I think the reason so many are sympathetic towards the parents is because of their profession(s), i.e, they work to help others, so they’re allowed one moderate to major screw-up.
If the parents worked at K-Mart, my guess is that 80%+ would be flaming the parents; instead 80%+ are enemies of personal responsibility, it seems.
Our own children are more important than our careers. Our children, in fact, ARE our career. When our young ones are on the runway, everything else must change to raise that generation properly. And I would tell any physician in my congregation, your career does not trum your stewardship over the children God gives you.
Our nation’s children seem to be wandering selfish brats raised by wandering selfish brats.
Now, let me back up all over myself, and say plainly that I do NOT know the heart motivations of that physician or her husband. Their design on things may be with the same intended outcome as any thoughtful, caring parents you may ever meet. But their course of carrying things out was wrong. But that is too obvious.
The course didn’t begin with leaving a child in a car. It began with deciding who cares for and trains the child in the early months and years. They had made the decision to let others do it for them. Their life is too involved in their careers to decide otherwise. That is the grief to me.
I’m not so sure, but I have heard two similar stories locally here in the SF Bay area (not a hot region at all). I normally wouldn’t take notice, but after having my first son, things start popping up. The parents in these cases forgot their babies all day and the babies died of thirst.
I think people here at FR are more likely to give sympathy to people who had horrible things happen to them even if they brought it upon themselves. I think many Darwin Award stories would have prayers go out to the victim’s families.
However, since this is the third article of this type I have come across this summer, I think it should be a warning to other future parents. If you want to have a baby be prepared to have the mother take at *least* a *year* off.