Father forgets baby in car, baby dies of dehydration

[Stac3y]

Bruno, I hear you. When my son was little, our only car was a Ford Festiva, a two-door hatch-back. His seat was mounted behind the driver's seat, so the front passenger -- my missus or I -- would have easy access. Many was the time, driving alone, when I would have to look around because I forgot if he was with me.

In fact, more often that not, I would hear nothing, check, and then realize I had already dropped him at daycare.

Yes, but that's the point--YOU check. Bruno checks. RESPONSIBLE parents check, because there is always a part of them that is thinking about their kids. Constantly. I know I'm a hardliner on this, but NOT checking, and winding up with a dead kid as a result, is, IMO, unforgivable. And if your life has too many "complicated circumstances," you aren't prioritizing your kids. Parents who don't make their kids their priority are, by definition, lousy parents. Good parents who are busy, or forgetful, or harried, either make changes or develop failsafes to keep their kids safe. With young kids, eternal vigilance is the name of the game. If you're not up to it, you need to make some adjustments.

 

[Stac3y]

It has nothing to do with priorities, parenting skills, character, willpower, intelligence or anything else. Everyone is vulnerable to this sort of thing. Pretending that you are a better parent and it will never happen to you only makes it more likely that it will. These situations are consequences of how our brains work. Avoiding this situation takes special preparation that relies on the fact that you know it could happen to you.

I'm not pretending. I AM a better parent than someone who leaves their child to die in a hot car. And knowing that I have committed myself to properly caring for my kids doesn't make it more likely that this will happen to me; it makes it less so. That commitment means that part of my mind is dedicated to their care AT ALL TIMES when they are with me (and that they are never allowed to be without someone who I trust to care for them if I am not there). You say that avoiding this situation takes special preparation--well, yeah. If you are a forgetful person, etc., etc., and are a good parent, you WILL make sure you find a way to keep your kids safe, no matter what you have to rig up--that's my point. A parent who hasn't considered this sort of thing and defended his child against it is NOT a responsible parent.

 

[Stac3y]

My best suggestion for dads, moms, or uncles, or whomevers that are transporting a kid in a world of distractions and it's out of their routine is to put something else in plain view that you can't miss to remind you or put your briefcase or something else essential near the kid. It's a variant of an old cop trick to avoid forgetting your gun at the jail; you put your keys in the lockbox with the gun.

I'll never understand how a briefcase or cell phone could be more "essential" than a baby, but whatever works....

 

[Gordon Nore]

I guess the upside of some poor soul accidentally causing his child's death is that others can talk about what great parents they are by comparison.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

I guess the upside of some poor soul accidentally causing his child's death is that others can talk about what great parents they are by comparison.

I prefer to look at it as a wake up call for parents to become better parents, and look at what they are doing. But please feel free to excuse poor parenting, neglect in whatever degree it might be, and try to come up with reasons to feel sorry for the parents rather then the kid who died. I apologize for nothing in my comments. I don't need to compare myself to these people, I bring it out, like I said, as a wake up call to other parents....since its painfully obvious there is no small amount of people whoa re just waiting to make excuses for other peoples mistakes.

 

[Gordon Nore]

I prefer to look at it as a wake up call for parents to become better parents, and look at what they are doing. But please feel free to excuse poor parenting, neglect in whatever degree it might be, and try to come up with reasons to feel sorry for the parents rather then the kid who died. I apologize for nothing in my comments. I don't need to compare myself to these people, I bring it out, like I said, as a wake up call to other parents....since its painfully obvious there is no small amount of people whoa re just waiting to make excuses for other peoples mistakes.

I wasn't asking you to apologise. Since the overwhelming majority of us don't forget our kids in hot cars, why the need for a wake up call? By that criteria, parenting is a roaring success.

Do I feel sorry for this couple? Yeah. But I'm sure my feeling sorry for them or not will quell the grief they must live with.

Can I excuse what they did? Well, it's not up to me, and I rather suspect they don't really give a fiddler's fart about what you and I think because -- well -- they are grieving for a dead kid.

All the talk about single parents or parents who are focused on careers is opportunistic and judgemental. There is a difference, sir, between making excuses for others and siezing upon an opportunity to judge them. The OP is a generalized third-person account, with no story link that I could see. Fertile imaginations have turned a grieving couple into a pair narcissistic screw-ups.

 

[jks9199]

Why do people spend time trying to justify something like this with a whole list of possibilities? Thats ridiculous to me. How about the guy was simply more concerned with his work then his family. Thats the story right there, because thats what he did.
The Frances Kelly story is horrible, that father is a horrible father. The f amily is breaking down from the stresses, the father puts all the responsibility on his teenage kids and goes off on his own. You use this as an example of a doting and caring parent? Seriously?
I am in shock.
I do agree with you on one thing though, it makes sense to put your essentials next to your child as a reminder.
The fact of the matter is children are 100% dependant on their parents to care for them. To make correct choices to shape thier lives. You make a mistake like this with a kid and they die. Its not like forgetting to bring your cell phone to work and being put out for a couple hours. I am sorry but I am shocked by the example given.

Life is seldom as simple or black and white for most of us as it appears it is for you. There is often room for mitigation, understanding, and sympathy in a tragedy like this. There is seldom a need to compound the grief by making assumptions and accusations.

By and large, most of these cases are tragedies and errors, often the result of a chain of events and not a single act. It's very simplistic to assume that they happen because the parents don't care enough.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

Life is seldom as simple or black and white for most of us as it appears it is for you. There is often room for mitigation, understanding, and sympathy in a tragedy like this. There is seldom a need to compound the grief by making assumptions and accusations.

By and large, most of these cases are tragedies and errors, often the result of a chain of events and not a single act. It's very simplistic to assume that they happen because the parents don't care enough.

Ya well pretty much any law that is broken no matter how shocking can be attributed to a chain of events and not a single act. People just assume that since its a baby that the parents are victims rather then a criminal..... Their actions directly caused the death of another human.
A drunk driver kills another, its just another chain of events and not on purpose.. A felon with two strikes that kills a victim rather then leave a witness is just another poor victim himself of a chain of events that led him to his current circumstances... Let me ask you this... when does the person making the mistake get held accountable? Sure the intent is not there.....at least we have to hope, noone knows for sure except the parent who left the kid to die that horrible death alone. But even without the intent does that justify it somehow? Who is standing up for the dead baby? Or does that not matter anymore? Sympathy? I have plenty of sympathy for the poor baby that suffered horribly before dying because someone paid more attention to a chain of events then their own child.

Once again why are so many people trying to find an excuse for this?
I do not get that.
Is it because you people want to assume that everyone is basically good and this had to be an innocent mistake?
I am not trying to be a jerk here, I am serious, I do not get why these parents are being defended in any way shape or form.
I look at it and yes my common sense tells me it is Black and White, no grey area at all. I can not even fathom how someone looks at it otherwise.
Why is this a tragedy and not a crime? Because it sure sounds like a crime to me, several actually.
If I run a red light accidentally because I have a large chain of events effecting me, does that make it a tragedy or an infraction?
If I run that same light accidentally and kill an old woman walking the crosswalk is it a tragedy for me to have to live with that, or a crime?
I seriously am curious how some of you trying to defend this thing actually think... /shrug

 

[jks9199]

Ya well pretty much any law that is broken no matter how shocking can be attributed to a chain of events and not a single act. People just assume that since its a baby that the parents are victims rather then a criminal..... Their actions directly caused the death of another human.
A drunk driver kills another, its just another chain of events and not on purpose.. A felon with two strikes that kills a victim rather then leave a witness is just another poor victim himself of a chain of events that led him to his current circumstances... Let me ask you this... when does the person making the mistake get held accountable? Sure the intent is not there.....at least we have to hope, noone knows for sure except the parent who left the kid to die that horrible death alone. But even without the intent does that justify it somehow? Who is standing up for the dead baby? Or does that not matter anymore? Sympathy? I have plenty of sympathy for the poor baby that suffered horribly before dying because someone paid more attention to a chain of events then their own child.

Once again why are so many people trying to find an excuse for this?
I do not get that.
Is it because you people want to assume that everyone is basically good and this had to be an innocent mistake?
I am not trying to be a jerk here, I am serious, I do not get why these parents are being defended in any way shape or form.
I look at it and yes my common sense tells me it is Black and White, no grey area at all. I can not even fathom how someone looks at it otherwise.
Why is this a tragedy and not a crime? Because it sure sounds like a crime to me, several actually.
If I run a red light accidentally because I have a large chain of events effecting me, does that make it a tragedy or an infraction?
If I run that same light accidentally and kill an old woman walking the crosswalk is it a tragedy for me to have to live with that, or a crime?
I seriously am curious how some of you trying to defend this thing actually think... /shrug

Perhaps because I do deal with real evil and decidedly criminal acts, I have a different viewpoint. I know what a person who calmly and deliberately attacks and tries to kill another person looks like -- and I know the guy who just plain screwed up big time. There is a difference. You might note that I've carefully drawn a line between the tragedies and the outright cases of abuse. A tragedy happens once, as a mistake. Ongoing abuse continues until it is stopped, usually by some sort of external intervention or by the death of the victim. You can't compare the two. Susan Smith, who drowned her kids because her new boyfriend didn't like children deserves no sympathy. Many of the parents in these cases? They're not the monsters that Susan Smith is.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Ya well pretty much any law that is broken no matter how shocking can be attributed to a chain of events and not a single act. People just assume that since its a baby that the parents are victims rather then a criminal..... Their actions directly caused the death of another human.

Who assumes that?

A drunk driver kills another, its just another chain of events and not on purpose.. A felon with two strikes that kills a victim rather then leave a witness is just another poor victim himself of a chain of events that led him to his current circumstances...

Which has what to do with this story?

Let me ask you this... when does the person making the mistake get held accountable?

Whether or not these folks are held accountable by law is not known. It's not in the OP.

Sure the intent is not there.....at least we have to hope, noone knows for sure except the parent who left the kid to die that horrible death alone. But even without the intent does that justify it somehow? Who is standing up for the dead baby? Or does that not matter anymore? Sympathy? I have plenty of sympathy for the poor baby that suffered horribly before dying...

Me too. Everyone does. Nobody has trivialized this loss. At worst, some of us are guilty of empathizing with the suffering of the parents, which is hardly a character flaw.

Once again why are so many people trying to find an excuse for this?
I do not get that.

Because you don't want to. There hasn't been any excuse making, just some people not rushing to judgment over someone's tragedy. Just folks not using someone else's misery to feel morally superior.

Is it because you people want to assume that everyone is basically good and this had to be an innocent mistake?

An assumption on your part. Based on the ability of people to reserve judgment without all the facts, I'm gonna say no.

I am serious, I do not get why these parents are being defended in any way shape or form.

When it's so much more fun to be a know-it-all and judge them.

I look at it and yes my common sense tells me it is Black and White, no grey area at all. I can not even fathom how someone looks at it otherwise.
Why is this a tragedy and not a crime? Because it sure sounds like a crime to me, several actually.

Can't it be both?

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

Perhaps because I do deal with real evil and decidedly criminal acts, I have a different viewpoint. I know what a person who calmly and deliberately attacks and tries to kill another person looks like -- and I know the guy who just plain screwed up big time. There is a difference. You might note that I've carefully drawn a line between the tragedies and the outright cases of abuse. A tragedy happens once, as a mistake. Ongoing abuse continues until it is stopped, usually by some sort of external intervention or by the death of the victim. You can't compare the two. Susan Smith, who drowned her kids because her new boyfriend didn't like children deserves no sympathy. Many of the parents in these cases? They're not the monsters that Susan Smith is.

Ya sorry I still dont buy into it, your still assuming that the parents are making a one time mistake.. In the example given above it was a pattern that was ended by the death of the Kelly baby. A pattern of neglect by the father.
I have no lack of experience dealing with the worst of the worst when it comes to criminal acts, I look at the kelly case and see a prolonged neglect of an entire family, 13 kids routinely left to fend for themselves and each other for an extended period of time. That ended in murder....involuntary maybe but murder none the less. Do you not agree with that?

A tragedy to me is driving to day care with your kid and an unseen nail blows your tire and your lose control of your car and in the accident that follows your baby dies. My heart and all my sympathy would be with the parents in a case like this..
A murder is forgetting you have your baby with you and leaving him in a locked car with no means of savings himself as he dies a slow brutal death from dehydration and heat stroke. I only feel rage for the neglect and lack of consideration given to the child by the parents. To me there is not acceptable excuse for this. I understand that other people have a difference of opinion on this matter, I just can't understand why is all.


I get what you are saying though, I just do not understand how you can take that stance... yes the event is a tragedy, but it was preventable. It was not an unfortunate unforseeable accident. It was completely avoidable.

I appreciate the debate, and despite my hard line stance on this, I understand that people have a difference of opinion, I hope that those that disagree do not confuse my rage at the parents as rage towards them, because thats not my intent.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

Because you don't want to. There hasn't been any excuse making, just some people not rushing to judgment over someone's tragedy. Just folks not using someone else's misery to feel morally superior.


When it's so much more fun to be a know-it-all and judge them.



Can't it be both?

First off I am not saying I am morally superior then anyone, I listen to posts like yours and it sure sounds like you are trying to make the case about yourself being that morally superior person though...and rushing to judgement? What do you consider a rush to judgement? The facts are a parent put kid in car, parent forgot kid in car, kid died in car.... judgement? No judgement just facts, I never said the parents have no remorse, I am sure they are broken up more then most could imagine. I never said they were not otherwise decent people...Judge? no, comdemn? yes. Some mistakes you can't take back. Some mistakes are not forgivable. As far as the know it all comment goes, I have read with interest any case I have ever seen of this, and every single one had more then enough facts in the case to obviously see the parent neglected the kid, in some of the stories like the Kelly story it stated it happened regularly.

Yes by the definition in the dictionary these can very easily be both tragedies and crimes, and are very much are.
I happen to look at the term tragedy and I apply it in a way that makes it unavoidable to have happen.
In my opinion its a tragedy to everyone else in the family that was not there and could not prevent it from happening. To anyone who reads the story, hears about and is distraught over it it is a tragedy. for the person who caused it is is murder in my eyes. In the last post I gave two examples of my opinion on the subject. I can't add any more that would explain my thoughts I don't think. I can't see much more of value coming from this thread, so unless I see something different I think I am done discussing this, anything else would redundant at this point I think.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Am am going to agree with luckykboxer here: In the Kelly case it was an accident just waiting to happen. If I look at those circumstances, I would have to conclude that it was going to go wrong sooner or later, and the parents were to blame. If I look at the Kelly case, I see someone who was in over his head, and he should have realized it and either done something about it or prevented it.

If you purposely bite off more than you can chew, then you are to blame.
Life is about choices. When my wife and I bought a house, we ran the numbers in advance, including the monetary cost of having x children, having 2 cars, our choice of profession, etc... We cannot predict everything in life, but based on the averages and realistic expectations, we knew that we'd be able to cope. We have 2 kids, and that is where we have stopped. If we had ignored reality and had 12 kids, then we would have been in a volatile situation as well, and chances are that it would have gone wrong one time or the other.

If you are in circumstances that carry a high risk for your family, and you are responsible for those circumstances, and they could have been prevented, then you are indeed to blame. Even if the sequence of events leading up to the drama are understandable by itself or even out of your control, you are still the root cause.

Other examples are living in a multistoried house and not having a secondary exit (we have 2), no fire extinguishers (1 on each floor), no smoke alarms (1 on each floor + 1 in the washing area) or no emergency evactuation plan.

 

[Archangel M]

IMO, the "I left the baby in the car while I ran into the store of a minute..." is far different from the "I forgot that the baby was in the car..." story.

I could never understand HOW a parent could "forget" that their child was in the car. IMO opinion it illustrates a mindset problem. Its as if the parent looked at the child as an "item" vs a "person"..like they left a purse or a bag in the back seat and forgot about it.

Not that that changes any legal issues regarding liability or guilt. Having parented 3 rugrats over the last 16 yrs, I can admit to having lost track of where a kid was here and there,but they were of the age where I thought they had gotten into the car on their own or were playing with a friend. I have never had a situation where I didn't know where an INFANT was. Or wasnt acutely aware that I had them in the car with me. Especially when I was the one who put them there.

 

[celtic_crippler]

Understanding it or not, it's negligent to leave your baby in the car; especially when it results in injury or death. When one is negligent and it causes injury or death to another, one is normally prosecuted under the law.

 

[jks9199]

I've never said that the parents shouldn't be charged, either. I was and remain very much in favor of the prosecution in the Kelly case -- and I think the judge crafted a good & reasonable sentence. As I've said -- we can recognize mitigating circumstances, but mitigation is not expiation.

 

[Gordon Nore]

I've never said that the parents shouldn't be charged, either. I was and remain very much in favor of the prosecution in the Kelley case -- and I think the judge crafted a good & reasonable sentence. As I've said -- we can recognize mitigating circumstances, but mitigation is not expiation.

Ditto.

 

[SensibleManiac]

Because of stories like this, I always make it a habit to put my things in the back seat when going to work.
This way I always have to check the back seat when I get out of the car by force of habit, whether my daughter is in the car or not.
I think we have to learn from others' mistakes and build our habits around our childrens well-being.

 

[BlueDragon1981]

All I have to say is for the Child to Rest in Peace. Hopefully closure can be found for the family. God will decide how they were to their child. Not us.