• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Toddler dies in hot car as mom teaches inside school

In all honesty, any sympathy I might have for the parent gets summarily cut off when I picture what it must have been like for the baby.

I understand why any and all would feel this way--such a stupid and ghastly tragedy. But part of trying to "love thine enemies" may be feeling sorrow and empathy for the parent who must bear the responsibility and guilt for the rest of his or her life.
 
Toddler dies in hot car as mom teaches inside school
In case it is absolutely clear:
It's not the cars that killed these children, it's the parents and their absent mindedness.
The article gives a couple other examples of children dying in hot cars, and it seems that in all those cases, no one intended on leaving their children in the cars, thinking it was safe. Rather, the parents simply forgot their children were in the car. Parents must take care of their child! MUST.

I have a sister in law who lived in fear of forgetting her child in the car so she developed a clever habit. When she got in the car to go anywhere she would put her left shoe in the back seat. It's hard to forget you aren't wearing a shoe, especially in a Washington DC summer where parking lots are about a million degrees.
 
What a smart idea. And already there are "smart" car seats, so somebody's going to use the technology to come up with some "failsafe." And a national PSA campaign would be great.
 
I have a hard time believing this can happen as an accident. I understand it is possible, but i have a hard time believing it. Even if it were an accident, this woman caused her child's death due to her own negligence. I read that no charges have been pressed against her. As least not as of the writing of the article I have read. At the very least she should be charged with child endangerment or manslaughter or something. Intentionally or not, she killed this child, and this child suffered a terrible death.
 
This is why the new-ish (newer than when mine were infants), that infants and their infant seats have to be in the back seat is such a bad idea. It's much easier to not see and hence forget a quiet sleeping infant in the back seat, and usually an infant will fall asleep in a moving vehicle.

Safest location in an accident.
 
What a smart idea. And already there are "smart" car seats, so somebody's going to use the technology to come up with some "failsafe." And a national PSA campaign would be great.

You'd think with all the great improvements in cars and communications that someone can come up with this.

Go to Invent Help and submit the idea. You may make a mint.:mrgreen:
 
The person behind the wheel of a car and in his carelessness hits another vehicle that results in the death of another, do they not face manslaughter charges?

Depends on whether or not they are rich. A rich person probably not. A poor person, yup. Thrown into jail. Hell they may even get murder charges depending on the situation.
 
I can understand how it happens. While I've never forgotten either of my children in the car alone (I have in a shopping cart for a few steps b4 remembering one of them, though) .. It has happened where they fall asleep in the car and i completely forget about them for a long while. I do remember by the time I get to my destination, though.

Seems an easy fix might be to just tie something to your inside door handle so when you open the door, it serves as a reminder.

Saw on the news that a company is making an alarm that you install inside the car-seat that detects weight. When the corresponding tracker,which you affix to your key-chain, gets more than 15 feet away, it sounds an alarm.
 
I have a hard time believing this can happen as an accident. I understand it is possible, but i have a hard time believing it. Even if it were an accident, this woman caused her child's death due to her own negligence. I read that no charges have been pressed against her. As least not as of the writing of the article I have read. At the very least she should be charged with child endangerment or manslaughter or something. Intentionally or not, she killed this child, and this child suffered a terrible death.

Many people state that they won't believe this was accidental or how they would never do it. The truth is that it can be VERY accidental and a consequence of how our brains work. Routine and habit are huge in daily tasks and doing the mundane. So much so, that if you break routine you can easily forget what the break was and the brain just automatically makes decisions that follow the typical routine.

I've done this. I've take the same route to work over and over again. One day I had off and I was running errands near where I work. I'm on my merry way and before I know it, I'm taking the turn onto the road that goes to work, not the supermarket. Why? Because routine and habit took over. Even though I was aware I had off that day, even though I knew I was going to the grocery store, the brain overrode that and went with the routine.

How many of us have done that? That's the same process through which kids get left in cars. A routine is broken, but the automatic nature of our reinforced routine take over and you go about your day unaware that you forgot something.

Should they be charged with something? I don't know. Less it was purposeful, living without your kid is more punishment than anyone could enact. I certainly wouldn't call for jail time.
 
Many people state that they won't believe this was accidental or how they would never do it. The truth is that it can be VERY accidental and a consequence of how our brains work. Routine and habit are huge in daily tasks and doing the mundane. So much so, that if you break routine you can easily forget what the break was and the brain just automatically makes decisions that follow the typical routine.

I've done this. I've take the same route to work over and over again. One day I had off and I was running errands near where I work. I'm on my merry way and before I know it, I'm taking the turn onto the road that goes to work, not the supermarket. Why? Because routine and habit took over. Even though I was aware I had off that day, even though I knew I was going to the grocery store, the brain overrode that and went with the routine.

How many of us have done that? That's the same process through which kids get left in cars. A routine is broken, but the automatic nature of our reinforced routine take over and you go about your day unaware that you forgot something.

Should they be charged with something? I don't know. Less it was purposeful, living without your kid is more punishment than anyone could enact. I certainly wouldn't call for jail time.

Taking a wrong turn and forgetting your child, especially that young of a child, are not the same thing. Not even close. Things that matter are easier to remember.

Maybe I keep missing it, but what is this woman's regular routine with this child? Are we just assuming this was out of the norm for her to put her child in her car? Somewhere before causing the death of this child, her routine was already broken or was still in tact.

Either she took her daughter somewhere every morning, and failed to do it that day which would go against her programming or whatever you want to call it, or she left the kid at home and for some reason packed her in the car today when she normally wouldnt have which due to the breaking of pattern would have been very fresh in her mind as she pulled out after having just strapped her child in, or she went to the school daily with her child which no break in routine and she still failed.

No matter how you cut though, her negligence cause the death of an 18 month old child. In my opinion, when your negligence causes death, you should be punished.
 
Taking a wrong turn and forgetting your child, especially that young of a child, are not the same thing. Not even close. Things that matter are easier to remember.

The point is, the brain can override that. Taking the wrong turn and forgetting the child in the car is the same dynamic. Many times the parent that leaves the kid in the car is not the parent that takes the kid at that time.
 
The point is, the brain can override that. Taking the wrong turn and forgetting the child in the car is the same dynamic. Many times the parent that leaves the kid in the car is not the parent that takes the kid at that time.

If it is not something that you do regularly, your routine is already broken. You've gotten a child ready to go, which early in the morning in not usually an easy feat, and you took her to your car, strapped her in, and probably heard her at least initially. And during that time, whatever her plan to do with that child was in her mind. You don't leave the house to go to work with an 18 month old child if you don't have plan for someone to watch that child.

And simply forgetting that you have children is not a realistic suggestion here. I have been at work for a few hours today, i am well into my regular routine. I remember I am a parent. I know exactly where my children are, I know who is caring for them. Killing a child and then saying oops I forgot doesn't fly in my book. I hope to see this woman charged, and I hope she does pretty serious time. This is no different than parents who forgot to take their kids were in the bath, or forgot to put up the pills so the kid wouldn't ingest them, or forgot to not murder your kids and stuff them in a freezer, or forgot I took my kids to the park, or forgot there is a street in front of my house.
 
If it is not something that you do regularly, your routine is already broken. You've gotten a child ready to go, which early in the morning in not usually an easy feat, and you took her to your car, strapped her in, and probably heard her at least initially. And during that time, whatever her plan to do with that child was in her mind. You don't leave the house to go to work with an 18 month old child if you don't have plan for someone to watch that child.

And simply forgetting that you have children is not a realistic suggestion here. I have been at work for a few hours today, i am well into my regular routine. I remember I am a parent. I know exactly where my children are, I know who is caring for them. Killing a child and then saying oops I forgot doesn't fly in my book. I hope to see this woman charged, and I hope she does pretty serious time. This is no different than parents who forgot to take their kids were in the bath, or forgot to put up the pills so the kid wouldn't ingest them, or forgot to not murder your kids and stuff them in a freezer, or forgot I took my kids to the park, or forgot there is a street in front of my house.

People say this, but the science says you're wrong. The article was linked several times in this thread already.
 
People say this, but the science says you're wrong. The article was linked several times in this thread already.

Ask around to parents you know. See how many can tell you where their children are, especially young children. See how many know they have kids. Its not something you forget.
 
Ask around to parents you know. See how many can tell you where their children are, especially young children. See how many know they have kids. Its not something you forget.

Let me know when you have scientific data and statistic to back that up.
 
Let me know when you have scientific data and statistic to back that up.

It is common sense. Conduct a study with those you know. Parents don't forget they have kids. Decent parents know where their 18 month old is. Even less than decent parents know who is watching their kid. People dont forget their children.
 
Ask around to parents you know. See how many can tell you where their children are, especially young children. See how many know they have kids. Its not something you forget.

It's not about "knowing you have kids". Ask them where their children are in the middle of a work day, but on a day where they changed routines. Maybe grandma or an aunt is taking them for the day rather than having their normal nanny. The very first thing many will say is "they are with so-and-so, their nanny" the majority of the time. They may correct that after with "no, wait, they are with their grandmother/aunt today". Unless they have that cue though, they won't think about the difference. I am a mother and I've said this before to people who asked "who has your kids" when there was a change in routine (such as when their grandmother was here but their uncle, our nanny, was not, a couple of weeks ago).
 
It is common sense. Conduct a study with those you know. Parents don't forget they have kids. Decent parents know where their 18 month old is. Even less than decent parents know who is watching their kid. People dont forget their children.

No one forgot they had kids by leaving them in the car. They do forget they have children in certain places though if it is different than their normal routine. My mother used to forget me a lot when I first started staying after school in high school. Sometimes it would take her hours to remember that I was still at school. She had 5 other children at home, and I was the quiet one anyway. (Before cell phones)
 
It's not about "knowing you have kids". Ask them where their children are in the middle of a work day, but on a day where they changed routines. Maybe grandma or an aunt is taking them for the day rather than having their normal nanny. The very first thing many will say is "they are with so-and-so, their nanny" the majority of the time. They may correct that after with "no, wait, they are with their grandmother/aunt today". Unless they have that cue though, they won't think about the difference. I am a mother and I've said this before to people who asked "who has your kids" when there was a change in routine (such as when their grandmother was here but their uncle, our nanny, was not, a couple of weeks ago).

My kids are with grandma and my child is dying in the backseat of my car because X are not the same thing. Regardless of what you believe as to if it is possible for a parent to forget their children, even if she did happen to forget that she was killing this kid, in the end her actions, her negligence caused the death of this child. Feeling bad isn't a punishment. If your negligence causes death, it is a crime and I hope this woman rots in prison for a very long time for this.
 
It is common sense. Conduct a study with those you know. Parents don't forget they have kids. Decent parents know where their 18 month old is. Even less than decent parents know who is watching their kid. People dont forget their children.

Common sense tends to be neither common nor sensical. It is typically built off of false significance.

So again, let me know when you have the scientific data and statistics to back up your claim, as scientists have already reported how these lapses occur.
 
Ask around to parents you know. See how many can tell you where their children are, especially young children. See how many know they have kids. Its not something you forget.

Until the last 10-20 years or so, I never remember hearing of a parent forgetting a child. I never knew anyone who was accidentally left somewhere (with the exception of the movie Home Alone, which was supposed to be a farce). I never knew of anyone getting left on vacation, in the mall, in the hairdresser....nothing. If this phenomena is physical, I'd like to know how often this happened in history? Can anyone name a single instance of a famous story of some infant being simply left somewhere because the parents "forgot" about him/her?
 
Back
Top Bottom