# How do parents adjust after leaving a child in a hot car? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 4, 2013, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133 "2013-06-04T17:46:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/1 "2013-06-04T17:46:21Z")
I can not imagine the anguish one must feel upon discovering they have done the unthinkable: killed their own child by leaving him or her in a car on a hot day. Having two little ones myself, I can’t even fathom how I would even go on after such a thing. Anyway, I just saw a headline about some left-in-car deaths already this year and it got me to thinking about how people \*do \*adjust in the months and years afterward. I imagine these people aren’t all self-absorbed monsters or drug-addled zombies, most of them, I would think are just regular people who messed up beyond belief. Anyone know of any stories out there that they could link to that discuss the aftereffects of this? Anyone have any first-hand knowledge of someone who did this? I couldn’t find anything via Google aside from reports of this sort of thing happening. ETA: I put this in GQ because I’m looking for actual links, but perhaps this would be better suited for another forum? ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/2 "2013-06-04T18:06:25Z")
If you haven’t seen it, [this](http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2010-Feature-Writing) Pulitzer Prize winning article is required reading on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/3 "2013-06-04T18:17:57Z")
Here’s a (Pulitzer Prize winning) Washington Post article _[Fatal Distraction](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-03-08/news/36840402_1_courtroom-tissue-class-trip)_ that does about as good a job as is possible of answering the question. Warning: long, engaging, heart-rending. (This took forever to post, and was scooped in the meantime.) ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/4 "2013-06-04T18:36:05Z")
I saw a fiction book in the review pile at work a few months ago that dealt with this subject, but I can’t remember the title, and Google hasn’t helped. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/5 "2013-06-04T19:40:48Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > If you haven’t seen it, [this](http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2010-Feature-Writing) Pulitzer Prize winning article is required reading on the subject. I have to say, as a parent, that was one of the toughest things I have ever read. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/6 "2013-06-04T19:45:58Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > I have to say, as a parent, that was one of the toughest things I have ever read. You don’t even have to be a parent. I’ve read that article a couple of times over the years and every time it makes me want to cry. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/7 "2013-06-04T19:46:35Z")
Thanks for posting that article. That was very insightful. And Hermitian, I agree. It actually took me a couple of hours to get through it. I’d read a paragraph or two and then go do something else. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/8 "2013-06-04T21:57:50Z")
I have come face to face with a handful of parents who inadvertently caused their child’s death. One phrase comes to mind that describes them: Pitiable and incomprehensible demoralization. One dad had to be restrained from drowning himself. The cited article is hard to read, but quite good. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/9 "2013-06-04T22:09:44Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > You don’t even have to be a parent. I’ve read that article a couple of times over the years and every time it makes me want to cry. I’m not crying, I’m absolutely terrified. Especially this sentence: > [@](#): > > An otherwise loving and attentive parent one day gets busy, or distracted, or upset, or confused by a change in his or her daily routine, and just… forgets a child is in the car. It happens that way somewhere in the United States 15 to 25 times a year, parceled out through the spring, summer and early fall. _ **FIFTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE TIMES A YEAR?!?** _ :eek: :eek: ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ Actually, when I think about it I’m a little surprised the number’s that small, considering how much time kids spend in cars and how often the parent doing the driving is the only adult present. I hereby resolve that as a pedestrian I’m going to be more vigilant about glancing into parked cars in parking lots. Even as an uninvolved non-parent, how awful would it be to read about a child’s hyperthermia death and realize that I must have gone past that very car earlier in the day but just not noticed the child? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/10 "2013-06-04T23:36:51Z")
I won’t even try to read that link. I am getting ready to have my third child tomorrow and I can’t even imagine the heartbreak involved in forgetting your child is in the car and their subsequent death. How awful ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/11 "2013-06-04T23:42:11Z")
Awesome article - I can’t imagine what those parents are going through. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2013, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/12 "2013-06-04T23:53:41Z")
I’ve met one mother who left her two boys in the car while she partied in a hotel room. She was being prosecuted for the crime and was a shambling wreck of a person in that time. Utterly destroyed, just like her sons. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/13 "2013-06-05T00:04:38Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > If you haven’t seen it, [this](http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2010-Feature-Writing) Pulitzer Prize winning article is required reading on the subject. > [@Xema](#): > > Here’s a (Pulitzer Prize winning) Washington Post article _[Fatal Distraction](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-03-08/news/36840402_1_courtroom-tissue-class-trip)_ that does about as good a job as is possible of answering the question. Warning: long, engaging, heart-rending. > > (This took forever to post, and was scooped in the meantime.) > [@Anaamika](#): > > You don’t even have to be a parent. I’ve read that article a couple of times over the years and every time it makes me want to cry. > [@April\_R](#): > > I won’t even try to read that link. I am getting ready to have my third child tomorrow and I can’t even imagine the heartbreak involved in forgetting your child is in the car and their subsequent death. How awful Believe me, you are better off not opening the link. I read part of the details of how the end can occur and I regret it. And I’m not even a parent, just an uncle and great-uncle. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/14 "2013-06-05T01:10:47Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > I have to say, as a parent, that was one of the toughest things I have ever read. I first read it a few years ago, and I got through the whole article ok. After becoming a parent, I got about a paragraph in and go “No thanks, I’m out!” and quickly close the browser. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/15 "2013-06-05T02:01:06Z")
I had one of these incidents as a 9-1-1 call. The parent absolutely could not speak. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/16 "2013-06-05T02:09:59Z")
> [@April\_R](#): > > I am getting ready to have my third child tomorrow [hijack] Woot!! Go **April**!! When come back bring pix. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Charley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/97f17d/32.png) [@Charley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charley)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/17 "2013-06-05T02:11:15Z")
I read that article one of the earlier times we discussed this and I have to say, without exaggeration, it’s probably the most memorable and affecting thing I’ve ever read. I’m still haunted by it, and by one of the descriptions in it. I just cannot imagine how the parents go on after this - either of them. It’s so easy to say, but nonetheless true, that losing a child must be the worst thing a parent can face. I surprised myself by finding that one of my reactions to having a second child was confusion - I thought I had known that had anything fatal ever happened to my first, my only possible action would have been to die with her. Now here was a second, and I knew that was not an option, even if it ever had been. But to know that something you had done, or failed to do, caused the death of your child, in such a manner - how could you live? I don’t place the blame at all on the parent - especially after reading that article. We have all let our attention slip (god, yesterday my 2 year old went missing in the Singapore aquarium for the longest 5 minutes of my life) and there but for the grace of god etc. It’s unbearable to comprehend. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/18 "2013-06-05T02:39:42Z")
> [@Charley](#): > > I’m still haunted by it … As am I. Here’s one of the most haunting sentences: > [@](#): > > Several people – including Mary Parks of Blacksburg – have driven from their workplace to the day-care center to pick up the child they’d thought they’d dropped off, never noticing the corpse in the back seat. It’s difficult to imagine something more horrible than what must have been her reaction the moment she turned and looked into the back seat. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/19 "2013-06-05T03:36:41Z")
Here’s a suggestion that occurred to me while reading the article. Keep a huge, bright stuffed animal in the back seat of your car. Every time you put your kid in his car seat, put the animal in the front passenger seat, with the seat belt around it. Only put the animal there when your child is in his car seat. When you’re getting out of the car, you’re more likely to notice the animal than an empty seat. You’ll know right away that your kid’s still in the car. Does this make sense? Is this something like what some people already do? ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133/20 "2013-06-05T03:44:33Z")
That was a pretty good article. In response to the OP, I imagine its something they never get over. It is like a hole in their heart that will never be filled. I think raising awareness about the issue is important. I wonder how many parents had heard of this phenomenon before losing their own child. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-parents-adjust-after-leaving-a-child-in-a-hot-car/660133.md?page=2)