I, like others, couldn’t get past page one. Ever since having a baby I just can’t bear to hear anything about children suffering…I almost didn’t make it through Changeling for the same reason.
But oh, god…I almost did this last fall. There was a change in my routine–my sis and her kids were riding with me and Kate to Jazzercise when usually it’s just the two of us. With all the noise and chaos of her two four-year-olds babbling, and me and my sister chatting away like we always do when we get together…I just simply walked away from the car. Now, I only got about ten feet before I thought, “I’m missing something.” Unbelievably, I mentally checked for my bag before I checked for my baby.
I have never, never, felt so bad in my entire life. And all I did was leave my little girl in the car alone for about 10 seconds on a cool day (and my sister forgot her, too!). I can’t even comprehend the heartache of those poor people who don’t get that niggling “I’m forgetting something” feeling until it’s too late. I have no judgment for them…only the deepest sympathy and pity.
To me the saddest case was of the father trying to wrestle a gun from a policeman. I see myself doing just that. I would have to be put in a straight jacket in a padded room stat, preferably doped to the moon and back. I am sure I cannot make it through the day if that ever happened to me.
Again, I am glad I have to pray Og for silence when I am driving, she now has her own alarm.
nod I’ve been forgotten in the back of the car when my dad was going through his morning routine. And that was middle school. It’s easy for me to imagine that a harrassed parent running on auto with insufficient caffeine could make the mistake of their life.
I don’t intend to have children ever, but that article just – yeah.
I’ve maintained for a long time that those who judge the parents who have suffered this tragedy with sentiments like “how could someone be that stupid” are wrong wrong wrong. It can happen to anyone, any time.
Ugh, just reading the responses to the article is twisting me up inside. No way I can read the actual article. I’m terrified of not ‘forgetting’ my infant daughter but of locking her in the car and being unable to get to her immediately. My car has no handles and can only be opened with a remote. More than once I’ve had to call in a locksmith to get me back into the car. I’m terrified that I’ll lock her and the keys in one day and have no way of even breaking the window to get to her.
I don’t have any kids myself but…that article almost broke my heart. I was sobbing within the first page and hardly stopped the whole way through. Those poor, poor people…especially the one who was prosecuted, and had to listen in court to the medical evidence about the awful things that happened to the baby’s body from the heat…I can’t imagine that much grief. I think I would implode.
It could very well happen to me. I still remember driving to work one morning a few years ago, and then turning my head because I thought I heard something behind me - and there’s my son, sitting happily in his car seat. I had totally forgotten to drop him off at day care that day. And he was always so quiet in the car. When I saw him sitting there I almost had a heart attack.
I had to stop reading at the hair-pulling comment.
I don’t currently have a car so this isn’t an immediate risk, but I’ve had terrible, terrible nightmares about leaving my (now seven months old) daughter on a bus. I’ve had the sit-bolt-upright moments of “oh god, did I leave her somewhere, is she at daycare, is she safe” and while so far the worst thing I’ve done is wheel her into the house and then forget that I’ve left her strapped into the pushchair in the front room, it would be frighteningly easy to leave her in a car. And if I had done it and if she had died, I would be that father:
I couldn’t read this. FWIW, I have a Daddy radar that goes ping every few seconds until my kids are outside of my control or with someone I *fully *trust. My wife and her relatives make jokes about it sometimes. I’d rather over react than under react. Even if that means I get fully awake at night and make sure one of the bambina’s is sleeping instead of not breathing.
You know the one Mom who is an ex GI, I have sympathy for her son but she sounds like a real tool. Because she says it should not be a criminal offense and rather it is the responsibility of the car manufacturers to create a safety device so people won’t accidentally forget their babies. Also that she had to go get her self artificially inseminated while her husband was away in the service. :rolleyes:
I think this type of tragedy happens so often because people are used to leaving kids in cars seats for that quick dash into the store, or leave them in the car sleeping in the garage, or leave them in the car seat to sleep for a nap in the house.
Out of sight out of mind, low priority, lost in the shuffle, taken for a ride and forgotten completely all day. That is a crime!
I don’t have any kids, but I am a teacher.
I managed to read the whole thing.
What concerns me is that these terrible tragedies are widely publicised and yet they still happen.
When in charge of a school party, I regularly count the pupils. I rigidly enforce road-crossing discipline.
If asked a distracting question by a stranger, the time and effort I put into the answer depends on what situation the kids are in.
If colleagues are watching and the pupils are reading, then I can talk at length. If we’re moving, I apologise and watch the pupils.
We have to make it a habit to remember.
The thing that kept coming to my mind is “why didn’t the daycares call the parents?”
The daycare my daughter went to and every school my kids have attended will call home and work numbers within half an hour of start time if the kid isn’t there, UNLESS you call before then to say that your child is not going to be there. I’d think it’d be even more obvious to a home daycare provider that they were a kid short and to wonder “where’s Susie?”.
I think policies like this could certainly avert a number of these incidents.
Stories like these make me want to never have young kids. I can all too easily imagine myself managing to do the same thing, and I don’t know if I could manage to live with myself, or face my husband after.
What’s wrong with making car manufacturers install a device to remind someone if they leave their child in the car? There are several of these incidents that make the news every year, so there is clearly a need there. And why do you disparage her for getting artificially inseminated with her husband’s sperm when he was too far away to provide it in person?
Did you read the article? It spends a great deal of time explaining exactly how loving, doting parents can get distracted and stressed in such a way that their instincts override their conscious mind and they truly believe that they have already left their child in safe hands.
Not really. These stories stick out because they are so terrible, but if we tried to implement a safety feature in every car for every possible scenario, they’d be rather expensive devices.
Many new cars already have extra devices for children’s safety - switches to turn off the passenger side airbag, and special attachment points for car seats. People are apparently willing to pay for those.
Sure, people are willing to pay for a lot of different safety devices. They may be willing to pay for more in the future, when the devices are cheaper. However, the article states that 15-25 children die this way every year. That is a very small number, and I’ve already seen an idea or two in this thread that makes more sense than forcing car manufacturers to install a device in every single car they crank off the line.
