Posted on 06/29/2006 8:59:40 AM PDT by charming_harmonica
No, it was a general answer to a question about whether kids should be central to people's lives. It certainly leads me to suspect it, but you are right there is no direct linkage.
Conservative kids get sacrificed on the alter of career and pursuit of stuff as much if not more than Libbies.
I stand corrected.
Me either. I have to say, before I had kids, and still now that they are almost out of the house- I always check my car getting in and out. Being distracted or forgetful/oblivious isn't a crime, but when you have a baby you cannot afford to be so unobservant.
Unbelievable. Words escape me!
Some people shouldn't breed.Bet she remembered everything on her schedule at work.
Not to be cruel, but she deserves it. With the prevalence of these types of stories, there is almost no excuse for this to happen. I don't care how sleep deprived you are. If you are that damned tired, you shouldn't even be driving much less going to work.
I don't believe these stories either. We read about this sort of thing all the time, but do any of these people ever go to prison? If not, maybe the unsavory among us have figured out that this is an "accident" with no repurcussions.
I think it is time to start prosecutions for this all too frequent "accident."
A child left unattended at home while a parent went away would be against the law. Our Surgeon General is now going after smokers again for the second hand effects of cigarette smoke.
How much more cruel is forgetting that you are driving with a small child in your car!!!!
Probably, with a 5 month old baby at home, you don't sleep a lot. It has happened to me once taking the way to the office and then having to come back to the baby sitter's house to drop off the kid. It happens. I think a good idea is to put the kid's seat in the middle seat. That way you see him every time you check the rear mirror. That saved me that time.
Years ago, when mine was still a toddler, I dropped my wife off at the clothing store in a strip mall, while I dashed over to Borders Books. After 10 mins of browsing, I realized my little one was still in the back seat. I truly can't describe the panic that hit me at that moment. It was summertime here in VA, but, it was only 10 mins and the car was in the shade. No harm done. HOW DID IT HAPPEN? 1. I NEVER took her in the car like that by myeself; the wife was always the one who would take her around, like it is in most families I supsect. 2. She was sound asleep, so in the time it took me to go from point a to point b she never made a peep.
You can chalk this one up to the Airbag Requirement.
The law in most states require that children must ride in the back of the vehicle. This is the bandaid attached to airbag laws when the fact that they are deadly to persons weighing less than 130 lbs came to light. The child would be in plain sight in the front seat where they belong, but to satisfy the socialists thirst for ever more government power, they end up in places where they are often not noticed.
Eschew Airbags !!
A lot of this is the result of government regulation.
My grandchildren all have to be put into safety seats strapped into the back seat, because of the front seat airbags. That means that if possible the baby travels with both parents in the car, and the parents have to sit in the front and back, which makes it hard for them to talk on a trip. Or the baby has to stay in the back, neglected, and just cry, which means the only way to see what the problem is is to pull over on the side of the road.
It also means that tiny babies get less time being held by their parents, which I imagine is not good for their development.
Whether all this actually saves babies' lives is unclear. Some are probably saved in crashes, others appear to be killed by neglect.
It would be easy to do. Pass a law mandating that baby seats of all types be fit with a wire harness socket. All of the seats would have mating sockets. You can't operate the seat (the buckle won't work), unless the seat is plugged in to the socket.
If the key is out of the ignition for more than three minutes with the buckle still in the slot, the windows roll down automatically, and the car's alarm goes off. You can even program the car (in new models) to call your cellphone or pager if that condition exists.
It would be a real enhancement.
Sure, if you mean they stay at home and NEVER LEAVE. However, some moms have killed kids on a hot day by leaving them in a car at the mall, or the grocery store. Unless the mom (and kids) "stay home" in a situation much like house arrest, there's still a chance of this.
Yes, it is, but how do you prosecute an entire state legislature?
"It also means that tiny babies get less time being held by their parents, which I imagine is not good for their development."
Tiny babies should NOT be held by parents when the car is in motion, period. Good way to crush them if you have a wreck.
Oh yeah, last year some friends' friends (a Christian couple, both doctors) had that happen. Both parents thought the other was taking care of the baby, and it was sitting in the car on a day when the temp was in the 90s. Horrible, but itbdoesn't necessarily indicate that the parent is a bad person
I agree.
I'm not going to judge her.
Sleep deprivation, depression, or simply being distracted by too much to do and not enough time to do them: all of these could cause a person to be distracted and harried enough to forget anything.
This doesn't mean that she didn't love her baby and wasn't a good parent.
We've all made tragic mistakes. I'm just thankful that my mistakes haven't turned out to be tragic.
Tragic, nothing really to say.
As for placement of car seats,
I gotta agree with Ron and Moose on this one Clara.
Yep. Sometimes it's either acrimony or sanctimony around here.
I can imagine either, but I do think it is not a good idea to put the baby seat in the back.
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