In a sensible world she would have been able to call out to some car-park lurker "hey I'm just going to grab something from the store, can you just wave at my kid through this window"; or she could just run in and grab something and people seeing her run in and then out would not call the police; or etc etc.
Society has decided that men wanting to work with children are creepy (try finding pre-schools with male workers and early years schools with male teachers), and this extends to the damaging concept of "stranger danger" where someone waiting by the car to check the child is safe is not going to be seen as a welcome bit of support for a busy harassed mother but will be seen as a creepy threat.
It's all part of the same weird system of protecting children without regard to what actual risk is.
In a sensible world she would have been able to call out to some car-park lurker "hey I'm just going to grab something from the store, can you just wave at my kid through this window"; or she could just run in and grab something and people seeing her run in and then out would not call the police; or etc etc.
Society has decided that men wanting to work with children are creepy (try finding pre-schools with male workers and early years schools with male teachers), and this extends to the damaging concept of "stranger danger" where someone waiting by the car to check the child is safe is not going to be seen as a welcome bit of support for a busy harassed mother but will be seen as a creepy threat.
It's all part of the same weird system of protecting children without regard to what actual risk is.