Things I don't get #1

The number of school-aged children spotted with their parents in shopping centres during school hours.

The kids don't look sick or otherwise incapacitated. If they have something that means they're too sick/infectious to go to school then how are they well enough to go shopping or to sit drinking milkshakes in a coffee shop while Mum has a coffee with her friend? Or is the parent taking advantage of having the day off work to mind their sick child to catch up on some shopping and socialising? Or do parents just give their kids a day off school for the heck of it (I thought that's what weekends were for)?

I don't get it, but then when I was at school I needed to be pretty much bedridden to have the day off sick. Too sick to move between the bedroom and the bathroom is the criterion I use to decide if my kids stay home or go to school.

Times must have changed.