned that lesson a few years back when she was hurrying to get everything ready for a plane trip home from visiting her parents in Virginia. Brooks knew that if her son didn’t have a set of headphones, it would be a miserable flight for him (and anyone seated near them, I would guess), so she drove to the store to buy a pair. When the boy said he didn’t want to come in with her, she made the kind of split-second decision all parents will have to make a thousand times before their kids leave the nest: “What makes the most sense for my family, right here, right now?” She decided to let him wait in the car, playing on an iPad, with the windows cracked open on a mild day.

Unfortunately for Brooks, a bystander saw and videotaped her heinous five-minute crime. The cops were already calling her when she got back to Chicago, and she was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Brooks relates this tale in