No. I’m not going to flame you, nor am I going to question the value you place on life.
Since you brought it up though, I will question your reasoning.
A poodle is not dependant upon you to the same degree an infant is. A poodle is mobile, is capable of seeking shelter, and fending for itself to such a point that it is likely to survive two hours untended outside. An infant is not.
Therefore though you may value the poodle and the infant equally, you must apply a higher standard of care in this instance to the infant since the consequences of failure are much more likely to be significant.
Fine. Just to clarify, we disagree about two points:
Whether it is possible to absolutely assure avoidance of certain accidents, including when this assurance depends on the certainty that you yourself will not be negligent at some point.
What level of precaution is needed. I think the level you take is rediculously high - fine if you want it, but not reasonable to expect from everyone. Life is full of risks. All must share in these to some extent.
Then please explain to me how my daughter can be scalded in the tub in our house.
Please explain how she can drown in the filled-in fish pond.
Please do so in a manner that gives a probability value greater than nil.
2. I’m not sure why you would think turning your hot water heater down is an unreasonable precaution. This is not my original idea you know. I think I first read about it in the child safety pamphlet they handed me when we left the hospital, and I’ve seen the recommendation made many many more times.
It’s a reasonable and prudent precaution. Infants and toddlers love to play with knobs and turn things. They do it all the time. They love to imitate what you do. Put them in the tub, and I can pretty much guarrantee that they will try to turn the knobs.
I have woken up in the morning to the sound of running water. My daughter climbed out of the crib and turned the water on in the tub.
If you don’t do this, the chances are actually very good that your child will scald himself at some point.
So yes, I would think that failing to do this is negligent with a couple of caveats.
Renters may not have access to the hot water heat, and may not be able to do this. They will need to take other precautions.
Different houses may have different setups that it make the chances of a child turning a knob and scalding itself “nil.”
People may take alternate precautions that prevent this which are just as good but leave the hot water intact.
I’m surprised that you think this is unreasonable. IMO it is unconscionably negligent not to address the danger that hot water presents to an infant/toddler, as the hazard is extremely high.
Being burned is perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a human being. Trust me. This I truly know. It is disfiguring both psychologically and physically. It is life threatening, and it has been argued that being burned is the most painful and enduring form of pain your body can suffer.
To expose a child to this significant risk without taking basic, simple, and easy precautions is criminal.
Should this incident have happened? No. We can all agree on that. Is it unavoidable, and must there be something more at work then a mother so tired she forgot her children?
No.
Let me admit to something stupid. I fell asleep at the wheel. No, my children were not in the car, and that was my first thought, BTW. Thank God I was alone. As I missed the curve, and my minivan was flying through the air and rolling in the ditch, I learned a really important lesson about trying to tough it out and work through exhaustion.
Don’t drive at night when you’re tired, get enough sleep, don’t drink or take medication. No problem. This was high noon on a bright summer day and I was stone cold sober. I didn’t start out the day so tired that I couldn’t function and there was nothing else to indicate that I wasn’t in a fit state to drive. I was tired, but thought I could make it home and take a nap.
I was wrong. I was a little tired, it effected my reasoning, and I didn’t pull over when I should have. And I was damn lucky to walk away from a totaled car with a couple of bruises.
Now IF (big if) this mother had gone a couple of nights without sleep, as mothers have to do sometimes; and IF there were no other adults, husbands, grandparents, aunts, etc, to help take care of these children; THEN do I believe that it would be possible to make a mistake of this magnitude that should be impossible, of any normal, rational, reasonably intelligent human being? Yes, I’m afraid I do.
We don’t have enough information, in this case, to know if this woman was a %99.9 responsible mother who made the biggest mistake anyone could ever make, taking the lives of her own children: or a negligent moron, which is the more likely scenario.
Izzy, I understand the distinction between deliberate abuse of children and inattention to them. I also understand that no one has suggested issuing carte blanche approval for parents to leave their children in unhealthy situations.
Please, on your part, consider the validity of what Scylla is suggesting: that such incidents are preventable given a minimum level of attention by the parents. In the tragic circumstance you cited, the trick that woman’s tired mind played on her could’ve been dispelled by the simple expediency of making sure the child was out of the car. It’s easy to forget about a quiet child in the back seat; it’s easy to be fooled into thinking you’ve completed a task which you’ve normally accomplished earlier in your established routine. What the OP says is that, regardless of distractions and contingencies, such tragedies of thoughtlessness CANNOT “happen to anyone”, as long as “anyone” assumes the degree of responsibility and awareness necessary to take the proper precautions.
From a purely personal perspective, I entirely understand momentary inattention, while driving, to the sleeping baby in the car seat in the back. I startled myself many times when my son was an infant by “rediscovering” him in his car seat, while I was driving. I never once left the car without him, though, and that’s because every time I took him somewhere, his care was my first mission. If I took him to the store, shopping didn’t become my destination until I had him in front of me strapped into his carrier. When I brought him home, unloading the groceries didn’t become my mission until he was in his crib or with his mother. Until I dropped him off at the babysitter, my trip was only to the babysitter’s house; my destination didn’t become work, shopping or back home to snooze until he was safe.
The woman in your example screwed up not just because she was tired, but also because she didn’t take care to make sure her first mission, child care, was completed.
Phil: So far you’ve accused me of assuming facts not in evidence and of setting up straw-man arguments. Have you any other accusations to make, or would you like to play like a big kid for awhile?
Where did I assume a level of tiredness on the part of the woman? And what difference does that make to the main point of contention? IMO, the level of a person’s tiredness should not lessen their committment to child safety. After a “thirty-hour stint at the ER”, perhaps a person should take, oh, EXTRA precautions in the care of their kids, hmm?
And where did I say my opinion of the criminality was in opposition to yours? My entire freakin’ point is that my expectation -and yours- should be for a higher degree of mindfullness than exhibited by those parents who leave their children locked up in cars.
I don’t see any problem with the logic here (though ‘nil’ technically does mean ‘nothing’). Not once did I make an excuse for incompetent parenting. My assertion was that adopting a set of military-sque procedures that would make QS9000 managers proud still will not make you infallible. Even the vaunted [and might I add tedious] Six-Sigma quality plan expects measurable fallout (.00034%, which is technically 4.5sigma) from perfectly calibrated equipment and expertly implemented procedures.
And now I am having odd visions of auditors touring the Scylla home, checking records, testing GFI outlets, and measuring water temperature:D.
Do you have a cite for that? I think you are mistaken.
We use the term in my business and it has a rather precise meaning. For example, Corporate earnings are presented in dollars and cents per share. Occasionally because of a tremendous amound of outstanding shares a corporation will announce earnings of less than 1 cent per share. However, the earning are positive, not, negative, nor neutral. Yet we only measure in increments of pennies.
Such earnings are reported as “nil,” and are universally taken to mean across the industry as a positive less than the smallest unit of measurement used.
I have also known the term to be used in this fashion elsewhere.
No, dammit, pld, I’m not taking you to the 'Pit. But neither will I allow you to casually throw the term “strawman” at me or to misrepresent my conclusions as “psychic” readings. I’ve supported my arguments with specific reasons; I’m sure you are more than competent to evaluate my logic without resorting to specious accusations. If you can support such charges, then do so. Otherwise, you’ll find it more productive to avoid them.
Scylla: nil: Science. having no value; nothing. Mathematics. A left, right, or two-sided ideal I of a ring R is said to be nil if every element of I is nilpotent. Every nil right or left ideal of R is contained in the radical of R. Every nilpotent ideal is nil, but the converse is not true. From: http://www.harcourt.com/dictionary
It appears to me that you have made assumptions about the level of tiredness. (Which is why I originally said, “You seem inclined to presume the former.” I don’t type words just because they look pretty, damnit.)
When you say:
my response has to be that the level of tiredness dictates the level of mindfulness that’s even achieveable, let alone the level that was actually given. I don’t know what you do for a living, or if you’ve ever experienced real, honest-to-goodness exhaustion, but I have. It’s like being in a time warp. You literally cannot add two and two. Yes, a person under that level of tiredness should probably take extra precautions, and if this woman was at that level of tiredness, maybe she thought she did take them.
Now, to that, you can simply say, “Then she should take extra extra precautions,” and we can get stuck in an infinite loop. But it appears to me that you’re saying, “Well, if she was tired, she should have simply made herself less tired,” or, “If she was that tired, she should have done things most people are incapable of doing when they’re that tired.”
At no time did I state or imply that she was not unmindful. I will state that it is possible that she was not deliberately unmindful–that something (tiredness) could have caused her to be less mindful than she normally would have been. I will even agree that it is likely her own fault that she was that tired to begin with, if in fact that was the case.
Nobody is suggesting or has suggested that that should at all mitigate the potential punishment for such an act. So when you state, out of nowhere, “My opinion, which also requires no psychic abilities, is that such heedlessness of an infant under her care amounts to criminal neglect,” it appears to me as if you’re offering that opinion in contrast to some prevailing opinion on the thread. Whether it is criminal neglect is not and was not ever the point of the thread. The question at hand was whether the actions she committed could have been committed by the average person.
Well, I don’t recall using the phrase “basic stuff,” but let me ask you the following question:
What are the basic rules of parenting? Put another way, what are the (specific) rules that no parent should ever break, no exceptions allowed?
Oh and by the way, I parked my car this morning with the key in the ignition and the parking break disengaged. This minimizes the chances of parking garage attendants messing up my car.
It is obviously possible to eliminate very specific dangers of the type you cite. In much the same manner, I have completely eliminated the chance that my child will be eaten by my pet tiger, by choosing not to have one (a tiger, that is). But this does not eliminate the chance that your daughter will be scalded in some other manner, or injured in a different way.
It is possible, for example, that you will once close the door and not notice that your child has stuck her fingers in the crack between the door and the doorframe, which might sever your child’s fingers. It is possible that you will not realize that your child is hiding somewhere, and drop a heavy object on her. You might be remiss in checking on her as she sleeps and miss the early stages of her seizure. The possibilities are endless. However, it is very unlikely that any such scenarios will come to pass. But if they do, you will realize that it is your fault - that had you been more careful you would have avoided them. Despite its being your fault, you will not be revealed to have been an incompetent parent who should be thrown in jail and have his children seized by the authorities. You will have been an imperfect human being like the rest of us, whose imperfection led, in this instance, to a tragic consequence.
Actually I think the danger is extremely low. It takes a while for the hot water to heat up enough to burn someone, and before that time the child will have had enough and climbed out or yelled for help. I certainly never heard of such a thing happening. Which is not to say that it never does, but I’m sure the danger in extremely low. Most burns kids get are probably from playing with fire, or having hot pots fall on them etc.
But there’s no need to quibble about this specific case. My position in this matter (which is independent of the other issue) is that one need not eliminate every last possible risk, to oneself or ones children. To do so would cause one’s entire life to be devoted to risk elimination. It is more worthwhile to live and take the risks then to spend your life making sure that every potential danger is eliminated. I would imagine you would agree to this at it’s most extreme point (no?). Question is where to draw the line, and I think you’ve drawn it too cautiously.
I have considered the validity of what scylla is saying. I make a policy of doing this before commenting on people’s words. As scylla might say, it is part of my “standard operating procedures”. However, I completely disagree with him, as noted previously.
But I also considered the validity of what you were saying. And my comments to you were not about scylla’s position - they were about yours, in the specific quotes that I cited, and your later explanations. You now seem to be backing away from your earlier words. If true, well done.
I think xeno is right in this, phil. I am indeed suggesting that it is not criminal neglect. And I think the fact that they could be committed by an average person is the reason for this.
And a pilot landing an amphibious plane will not lower his gear while landing on water. Different procedures for different goals.
Scylla’s Basic Rules of Parenting.
Since an infant is incapable of attending to it’s own well-being at all, you must place the well-being of your infant/toddler first. While you are capable of evaluating and taking risks on your own an infant/toddler is not. Therefore you have a higher responsibility to insure it’s well-being while under your care than you do to yourself.
You must create and maintain a safe and controlled environment for your infant/toddler.
Even within that safe and controlled environment there must at all times be a person directly responsible for the safety and needs of the infant/toddler who is maintaining knowledge and contact of its whereabouts/actions and who is able and empowered to act in its best interests.
While outside of a safe and controlled environment constant and direct control of the infant/toddler must be maintained at all times.
The health and development of the infant/toddler must be monitored by a qualified health professional.
An infant/toddler is never left unattended. An overt chain of direct responsibility for the welfare of the child must be maintained.
An infant/toddler requires human contact, love, and stimulation for its well-being as surely it requires sustenance. You must provide both amply.
You may not allow the frustrations, anxieties, trials or tribulations of your life to interfere with the well-being of your infant toddler. You may not cause harm to your child or through inaction allow harm to come to your child. You may not allow others to harm your child.
An infant/toddler is not capable of being responsible for its actions. You must be responsible. You may not take out your frustrations on the infant/toddler.
You must prudently plan and censor your actions as necessary to ensure the safety of your infant/toddler. Do not rely on luck.
Well you are certainly wrong considering the risk of hot water from taps. How often is a bath run with just cold?
Usually there is hot running as well, and therefore if the child turns the tap there will be no waiting period before the water heats up. It will be scalded immediately.
Similarly if the hot water has been run recently it will come from the tap hot immediately.
If you think it’s not a common injury/accident than I don’t think you’ve been paying much attention and I’ll gladly refer you to the Shriner’s Children’s Hospital in Massachusets which makes a pretty big issue of the danger and frequency of this type of accident. Seeing as they deal with the consequances, I am more likely to take their word for it than yours.
Lastly, are you deliberately missing my point? I have never stated that it was possible to avoid all accidents and injuries, or even practical to try. I never suggested that anybody should. I certainly don’t myself.
However, there are certain types of accidents that are easily avoidable with a great degree of certainty. Allowing your child to succumb to them is unforgivable and should never happen.
The child is entrusted to you to protect it. If you are entrustring luck to do your work for you than you are a fool and undeserving of a child.
Just because you cannot eliminate all risks doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t eliminate those that you easily can, minimize the others, and take prudent safety precautions.
If you forget your child in a car and allow it to perish you have not taken prudent precautions.
If your child swallows cleaning fluid that you left accessible and dies you have not taken prudent precautions.
If your child starves to death because you forgot to feed it, you have not taken prudent precautions.
If an elephant escapes from the circus and knocks the house down on top of your child while it’s sleeping in the bassinet and you’re watching TV, we’re talking about something different.
Simply because all mistakes cannot be avoided does not mean that there aren’t specific mistakes that should never be made.
Ridiculous, ludicrous – criminally negligent and incompetent! Any qualified parent would never let something like this happen to his or her child! Surely you could have taken the simple precaution of gating your bathroom’s entrance? Then, naturally, as a failsafe (after all, kids can climb over those things), you have one of those baby locks on the top of the door. But just on the offchance that your child somehow acquires a 5 foot long stick, you should have a lock with a key installed on the door. And you should keep the key in your pants. I reckon you’ll be able to detect your kid reaching into your pants for the key, but then again, you might be completely exhausted…
Your daughter surely also could have injured herself climbing out of the crib. I hope you have the area around her crib padded. Furthermore, once she’s out and about, she could do all sorts of damage to herself. Stairs? The list goes on and on.
You, Scylla, the parent who fills in the 2 foot deep fish pond in your front yard that your daughter probably can’t get to (and even if she did, probably would not drown in), have clearly made a bad mistake in allowing your daughter to enter the bathroom and turn on the tub’s water unsupervised. Face it – no matter how perfect you are, shit can happen to you. This doesn’t mean that you should not be punished, in my opinion, if tragic consequences result from your “negligence” – it only means that accidents happen.
Hmm, since I never specifically mentioned it in my previous post for some reason, the “horrible thing” that resulted from Scylla’s daughter turning on the water in the bathtub was death by drowning.
In general, it is difficult or impossible to set forth a set of specific rules to be followed that, if followed under all circumstances, produce a desired result.
Mankind has been trying to do this for millenia. It is possible to do this in very limited, narrow areas, such as in gun safety. But at the end of the day, much of the world’s safety rules boil down to a simple admonition: “Act reasonably and prudently.”
Looking over your rules of parenting, I think you are aware of this problem. I asked for specifics, and yet you gave me generalities:
There are several obvious problems with this approach. It is one thing to say “Don’t leave your keys in the car.” It is quite another to say “Act prudently.”
In any event, let me point out that every parent, including you, engages in conduct from time to time that many reasonable people would consider to be imprudent. Does this make you unfit/unprofessional?
Admittedly, this “rule” is more specific, but at the same time, it is simply impractical for most parents to observe this rule with the same strictness as with gun safety rules.
For example, when my wife loads our two children into the car, the only practical way to do it is to leave each child briefly unattended. In effect, we’ve made the judgment that the slight additional risk from leaving our children briefly unattended from time to time is greatly outweighed by the (substantial) cost of making sure each child is attended at all times.
Would we do things differently in a perfect world? Yes. Is my wife unfit/unprofessional for engaging in this conduct? I don’t think so. What do you think?
The stairs are gated, and there is a very thick rug under the crib.
Turning on the water woke me up and considering that the drain is left open so water cannot accumulate in the tub, the chance of drowning was nil.
Again, I’m not saying mistakes can’t happen. What I’m saying is that you can take steps so that the environment is as safe as possible so that when mistakes do happen they don’t have tragic consequences. I’m saying that this is the responsibility of a parent.
Had I not woken up the major consequence would have been my daughter making a big mess as she seemed intent on throwing her stuffed animals into the tub.
That’s a consequance and a mistake that I can live with.
pld: OK. I erred quite a bit, I think, in not defining my terms. When I have said “unmindful”, I have, in all cases, used it in the sense of “not conscientiously attentive.” (per Merriam-Webster) My meaning, which I attempted to further develop in the posts subsequent to my first use of that term, is that regardless of weariness, distractions, disturbances or other phenomena which limit a person’s ability to attend to a child, the conscientious application of their parental responsibilities need not be adversely affected. (Which is, I believe, also the idea submitted by the OP.) It appeared to me that my opinion regarding the lack of mitigation provided by the “tiredness” of the lady conflicted with the prevailing opinion.
Like most of us, Phil, yes I’ve on occasion experienced honest-to-goodness exhaustion. I’ve also worked at high altitudes (>15,000 ft) and experienced the same sort of lack of focus and general inability to conduct complex mental operations. While I’ve never cared for a child under the latter circumstance, I’ve certainly done so under the former. I did what I would expect most parents to do, and took the extra precautions dictated by the situation. Scylla has expressed this much more succinctly and effectively than I in articles 8 and 10 of his Basic Rules of Parenting.
Izzy: what words am I now backing away from? I may have spoken clumsily here and there (a frequent occurrence on my part), but I’m not aware of changing my basic position.
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Scylla’s assertion, which I’ve tried not too successfully to support in my own way, is that some common accidents can be prevented with 100% success by properly attentive parents. In order to prove that assertion, he only has to demonstrate how one such accident can be prevented. He seems to have done so with at least two examples.