# Texas toddler dies after mom leaves her in a hot car for 45 minutes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2010, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728 "2010-06-18T23:51:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/101 "2010-06-20T12:14:16Z")
There is certainly a lot of suffering involved. Often by the parents. If a child dies of cot death I guess we shoot the parents. ---
**Author:** ![Caprese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9a28c/32.png) [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/102 "2010-06-20T12:54:35Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > There is certainly a lot of suffering involved. Often by the parents. My point exactly. Chronic, persistent neglect/abuse of a child is horrific and must be stopped. I don’t think the dead children in the Washington Post article fit that description. The parents deserve mercy and understanding rather than high moral indignation and outrage. ---
**Author:** ![Joanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@Joanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joanie)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/103 "2010-06-20T13:38:19Z")
> [@Caprese](#): > > My point exactly. > Chronic, persistent neglect/abuse of a child is horrific and must be stopped. > I don’t think the dead children in the Washington Post article fit that description. > The parents deserve mercy and understanding rather than high moral indignation and outrage. This would be my favorite post in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/104 "2010-06-20T15:08:58Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > So you’re now saying it should be legal? Anyone who wants to kill their baby need only leave it to die in their car and receive a get-out-of-jail-free card? That’s already covered in the statutes. It’s called [murder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder). It has nothing to do with negligence. What you’re referring here is the intent to kill. Try to stay on topic. There should be an iPhone/Blackberry/Android app for this called “Where’s the baby?” When you get in the car, you activate Where’s the baby? and every 10 minutes an alert with an alarm pops up advising you that your baby is in the backseat, at which point you can dismiss the alert. It continues to send alerts until it is deactivated. At least a few people in that article could have benefited from that. I understand the distraction thing. It happens to all busy people. I recently listened to a report on NPR which discussed how the internet is effecting our brains ability to focus for long periods because much of the information we’re taking in is of tidbit nature. Instead of reading long books with complex ideas, we read snippets of information before moving on to the next snippet and then the next. Hence, our brain begins to have difficulty focusing on those longer and deeper complex ideas. I think it’s sort of related in that the brain is multitasking and being bombarded by information of varying priority and eventually it just drops one of the tasks its processing. It doesn’t necessarily choose which of task it drops, just as a juggler doesn’t choose which ball he fails to catch and toss. If the tasks are a mixture of important (the baby sleeping in the backseat) and lesser important ones (pick up blood pressure med at pharmacy) and even lesser important ones (upcoming meeting with boss at 8:30am) and even lesser important ones (make appointment with dentist) and even lesser important ones (pick up steaks for dinner on the way home) and mixed with emotional information (tired from lack of sleep, stress from too much work, angry about uncooperative coworkers, worried about terrorists or the economy) and – SUDDENLY A TRACTOR-TRAILER NEARLY SIDESWIPES YOU BECAUSE HE TRIED TO CHANGE LANES WITHOUT SEEING YOU IN THE SIDEVIEW MIRROR (!!!) – well, you just might lose one of those bits of information. If you are further encumbered by a significant change in routine, I think it’s fair to assume that the likely piece of information lost is that which is out of the norm. And then you leave your sleeping baby in the backseat of the car while you continue your normal routine. It’s incredibly tragic, if nothing else. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/105 "2010-06-20T15:14:47Z")
> [@Joanie](#): > > When I was 19, I used to date a guy that my friends all called “The Bump”. They called him that because he had a rather large bump on the side of his head just to one side of his face. No one could figure out why he had this bump or where it came from. But whenever he overheard someone calling him “Bump”, he would just lose his mind. He would want to fight to the death. Talk about angry! He had almost zero self-control. > > Today, I think it would be most accurate to describe this fellow’s mental state as being very similar to Dwight Schrute from The Office. He was often extreme in his attitudes. For example, you write, “ **If the parents did leave them in the car on purpose, then they ought to be left in a hot car all day as well** ”. To my way of thinking, this is an extreme attitude. You would want to see the parents put to a sweltering death for what could have been a mistake? I guess some parents could have been done it on purpose. But since most all states would allow parents who can’t handle having children to just turn them into to a Children’s Aid Sosiety, wouldn’t it probably have been a mistake. And for that, you want to have them tortured and put to death? > > That sure sounds like Dwight to me. > > The other thing about Dwight is besides being very extreme, Dwight is also a rank idiot. He probably belongs in some kind of institution. I don’t think he belongs out in the real world with the rest of us. > > Anyway, I didn’t date The Bump for very long. As it turned out, he also had an incredibly tiny penis and would prematurely ejaculate whenever he got aroused. I think that was a symptom of his self-control problems. It was a real drag for me and must have been the same for any other woman who was intimate with that fool. I was very happy to have dumped him. Nice effort to get around the “no insults” rule, but it’s not going to work. No warning this time, but don’t do this again. **twickster** , MPSIMS moderator ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/106 "2010-06-20T15:49:46Z")
> [@Joanie](#): > > This would be my favorite post in this thread. Do you prefer the religious overtones of “I’m a better person than you because I show mercy like Jesus and you’re all Old Testament with your justice” or just the self-satisfied bleating that comes from reading it in a secular way? ---
**Author:** ![Notorious\_Nik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/858c86/32.png) [@Notorious\_Nik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Notorious_Nik)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/107 "2010-06-20T15:57:24Z")
Causing the death of your child automatically makes you a bad parent. I don’t care how attentive you were or how many bedtime stories you read. When you forget your kid in the car and he dies, you were a lousy parent. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/108 "2010-06-20T16:24:29Z")
> [@Notorious\_Nik](#): > > Causing the death of your child automatically makes you a bad parent. I don’t care how attentive you were or how many bedtime stories you read. When you forget your kid in the car and he dies, you were a lousy parent. [These kids](http://www.techjackal.net/other/2010/02/13/childhood-obesity-induced-diabetes-leads-to-premature-death/) have lousy parents too, right? So, what should be done? Should we lock them up when their kids die of diabetes mellitus or other obesity-related diseases? If they were better parents, these kids would be healthier, right? Maybe they’re intentionally killing their kids, maybe they’re just too lazy to be good parents. One thing’s for sure, more people are going to die because they were fed nothing but absolute crap as children. Where’s the outrage? ---
**Author:** ![Notorious\_Nik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/858c86/32.png) [@Notorious\_Nik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Notorious_Nik)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/109 "2010-06-20T16:31:28Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > [These kids](http://www.techjackal.net/other/2010/02/13/childhood-obesity-induced-diabetes-leads-to-premature-death/) have lousy parents too, right? So, what should be done? Should we lock them up when their kids die of diabetes mellitus or other obesity-related diseases? If they were better parents, these kids would be healthier, right? Maybe they’re intentionally killing their kids, maybe they’re just too lazy to be good parents. One thing’s for sure, more people are going to die because they were fed nothing but absolute crap as children. Where’s the outrage? At least they aren’t letting their fat kids cook to death in the back seat of their car. ---
**Author:** ![Notorious\_Nik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/858c86/32.png) [@Notorious\_Nik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Notorious_Nik)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/110 "2010-06-20T16:36:25Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > It’s the pity that two of the posters to this thread didn’t have parents that left them in the car. For years. We’re in the wrong forum for me to reply to you properly. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/111 "2010-06-20T16:46:04Z")
> [@Miss\_Violaceous](#): > > It’s tempting to judge these parents harshly, because by telling yourself that it couldn’t happen to GOOD parents, it could never happen to YOUR child, because you are a GOOD parent. > > Until it does. Because it could happen to anyone. How the hell could it happen to anyone? i don’t know a single parent that leaves their kids in the car for any reason, if you do that then you are a bad parent. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/112 "2010-06-20T16:53:21Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > \ > If a child dies of cot death I guess we shoot the parents. Apples and oranges; a child dying of unforeseen and unknowable circumstances is not the same as a child dying a preventable death. I think charges in a case of a child dying from a negligent act by a parent are appropriate; I also think judges looking at each case on its own merits is also appropriate. **DigitalC** , I’ve walked past a car that had a baby left alone in it more than once. Dying from cold in winter and heat in summer here are both possibilities. If you think people aren’t doing this, I regret to inform you that you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/113 "2010-06-20T17:03:25Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Should it be legal to run someone over and kill them with your car, yes or no? No. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/114 "2010-06-20T17:05:09Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > How the hell could it happen to anyone? i don’t know a single parent that leaves their kids in the car for any reason, if you do that then you are a bad parent. Are people in this thread missing the point that these are not deliberate acts? IOW, this is not someone leaving the kid in the parking lot to run into the store, thinking “Oh, he’ll be okay for a couple of minutes,” then somehow forgetting. These are people who had enormous brain cramps that led them to completely forget they had a kid in the backseat. In their heads, the kid was in daycare, or with the babysitter, or with the other parent. They weren’t leaving their kid in the car for ANY reason. That’s the point. The moment just before they realized what happened, as noted in the cited article, was typically one of confusion that escalated into terror–“What do you mean where’s the baby? He’s with you!” That article was heartbreaking. I read it yesterday, and it’s the first thing I thought about when I woke up today. Anyway, assign whatever character defect you’d like to what occurred, but it wasn’t in any instance someone deciding to leave the kid in the car for what they thought was a good reason. At least not the people in that article. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/115 "2010-06-20T17:06:09Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No. So, if someone darts from behind a car, and is killed by a motorist, should the driver be arrested? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/116 "2010-06-20T17:06:11Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > There is certainly a lot of suffering involved. Often by the parents. > > If a child dies of cot death I guess we shoot the parents. Does that involve negligence by the parents? A child being left alone in the car is not a random, unpredicable event outside the parents’ control. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/117 "2010-06-20T17:08:12Z")
> [@Caprese](#): > > The parents deserve mercy and understanding rather than high moral indignation and outrage. So it should be legal to leave a baby in a car until it dies? If somebody decides they want to kill their baby on purpose, you would be in favor of giving them a free and legal way to do it? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/118 "2010-06-20T17:11:39Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > So it should be legal to leave a baby in a car until it dies? Not if it’s intentional. Do you believe that’s what occurred here? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/119 "2010-06-20T17:11:41Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > [These kids](http://www.techjackal.net/other/2010/02/13/childhood-obesity-induced-diabetes-leads-to-premature-death/) have lousy parents too, right? There is ignorance involved with this, not just negligence. It’s not necessarily forseeable or knowable to a lot of parents that taking their kids to McDonalds could make them diabetic. It’s forseeable to all of them that leaving a baby in a hot car could kill it. ---
**Author:** ![Notorious\_Nik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/858c86/32.png) [@Notorious\_Nik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Notorious_Nik)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728/120 "2010-06-20T17:14:53Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > There is certainly a lot of suffering involved. Often by the parents. Rightfully so. They damn well should suffer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-toddler-dies-after-mom-leaves-her-in-a-hot-car-for-45-minutes/543728.md?page=7)