Replies

"This happened in our area several years ago. The lady was considered a very good mother and she was not a moron. Before she dropped the child off she had to run an errand that wasn't part of her normal routine. The baby fell asleep and was behind her seat. Of course it destroyed mer marriage and her life. Folks can call the woman in this story names all day long, but she'll beat herself up more than we can. I can't imagine the hell the rest of her life will be."

I agree with you. Absent minded people like me would certainly rather not be absent minded, but it isn't something we can change, no matter what people on this list think. Over the years, I forgot to pick up my kids from places a couple of times. Nothing bad came of it. (I also remember probably the sweetest, kindest mother in the neighborhood leaving her kids at the public pool, one time, as well.) Never forgot them in the car, but baby seats were not kept in the back, then. When my routine is disrupted, when I have to do something extra, or some other change enters in, then I forget things. Yes, I know about various kinds of memory aids like notemaking. I use them. Sometimes they help, sometimes I lose the notes.

This has all started happening after baby seats were required to be in the back seat. Babies and toddlers very often fall right to sleep in the baby seat and are then obviously quiet.

I thank God this never happened to me, but being cruel toward these parents is something I read every single time stories are posted on this list.

Sure there are times when kids are left in cars more or less deliberately such as the mother who was taking hours getting her hair and nails done and knew her kids were in the car. I remember that story very well, but don't remember if any of the kids died as a result. That is deliberate neglect and is a very different kind of behavior.

I just don't understand selfrightously heaping curelty on people who have failed horrifically, and their children have died as a result. Most go over and over that day in their minds I am sure, but once something so overhwelmingly terrible like that has happened, there is absolutely nothing you can do to get that day back and live it over and do things right so your child is safe.

So you all think it couldn't ever happen to you, eh? Well I KNOW it COULD have happened to me! Yes, folks I AM that absent minded, and guess what else, I really, really love my kids, and they turned out fine. I have God to thank that nothing like this ever happened, but at least I am honest enough to say it could have.

I think a lot of you are denying the anxiety that it COULD happen to you, now matter how careful you think you are.

Flame away, if you like.

Memphis has had a big problem with this over the last number of years. The state funds private day care centers for welfare recipients and low income people. The day care centers operate vans to go and pick up these children at their homes. Remember most of these moms are not working, but get day care anyway.

There have been at least 5 or 6 incidents where the day care van drivers would forget the children on the back seat of the vans. These children all died.

It got so bad that Tennessee had to enact some regulations that require day care van operators to have an additional person to double-check the vans for children as they arrive at the day care and at the end of the day.

The problem still continues. The last day care van driver who forgot a child (along with the person who double-checked) received prison sentences for homicide.

Even though I am judgmental about this situation, I am also absent minded and am the youngest of nine children in a Catholic family. My mother did eventually work full time (we needed the money I guess) and I started daycare at 4 years old. I was routinely left everywhere and many times just left unattended while one of the children was assigned to watch me and forgot--once in a blizzard outside for hours, late when all businesses were closed and the phone lines down. Still when I made the 5 mile trek home, no one knew I had been gone! Needless to say I am quite independent!

The point is I do think this has been happening since after Eden--and air conditioning in cars in a way may make this forgetting worse. If the windows were open maybe it would take the child longer to pass? Or maybe they would cry out of being uncomfortable as the parent was driving. I don't know.

There is no excuse for this, I agree, but unfortunately it sounds as though this stuff does happen and to people who are just normal everyday caring parents--not always, but on rare occassions.

I think too, from experience, the more children one has the easier it is to space out and forget. Either way it does seem to happen to all sorts of parents. I am not a parent, but I do have 24 nieces and nephews and hear all sorts of stories about the mistakes of raising children from their very attentive parents. It is sad and all I can say is thank God for guardian angels--I believe mine has spared my life more than a few times!

I think a lot of you are denying the anxiety that it COULD happen to you, now matter how careful you think you are.

I agree with almost everything you said, but would contend that the contumely FReepers heap on this poor woman does serve a social purpose.

Deep down, we all realize that there but for the grace of God go we. By directing disgust and outrage at this woman--who is unlikely ever to read this thread, so no real harm done--FReepers are in actuality scolding themselves and each other, driving home the lesson that such negligence can never be pardoned or excused...by one's own self. The woman is a surrogate for their own, negligent selves who accidentally roast their beloved children to death in some possible future. They repudiate that self, and morally reject that future, partly because it might help to prevent it from coming to pass. Such self-flagellation helps them to remember the lesson.

I myself reinforce the lesson by forcing myself to read these stories, even though they stab at my heart. What could be worse than that guilt?