I think you’re wrong OP.
This is one of my absolute worst fears. I can not imagine the pain involved in this sort of situation.
I had a kid, and I still find it amazing that parents forgot their kid in the car, disrupted schedule or no. When I had our child with me, it was a CONSTANT nagging in my mind to keep looking around for her. There really is no way that I could imagine Pepper Mill or me forgetting about MilliCal, even for a few minutes. The idea that we could leave her in the car and forget her for an extended period of time would be impossible.
I don’t doubt that some parents did accidentally leave their kid in the car, and were horrified afterwards, even if there were no lasting ill effects. But I can’t really imagine being those parents. Not worrying about MilliCal’s whereabouts every couple of minutes, tops, would be an impossible state of mind. They were obviously lacking some sense of paranoia that we had.
Yes, I agree. OP, you suck and all your threads and posts on this board are either completely indecipherable, completely idiotic or completely heartless. Usually just completely indecipherable tho.
I’m pretty sure I spawned this thread with this post in “Do you ever just go stupid?”
People are very forgetful, especially when normal routines are disturbed.
Car seat regulations, coupled with cell phone distractions probably comes into play in all of this. But it seems like an easy mistake to me: with a sleeping toddler in the back seat and a busy and disrupted schedule.
As the father of two teenagers, I almost come to tears reading stories about parents forgetting kids in cars. It’s fucking heartbreaking. I cannot imagine a guilt any worse.
Are you familiar with the OP? You’re responding to one of the biggest morons on the board. Almost everything she says is dumb as fucking dirt, but this thread takes the cake for blatant idiocy.
I was going to link to exactly the same article. Anyone who hasn’t read this excellent piece of journalism should definitely take the time to do so. It really changed my perspective on the whole “kid left in car” phenomenon. As someone who doesn’t have kids, i was somewhat skeptical that anyone could just forget a kid in their car, but the article really does a great job of talking about the ways that it can happen, and the awful consequences.
^This.
Oh, and I too was going to link to the article cited above. It’s fucking heartbreaking, and as a parent (and now grandparent) invokes the ‘There but for the grace of…’ for me.
I remember a time before I even had kids that I was working long hours on a physically exhausting job and I went to work and left my car running in the parking lot all day. Burned up a half gallon of gas with my keys in the ignition.
Add children to the mix and yes, I believe kids can be left behind.
I’ve read to avoid something like this happening is to force yourself to get in the habit of putting your purse or briefcase (something you need) in the backseat when you do your daily routine.
I don’t believe a parent would willingly let their child suffer such a horrific death.
Jeez. I don’t have kids, but have plenty of people close to me who do. And that article in post #2 I agree will show any idiot how it can happen to even smart and normally observant people. I have to set a reminder on my phone just for basic stuff I do just once a week, or I’ll forget. I’m also a very routine-oriented person, so if I don’t have reminders happening, I’ll freaking forget. I can see how someone who normally doesn’t have to think about their kid on a given work day, may just forget they’re back there, especially if the car seat is always there anyway and the baby is asleep and silent. Just not enough cues to snap out of the routine.
And he’s getting pretty sick of it.
I agree; while I can imagine the pain that the parents who lost their children via leaving them in hot cars must face, I can’t say that I’ve ever done anything even remotely close to leaving either of mine in the car.
They’re the priority at all times that I’m responsible for them- getting groceries, gas, whatever, is a secondary consideration.
I have one of these. Its a large convex rear view mirror. Its easy to install, just snaps right on, and your field of view at least doubles. Plus its only like $20 or $30. You could see out of the rear window on the driver’s side and definitely a little kid in the back of a car. Might help ease some people’s minds
Have you ever told her that story? It sounds like its been eating you up for years 
(my bolding)
Regardless of what you claim, just because it didn’t (or hasn’t) happened doesn’t mean it couldn’t.
Read the article. Have some tissues on hand, and just thank your deity of choice (or sheer good luck) that you haven’t had to experience what these poor folk have.
I think I was just reading the same article because of our conversation in the “Do you ever just go stupid?” thread.
In these situations it is not that the child is a secondary consideration. Have you ever driven a usual routine and realized partway through the drive that you were on auto pilot? That your attention wasn’t 100% focused? Your body and eyes were paying attention, but your mind was elsewhere. We have all done that. Now imagine you have a sleeping/quiet kid in a car seat you can’t see in any of your mirrors and you drive to work as usual, auto pilot because dropping your kid off is totally out of your routine. Because of the way that our brains prioritize, this can happen and it is a gut wrenching tragedy. It honestly makes me ill to think of the parents agony and self-blame. I’m not sure I could live with it.
Not sure I’ve spotted this particular troll before. Thanks for the head’s up! I’ll ignore the stupid going forward.
God bless it - I can’t even go into the things I’d like to say to it.
I very rarely get this pissed off.
Missed the edit window to include this article.
Leave the OP alone. It’s not his fault he got forgotten in a car and had 85% of his brain cells burnt up.
I would just like to ask the OP if s/he has ever done any of the following:
-Had to drive somewhere else in the morning besides work and accidentally took the route to work instead.
-Had to bring something unusual to work (ie saw it was raining and had to grab an umbrella or had to bring something in to work) and got there to find that s/he had forgotten to bring a purse or briefcase
-Promised to call someone back right away and got another call in between and completely forgot to call the person back.
These are the kind of mind slips that lead people to leave their infants in the car. I was reading about the two most recent cases this week and knew that somebody would bring this up. Apparently, one of the fathers is being charged with murder.
However, there is an absolute difference between forgetting a child and deliberately leaving a child while the person ducks into a store. The latter is indefensible. Most of these cases, however, involve parents who are going to an otherwise normal day at work.
I had a friend who had a baby a few years ago and she was terrified of doing something like this, because of as psychobunny**** pointed out, it’s so easy to forget objects, tasks, etc. that are outside of your normal routine, so it is within reason to understand how someone could forget their child, as horrible as it sounds. My friend is a wonderful mother (and her husband a wonderful father), but the best people can make mistakes too and unfortunately a mistake like this has tragic results.
I don’t want to derail the thread to ask this, but given that it was likely a mistake, I don’t understand why the father in the most recent case of this is being charged with murder. What he did was beyond incredibly thoughtless and a terrible, terrible mistake, but mistake** is the key word here. Wouldn’t that normally be a lesser charge of manslaughter?
ETA: I don’t want to read the stories about this that people have linked to because it’s too depressing, so I don’t know what ended up happening to the parents, but my friend said she would absolutely kill herself if she ever did something like that and I wouldn’t blame her for feeling that. I can’t imagine being able to carry on feeling such guilt. That’s why I also think incredibly harsh sentences for the parents are silly. They should get some** sort of legal consequences, but I think the guilt and shame that will follow them for the rest of their lives is enough.