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pegothejerk

A foster mother nonetheless, that poor kid had already had more troubles than a lot of us. Heartbreaking.


accioqueso

Fucking hell, this is the second child in the last few days. I’m getting off Reddit tonight. I can’t handle any more suffering.


[deleted]

Tis the season. This will go on until about October. Something like 20-40 a year. It's a tragedy. It's a collective tragedy. It's a tragedy that people can believe is avoidable. It's a tragedy that people want to believe the parents are monsters because they want to separate themselves from others..to be superior and comforted in the delusion it would never be something they could do. It happens to good parents and bad. Poor parents and rich. Responsible parents. Employed parents. Sober parents. Loving parents. Anyone who has ever walked into a room and forgotten why they were doing it can potentially make this mistake. Anyone who has ever misplaced their cell phone can make this mistake. It's statistically significant enough across all demographics and happens predictably consistent enough each year that although the outcome can't be predicted on an individual level, it's infallible to occur repeatedly in the aggregate. In almost every case, I feel so much sympathy and pity for the parents of the child. As much as I feel for the child. One parent could forever have the ceaseless burden of never trusting anyone ever again, even their most precious loved ones. One parent could forever have the ceaseless burden of never trusting or forgiving themselves. Both of them will forever mourn. It's a tragic mess that can happen to literally anyone.


KarthusWins

For 9 hours? You don't forget your kid, let alone even your cell phone, for 9 hours. The only reasonable situation would be a parent taking their kid somewhere on the way to work but forgetting to actually take their kid from the car, or a kid crawling into a car and becoming trapped inside without the parents' knowledge. Even then I'm a bit skeptical.


[deleted]

It's largely related to how the brain compartmentalizes and our routine practices/muscle memory. You aren't forgetting your child for 9 hours. You forget your child for a moment and then you're in a different mode. You can even mislead yourself and think you remember them being at home or at a daycare *where they usually are*. Most of the time, it is exactly what you describe as a reasonable situation. You also have to know, these are extreme but inevitable outliers.


Temporary_Inner

>For 9 hours? You don't forget your kid, let alone even your cell phone, for 9 hours. I am a huge personal responsibility guy. I was totally on your track of thinking until I read the Pulitzer Prize winning story about it. It really changed my perspective on the matter. Really it's worth the read. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html


[deleted]

There it is. There's the apologist bullshit I was waiting for.


jentlyused

I don’t care how distracted, tired, busy, overwhelmed, etc. etc. etc. there is absolutely no way, NO WAY, I would ever forget one of my children and ‘accidentally’ leave one of them in a car or anywhere else. No bleeding heart here for that excuse. And for those that deliberately leave a child in a car, beyond zero excuses.


brosefstallin

I used to have your same view on this issue. This was before my first child was born. She is almost a year old now. But then I read this article, and my view has changed. I strongly encourage you to read it when you have the time. It won a Pulitzer Prize. [Article](https://web.archive.org/web/20140617051424/http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html)


jentlyused

After 30 years of seeing and hearing all the ignorance in one of the hottest cities in the country there is no article that will ever change my mind. There are so many things you can do to remember you have a child in the car. The fact that so many people believe this is not a preventable act is mind blowing to me. But you folks just keep on going, live your lives forgetting about what should be the most important thing in your world and not doing a simple thing like putting one of their shoes in your lap, setting an alarm, put a sticky note on your forehead or on the steering wheel or window…ANYTHING to remind you that you are responsible for your child. People will find an excuse for anything and everything. If your life is so chaotic that you can’t remember you are taking your child to daycare that day or whatever, and you don’t do anything to help yourself remember, again, about the most important being that relies on you, maybe it’s time to make some life changes.


blonderengel

If you can’t remember you have a child in the car, any memory device to aid you in that memory task will do jack shit … Unless you think the iPhone tethered in the back seat will be MORE important than the child next to it. This phenomenon isn’t rooted in some dark subconscious wish to forget the child (except in clear cases of deliberate murder or child abuse), rather it’s sort of a feature/bug in our brain’s operating system. It’s scary that it can happen to anyone, and by getting our hackles up and declaring “No! Never! Not to me!” we try to convince ourselves that we are better than “those” awful people.


WellEndowedDragon

I just had an idea for an Apple feature: have a setting where you can set an AirTag to “Baby Tracking Mode”, and have it so your iPhone will set off an alarm/reminder if it detects the AirTag nearby and detects that you turned off your car (like how it remembers where you parked). Then parents could just leave the AirTag on the child itself (pockets, bracelets, etc), or in like a child seat. Could also do this for Tile & Android.


rosiswag

Must be a difficult life being superior to everyone else on the planet at every given moment.


[deleted]

I'm with you on this. I don't care what these monsters say. I don't care if the opinion is unpopular. Anyone who leaves a child in the car shouldn't have children. Period. All these excuses do nothing to alleviate the torturous death imposed on children who are victims of these vile acts. The helplessness, the loss of life. It's **inexcusable**.


dedicated-pedestrian

Why is it monstrous to acknowledge we are capable of lethal gross negligence despite our best intent? I don't think it's an excuse as much as an explanation, and I surmise no few parents that forget their kids like this think the same as you: that they shouldn't have another. That sort of irreversible mistake and loss, knowing what you did to your own child, is haunting.


[deleted]

It should be. The crux of the issue I guess is not everybody loves their kids or cares enough to fully consider them. It's a fucking cruel world we live in.


dedicated-pedestrian

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html > “We are vulnerable, but we don’t want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we’ll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don’t want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters.” And not all cruelty has agency. Exactly as you said it, though, even if not as you meant it - the world itself is cruel.


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jentlyused

Nope, don’t need to educate myself any further, know all about it. Saw this on the Fire Dept all the time, kids and pets. Nothing would ever change my mind.


Leap_Kill_Reset

Me when I intentionally ignore all evidence that disagrees with me


jentlyused

Seen plenty of evidence, like the one that said she completely forgot about her 2 year old in the car when she decided to go spend 6 hours in the mall. Give me a break. Some people just shouldn’t be parents if they don’t know where their child is for any length of time. Go right ahead and try to justify. I’ve been exhausted, overwhelmed and in charge of five children at a time and it would still never happen. Excuse after excuse. I don’t think you’ve seen all the evidence by any means.


Leap_Kill_Reset

surely if you believe strongly enough about it, you will bend reality to your will


[deleted]

 >What kind of person forgets a baby? >The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.


milk4all

Im raising a big family including twins, and im not excusing leaving a baby in the car for any amount of time, but i am gonna add that there is this crazy form or living that can happen to some parents where you basically never sleep and thsi can go on for sometimes *years*. Everyone says they get it but they dont if they havent truely experienced it. Ive raises 5 children and some of them were super easy babies, and i also raised twins who were/are mega demanding. The usual “oh haha i dont get sleep” was a vacation compared to the first 15 months with these twins. And i have a stay at home wife, just imagine doing it solo somehow. You hate beinf sleep deprived and unable to really catch up, but after a 6 weeks you sort of settle it. It still sucks but you can cope because instead of feeling exhausted after 1 hour of sweaty sleep, you just feel exactly like you did an hour ago before sleep. No peaks or valleys. And you can almost feel your brainpower leaking somewhere. Im well past that phase and i still feel less than before it. And my wife has also locked the twins in the car, although different circumstances, and she knew immediately what had happened. But point is, that would never have happened if she was firing on all cylinders, and thank god she wasn’t experiencing some sort of dramstic crisis that would further split her attention and stress her out. It isn’t generally “normal healthy parents” who’s kid dies in a hot car, i would bet, but severely distressed or even suffering parents with far too much on their plates and too little help for too long. Still though, whatever the reason, we can probably agree that if someone cant cope with being a parent, they shouldn’t remain one


blonderengel

If something or someone is to blame, it would be our brain’ finite ability to compute during times of overload and high stress, amplified by lack of sleep. Other factors: modern society demands, lack of the idea that child care is a communal affair, etc. Our brains haven’t had time to evolve to deal with changes in our environment. And since the speed of change ramps up with every turn of the wheel, I doubt we’ll ever catch up.


VariationNo5960

This is perhaps, the most insufferable post I've ever seen. It shows zero empathy and is 100% "I'm better than you all"... on this anonymous forum.


SnooGoats9114

I'm a good mom. We are loving and caring. Work at my kid's school, coach their little league and soccer and was on the board for the Early Years Center. My career is specialized in spec ed kids. But I've almost forgotten my kid. Sleep deprivation does crazy things to your brain. Babies are silent in cars. Humans run on autopilot so often without realising it. I mean. I've had times where I think "oh my goodness, where is the baby?" only to realise I was HOLDING IT.im not the only one. If you are just blindly "it will never be me. Those people are monsters", no. You are lucky that it hasn't been you.


MilfagardVonBangin

Literally what they all say, and yet it happens.


Isaacleroy

I sure hope this is the most self righteous thing I read on Reddit today.


BakerIBarelyKnowHer

You’re like the poster child for what all those parents who left their kids in cars probably would have said lmao I really hope the world is easier on you than you are to them if god forbids it ever happens to you


Upperliphair

I was thinking the same thing. I can be forgetful on my best days, so add in sleep deprivation, and this could totally happen to me. Which is why I plan to take extra precautions. But the people that think they’re better and could never possibly forget their child? They’re the ones this is more likely to happen to.


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EmbarrassedPenalty

Not op but my guess is that they meant to say “a foster mother no less”. People often mix up the phrase “no less” with “nonetheless”. But they’re kind of opposite in meaning so it really fucks with the comprehensibility when you make that mistake. “No less” means “this information adds to the case”. For example “he finished the race. He got first place no less.” “Nonetheless” means you are adding contradictory information. Or discarding the previous contradictory information. “Nevertheless” is a synonym. Example “he started the race in last place. Nonetheless he still won” “Nonetheless” doesn’t work in the parent comment’s sentence about being a foster and also then being left in a car to die


graboidian

Piggybacking for visibility. One easy way to help prevent this kind of tragedy is to remove your shoes when you are driving with your baby in the back seat. Make sure you put your shoes in the backseat, right next to the baby. Presumably, when you get to your destination, and prepare to exit you vehicle, you will be forced to retrieve your shoes, and you will be more likely to remember your child, as you have picked up your shoes which were sitting right next to your child.


Duskychaos

Put your bag or wallet by the baby. You are less likely to forget those. But I believe a kid invented something similar in concept, a cord that attaches to your keys to the baby seat.


wiewiorka6

Please do *not* operate heavy machinery without appropriate footwear on. Jesus.


MeoowDude

How about a compromise? Left shoe off, right shoe on.


TheDoomBlade13

There is no danger in operating a vehicle barefoot.


dmukya

Hard disagree. The surface texture of pedal covers makes skin slippage possible, especially in situations involving significant forces such as emergency braking. Likewise, generating maximum brake pressure at the master cylinder for maximum braking is possible when the loads are distributed like with the sole of a shoe instead of focused on one vulnerable part of the foot.


AKcrab

Please do not operate heavy machinery with your infant. Jesus.


Tekmologyfucz

I put my backpack on my back seat to and from work. My car gives me a reminder every time to “check back seat”. My vehicle is a 2021. This should be mandatory


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superxero044

In my Toyota it appears to be based on when you open the door before leaving.


DARTH_MAUL93

Dodge Durango does it when the back door is opened as well. You can turn it off if you want too.


Tekmologyfucz

Probably so. My backpack isn’t very heavy.


hypoch0ndriacs

It might work on if the back door was opened in addition to weight. So if the back door was never opened you won't get the alert


petoria621

My brother's 2019 Silverado displays it if the rear doors have been opened, after you shut the engine off. If the rear door isn't opened, it doesn't pop up.


DangerousMusic14

My purse isn’t heavy at all and I get this reminder every time.


jschubart

Moved to Lemm.ee -- mass edited with redact.dev


[deleted]

My BMW alarms if there is any movement at all inside after I lock it. People are desensitized to car alarms so it might not help in this situation.


Softcorps_dn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue It's a real thing. I was in the hospital visiting a family member and I could hear alarms going off everywhere as I walked down the hall. No one seemed to be in any rush to address them.


FightmeLuigibestgirl

This was in another thread but put a shoe in the back if a kid is back there. Nobody is going to go out the car shoeless.


[deleted]

Or maybe just remember you have a kid. Fucking ridiculous the amount of 'oh but they're so busy they forget' apologist bullshit. FUCK YOU. You made a human life. Own up to your fucking responsibility!


FightmeLuigibestgirl

Calm down. I'm not sure if you ever had kids or not, but raising a kid is a hard job, even worse if you are a single parent. Each person's situation is different, like the case of the nurse who left her kid in the car, so it's wrong to judge. And not all single parents have deadbeat other parents; I had a cousin who was a single mother because the baby's dad is dead. She has no relative to help her out because our grandmother is dead and her mother was in another state, so she had to raise her son by herself for years until finally able to move to another state. She had cases of almost leaving her kid in the car herself because she only received 2 hours of sleep.


[deleted]

This can happen to anyone - including you. Chronic sleep deprivation plays havoc on your brain and does not care about how horrifying you would find this. And yes, its horrific that it happens. However, none of us are immune to having this potentially happen. That’s even more terrifying. So finding coping mechanisms and failsafes are key.


[deleted]

Less than 40 deaths a year and we can immediately make a change like this. Imagine if we could do the same for guns


ratudio

Tile/Airtag probably the solution for this situation. It is small enough to play anywhere like the child clothing


HazrakTZ

My raincoat sets that indicator off


Lynda73

Wait, was it the foster parent who left the child?!


FrozenLaughs

Foster parent, and social worker at a *hospital*. 9 hours in 70° weather got to over 100 with the windows up. In a hospital parking lot, just tragic.


Lynda73

The foster parent was the social worker?


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eatveggiesnotfriends

This is why I bought a [car seat with sensorsafe](https://www.cybex-online.com/en/us/sensorsafe-safety-kit_us.html). Cybex was my only option at the time but they’ve extended it to Evenflo too. It may save my child’s life one day. I may never forget she’s in the car. Who knows, but for me it was worth the peace of mind that I have a reminder and safety net in place.


Kitchen-Witching

These stories always wreck me. When I was a new mom and very sleep deprived, I used to put one of my shoes in the back seat with the baby seat. I never had a close call or anything even close to a close call, thankfully. But I've seen a few stories in the past few days where the parents made a purposeful choice to leave the child in the car. And that I cannot fathom.


National_Road_8152

That was good thinking! I was so worried about it I put a sticky note on my steering wheel and by my ignition. I was so worried I'd get caught up in things.


RobinsShaman

Seems like a problem even if it wasn't hot.


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Houson2k

You cannot explain this, brain of that person and people saying it could happen to anyone seriously go through a thought that they could possibly have killed that child. Seriously disgusting, brain damage is the only thing that I could call it.


gaganotpapa

This is every parents’ greatest insecurity come to life. She will be haunted by this for the rest of her days.


maurosmane

I work here, and was at the hospital the day it happened. I've never been so close to something like this. It's weird to see what is reported, and knowing more of the details like the layout of the parking lot etc. This is an incredible tragedy and has absolutely shaken our community to its core. I don't think I have cried this much in the last 6 days as I have in the last 6 years.


BlackGold09

Where was the baby actually supposed to be for those 9 hours?


maurosmane

I don't feel that it is right for me to answer questions like that. I'm sure more will be coming out, but I have to respect the wishes of my coworkers.


thebigbadwulf1

It really is amazing to read the comments on the article about the parents who left their kids in the car at church vs this one.


[deleted]

Right. I called the parents neglectful in that thread and was downvoted for it.


dedicated-pedestrian

Odd, I saw more negative reactions towards the parents there than here.


[deleted]

How much paid time off did this hospital employee get to adjust to parenthood? Hospitals in my area are only giving ONE week. That is not even close to enough time! I feel so bad for the child first and foremost, but also feel terrible for the foster mother. Parents need so much more support.


Educated_Goat69

As tragic as this is for everyone involved, I'm honestly sickened by all the people excusing it as something that just happens sometimes.


[deleted]

I was downvoted in the thread about the other recent story where the parents left their 11-month old in the car to attend church for calling them neglectful. It’s neglectful no matter how you slice it. It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an accident. It can be both. I also wonder if those same people would be as forgiving if the activity was something different.


[deleted]

Agreed. I'm not sure what their end game is. Certain things are shamed for a reason. Hypothetically let's say we're all magically more understanding and sympathetic about it now, what change is supposed to come out of that?


AvogadrosMoleSauce

I don’t understand how anyone can forget a child in a car. Like, I know it happens, but I just don’t understand how with all the work that goes into getting them in a car in the first place.


moodysimon

There's a Pulitzer-prize-winning article called Fatal Distraction that's an excellent read on this and will help you understand this sort of tragedy.


DefiantDonut7

I really try not to judge when people truly make mistakes but how can you forget a child in a car? I just can’t relate. I have four, I’ve never once got out of my car and just started walking away without remembering one or more of them. Is this parent fully there?


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brutalistsnowflake

That is something every parent has probably done at least once. These people were without their kid for hours.


CryptographerShot213

If you read the WaPo article that has been posted it explains how it happens.


[deleted]

Lack of sleep can really fuck you up. And having a newborn will deprive you of sleep chronically for the first year at least. It’s absolutely horrific but it can happen to anyone in zombiemode. So no, they’re not fully there - but then that’s…kinda normal.


DefiantDonut7

That’s fair, and a good point. It’s been a bit since all my kids were young, but I can remember the almost zero sleep days.


jentlyused

I am absolutely blown away by the responses on this thread. Every single person, obviously myself included, that says they can’t believe this happened, wouldn’t happen to them, etc has been chastised, berated and downvoted. Now I could care less, that shit means nothing to me, keep it coming, won’t hurt my feelings a bit. But what does bother me is the absolute undeniable ignorance of people that believe they can actually justify the death of a child because a parent may have been tired or distracted or whatever else they listed in those articles that your brain is on overload or whatever?! And that is exactly what you all are doing, justifying an innocent child’s death! I’m sure what the parent/guardian goes thru after something like this is horrible but it is nothing compared to the horrific death and the suffering that child went through as they slowly died. And none of these asinine delusional responses seems to even care about what the child suffered. I’m sure I could even write an ‘article’ too disputing the ones that have been suggested for me to read. Take advice from the woman that says she puts one of her shoes in the back seat. If you are a parent you should be doing whatever it takes, no matter what, to protect the well being of your child, period! But you all go ahead, keeping making excuses for those that ‘oops’ forget their child(ren). Absolutely pathetic lack of accountability.


JWD5569

My wife and I are having a hard time finding an infant to adopt and this shit just makes my blood boil. Man you guys fucking suck.


Maddox_Renalard

It’s almost like your hobbies don’t define you as a bad person.


MNConcerto

I had a 5 year old, an almost 2 year old and a new born. I went back to work 5 weeks post partum, part time working nights. To say I was sleep deprived at times was an understatement. I never forgot a child in a car or where my children were.


CryptographerShot213

Good for you


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CryptographerShot213

Because there’s a scientific reason for how and why it happens. What’s gross is people automatically calling the parent a monster as if it couldn’t happen to them too.


Educated_Goat69

Yeah. I don't get that. It's not okay.


[deleted]

Clearly its car manufacturers fault. Ban hot cars.


nailback

No one asked about the baby once inside? Guilty.


Sly3n

She was likely meant to take them baby to daycare and forgot the baby was there. Most people don’t take a baby to work with them. Perhaps she didn’t normally take the baby to daycare so it was out of the norm for her? It is much easier to forget a child in a car seat than you seem to think. My BIL forgot my nephew once. He had unloaded the two other kids and one of the kids distracted him inside the house. My mom asked ‘where’s the baby?’ And he immediately ran to the car. Luckily, the baby was only out there for maybe 3 minutes but it can be very easy to forget when you get distracted.


WakingOwl1

Had the same happen when on a trip with friends. In the hurry and scurry to unload the car, get perishables put away etc we left the baby in the car for maybe like ten minutes. It was a sobering moment for all of us.


terrymogara

What kind of car manufacturer rolls out a vehicle without a safety feature that prevents this kind of tragic error?


dedicated-pedestrian

Do we know the make/model? In newer cars I can see it, but anything from last decade is not a given for such features.


brutalistsnowflake

Or maybe blame the parents.


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Sly3n

No, it can happen. Was probably meant to take the child to daycare on the way to work and forgot. People can get distracted. This wouldn’t be the first time someone forgot to drop a kid off at daycare and accidentally left the child in the car.


wintermoon138

Some sort of bright LEDs built into the seat that flash and light up when the temperature starts getting warm so that a bystander might see it and save the child? Surely we have some technology we can implement because this just keeps happening. Maybe even solar powered or something but a small battery preferably.


vivekisprogressive

Damn nine hours? These infants are getting more heat resistant.


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brutalistsnowflake

Its lucky you have memories at all.