Though I don’t have children, I have been the forgotten child. My case was a total miscommunication snafu - each parent thought I was with the other one when they left the church potluck. However, my dad’s business partner lived about a mile and a half from my house, and they were happy to take me home when I asked them. I was, dunno, 9ish, 10ish? so it wasn’t so bad.
My parents felt awful too. But it was kind of understandable - each thought that the other had me, and didn’t know that wasn’t the case.
Haven’t done it yet, but I can totally understand why parents would, especially if it’s a teeny one. Some babies only sleep in the car. If you’ve been up all day and night and the baby finally sleeps, a brain fart is not unexpected. I was so paranoid about doing just that that I would sit in the car for a moment or two, doing a mental inventory of what I needed to have when I left the car.
Purse? Check.
Keys? Check.
Ummmm… There’s something else. That thing there that’s making me sleepy. What could it be? Oh! Right, the baby!
When I was a kid we packed two families (of 6 and 5) into a VW microbus and drove off on vacation. Except we left my little brother behind. The headcount was performed by my mother about five minutes into the journey, but that meant that he’d still been Home Alone for ten whole minutes, which must be terrifying when you’re only five. Poor little guy was sitting on the front lawn, folorn and howling when we scooped him up.
I generally have that same radar, but the problem comes when you think someone else IS responsible. Unfortunately both of us thought the other had taken her out of the car. We had groceries so I stopped at the door to get them out and he moved the car to the back like we do every night. He thought I took her out when I got the groceries. I thought he’d see her right there in the car with him. I was inside cooking and he was outside grilling. I thought she was outside with him. He thought she was inside with me. In the time it took for me to get in, take out the groceries and fix us a snack until dinner she could have died if it had been warmer out. It was warm out but it was later in the day. It was hell on all of us. We were all just in shock, crying and comforting her. It could have been much much worse.
You think you have that radar. You don’t know what could happen.
What I don’t understand is people leaving their kids in the car while they shop. Or party. They purposely leave their children, thinking for some reason they’ll be safe alone in a car. I don’t get that at all. I don’t even leave my daughter in the car while I pay, even if it’s a walk-up.
What do you think could happen to her? I’m not sure what you mean by “walk-up” - are you talking about gas stations where you have to go to the cashier to pay?
I’m sorry. I totally missed the “at the gas station” part. And I mention that because I had my car stolen from a gas station while I walked up to pay. I didn’t leave it on, didn’t leave the keys in, and yet it was gone in the ten seconds it took to walk about 24 feet away to pay. Nobody even saw it happen.
Imagine if I’d left my little girl in the car that time.
Yeah, maybe, but every, and I mean literally every story I’ve ever heard in the news about “child accidentally stolen along with car” has involved the keys being left in the ignition.
Story: No, I haven’t, but I was highly paranoid about the possibility of doing so when my kids were younger. Personally, my feeling is that thinking “it could never happen to me” is a dangerous way to think.
I agree that it would be horrific to have your car stolen with a child in it. However, it would also be horrific to take your kid out of the car to take her with you to pay, and have her dart away from you and get run over. For me, and with my kids, I have always found the latter scenario to be more probable, so I always leave them in the car.
Strangely this thread actually made me feel better.
When my daughter was in in kindergarten or maybe 1st grade my wife and I took turns picking up the kids. I was very very clear with the kids that they should wait for me in a certain area so I didn’t have to wander around looking for them. It never occurred to me or my wife that we had them waiting in different areas.
So, we told my daughter I would be picking her up, but somehow she got the idea her mother was picking her up and was waiting on the wrong side of the school by a different door, different road. I looked around and didn’t see her so I assumed someone else had picked her up and hadn’t called me , and I was kinda pissed. I went home and called only to find out that nobody had picked her up. I went back to the school and went inside and told the principle who was still there. He did the obvious and walked around the school and found her sitting on the curb at the other entrance crying. I felt so horrible to think this poor little girl was scared and thought we had forgotten her. We came to a clearer understanding after that and discussed who to get help from if she got lost and all that.
This thread makes me nervous. I dread the ‘forgetting the baby and leaving it in a hot car’ stories that are bound to show up in the paper. I would urge any women, when you put the baby in the car seat, thread the seat belt through the strap of your purse. I always bring my purse with me even into the gas station to pay. (I don’t know what men would do since they don’t generally carry handbags.)
When my son was first born I was terrified I would slip into auto pilot and forget him in the car so I used to put my wallet in his car seat. That didn’t last long since when he was only a couple of days old I reached over and dropped my keys in there too and got out of the car to go around and get him out his side… and locked the door.
Luckily it was March in Ottawa. Not much chance of him overheating while I ran into the nearest store to call CAA for help. Apparently panic and tears get really fast response times.
Epiphany: why not invent a device to warn people when a child is left in a car alone? Most new cars have a sensor in the front seat that deactivates the airbag when it senses 10+ lbs but less than 80 or so in the seat. Why not fit such sensors into ALL the seats, set to give of an audible alarm outside the car if it senses a weight left in the seat after the car is locked? The above link mentions +/- 25 child deaths each year due to this… if someone can create a device that prevents even one, why not??
My mother forgot me two to three times a year all through high school. And she’s one of those people who get all high-horse about these cooked baby stories, wondering in heated tones how any responsible loving parent could possibly forget they have a child in the car. Pisses me right off when she starts that–I always want to ask her if she didn’t love me or if she’s just a shitty parent.
Halfway through the church parking lot my mother realized she’d forgotten to grab a bulletin and sent me back. In the two minutes it took me to run in and back, she’d forgotten she was waiting for me and drove home. I think I was about 9.
My father gets a pass on his.
He was helping coach my younger brother’s baseball game across town and instructed me to wait for him after my softball game ended. Game ended and I turned down a few offered rides home and waited. And waited.
About half hour later one of the coaches drove past and realized I was still waiting, completely alone. The coach offered to drive my to my brother’s field, figuring the game must have run long.
We pulled up and another parent caught us as I climbed out.
“Oh, your dad’s not here. Your brother got hurt and he took him home.”
I got home to find my brother had taken a bunted ball square in the eye. Our father was tracking down the family eye doctor and getting a sitter for me and another sibling so he could head to the ER. If you knew my father’s relaxed attitude toward bloodless injuries you’d realize this was a serious situation.
Little bro was diagnosed with a blood clot in his eye. Understandably, I wasn’t top concern.
I used to beg to be left in the car so I could read. Once my mother and I were in one of those icky grocery stores next to the K-Mart, and I had had enough!. Walked out to the car, threaded my shoelace through the cracked window, snagged the lock button, climbed in, and picked up a book. About 30 minutes later, Mom came back out with the comment, “I knew you’d be here.”
How about this: When you put baby in the car seat, you have a bungee cord you clip to the bottom of the seat. This cord extends to the front seat. You clip this other end onto your keychain. When you stop the car and get out, you take the key out of the ignition and (hopefully) are reminded the other end of the bungee cord is attached to the car seat.
