My parents once left my little brother in a rest area. I once picked up my kid from nursery school, but not the babysitter’s kid who also attended. I got to her house without her kid. Oops. Luckily in both cases no harm done, but I have a lot of sympathy for frazzled parents.
One of local health systems is doing a local social media campaign re: this topic with the message “Avoid leaving a child in the car. Put your left shoe in the back seat”
So I guess the theory is you don’t need your left shoe to drive…but you aren’t going to leave the car without it??
A number of years ago I read a newspaper article about these tragedies, and the online reader comments were for the most part either self-righteous or defensive. Unfortunately, neither attitude helps us address this issue as the public health (not criminal, IMO) threat that it is. The self-righteous folks of course couldn’t imagine that THEY, or their spouses, would do such a thing, so didn’t see the need for any particular intervention or public health campaign. Meanwhile, when an expert pointed out that these scenarios typically (not always) involve daycare, change in routine and men (dads), many commenters were offended at such “classism” and “sexism.” I would love to see pediatricians address this issue at well-baby visits. They did not when my children were young.
That there is more out there about this happening makes more people aware of the issue. I hope it turns into fewer such tragedies.
Though it may bother, even sicken some of us having constant reminders, that’s a very small price for more awareness and even just possibly fewer incidents. It’s a horrible hortible thing to happen
“While I do believe many of these instances were horrible tragedies, I always wonder, why at some point during the day, these parents didn’t think of their kids? Weather they see a picture on their desk, a coworker asks about their child, or talks about their own, etc… Wouldn’t at some point you would think about your child and memory jogged that you didn’t drop them at school/daycare as planned?”
Gene Weingarten’s Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post story written about this issue had memory experts who explain how this happens and also that many who it happens to created a false memory that they have dropped the child off at day care. The article written about a decade ago is horrifying but made me understand how this happens.
A couple of days ago, while loading up the car for a trip that I was planning to take the next morning, I left one of the car doors open. My husband noticed hours later when he went to get something out of his own car.
It’s so easy to forget things. Memory doesn’t always help us realize that we’ve forgotten to do something, especially when it’s a memory of something routine. Obviously, I usually close car doors. If you had asked me, I would have said that of course I had closed it on that occasion. But I would have been wrong.
I think we need technological fixes for the baby-in-a-hot-car problem. Maybe sensors that the parent puts on their own body and the child’s (wristbands?) and that set off a loud alarm if the two sensors get more than a few feet from each other.
Technology is there. Cars can be equipped with such sensors. The question is whether the public will be willing to pay for these features.
EVs can be set up to run AC or heater to maintain the temperature inside the car at a preset value. And Tesla now offers a Dog Mode which not only maintains the cabin conditioned and safe but also displays a message on the screen that tells the passerbys that the dogs inside are safe:
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-dog-mode-feature/
I just read that today, and it was horrifying and quite convincing in how it doesn’t let us be smug or condemning. These are horrible incidents, and I can’t imagine the pain that the parents live with the rest of their lives.
Oh, it doesn’t matter how strong the evidence is, there remain those who are perfectly comfortable being “smug or condemning,” certain that THEY would NEVER do something like this. You can probably find them being smug and condemning about a lot of other subjects as well.
There but for the grace of God go I. I am very thankful I never did anything like this, but I’m not so sure it was because I am a superior parent.
This is my story and only involves a baby peripherally. My daughter is breastfeeding her baby, and in addition, she pumps several ounces every morning that she’s banking for when she starts to wean, or if some kind of issue comes up. Her home and her freezer are tiny, so about once a month, when I leave her place, she gives me a bag of milk, usually a month’s worth, to put in our basement freezer.
Last month, I took the bag and put it in the back seat behind me like I always do with quick store errands because it’s convenient. it was warm and I put on the AC in the car and got home (just a few miles away) quickly to keep it frozen. Then I got out of the car, and, not having actually run any store errands, picked up my purse and went inside.
To realize an hour later I’d left the milk in the car. I was distraught to think I might have wasted my D’s efforts and her baby’s nutrition. I just…forgot. Almost unfathomable because i’d just left her house. I’m just saying, the mind is sometimes treacherous. I hope to heaven that those who have lost so much more find some peace.
In my opinion, part of the problem is a result of technology.
I’m older than most of you. My kids were born in 1986 and 1989. My car did not have an airbag, so I put the infant carseat next to me in the front seat. Being able to see my baby made it much harder to overlook my baby. But today, rear-facing infant seats go in the back, where the parent can’t see at a glance whether the seat is occupied.
Also, I moved my kids’ carseats to front-facing as early as possible – something else that today’s parents are advised not to do. So once the child was riding in the back, a quick glance was enough to tell me whether the child was with me. But today, the child stays rear-facing (and in danger of being forgotten) for much, much longer.
I would be scared to death to drive around with a baby or small child today.
I can’t begin to imagine the heartache and life-altering despair (and blame) these deaths incur, but I understand how they happen to responsible and loving parents who are devoted to their children.
One fairly straightforward mechanism that could help is required communication between parent and daycare provider within the first hour of every weekday (or other scheduled daycare.) It could be an automatically generated text/email from parent to provider (“Did my child arrive at daycare today?”) or a something from provider to parent (“Your child arrived at daycare today” or “Your child did not arrive at daycare today”) or something else. Of course human error might still come into play, but at least it would be one step.
@zipyourlips I thought of that earlier. When my children were school age, school would call if the child was not in homeroom. Imagine my surprise when I got a call that my 14 yo was not at school, yet she and her 17 yo brother, who was driving, left in the same car! When I asked if my son was there and was told yes, I replied, “Unless her brother left her asleep in the car, she should be there.” Turns out, the teacher taking attendance just forgot to mark her as being in class.
I like the idea of text messages, automated voice messages or emails. Parents could pick their delivery mode much like many doctor’s offices do for reminder calls for appointments. It shouldn’t be a big expense for the daycare center and schools; something I think many parents would be willing to pay a bit more for piece of mind. Of course these doesn’t help for the return trip home, but I think it might be helpful for the majority of the cases.
My grandma lived in that area and we could see the VA Hospital, where the Bronx dad worked, from the corner of her block. I think this was a tragic, horrible accident. This father was not like that sexting pig, who I think is deservedly on death row, but is a social worker dealing with veterans. My heart breaks for his family and I shed a tear for those poor babies.
As a mom of 5, I can remember the time we drove away, in 2 cars, and arrived at grandma’s house, only to realize that we had just 4 children with us. Each of us thought the other had one of the children and neither of us did. Luckily, a cousin who lived with us at the time, was home and had realized we’d forgotten one child. He called grandma, who let us know, and then he drove the child over to us. After that, we instituted a number system and assigned kids to cars when we weren’t going together.
One time I took my daughter and her friend to a snow-tubing park. They were about 10 years old. As D walked across the bottom of the hill, she wasn’t paying attention and a snow-tuber knocked her down. She complained of a headache and stomach pain, but she wasn’t seriously injured. I decided to take her to a quick care place down the road. When they learned she had a bleeding disorder, they freaked out and called an ambulance to take her to the hospital for an MRI. I jumped in the ambulance with her. On the way to the hospital, I realized I had forgotten about the friend!! I had to call the girl’s mother and apologize like crazy. The woman was very gracious about the whole thing, but I was horrified. It would have been one thing if D had been hurt badly and gone straight to the hospital, but I took her to quick care first!
I think this might be a good article for people to read who believe it could never happen to them.
@beebee3 , excellent article.
Agree–it was referenced above (without link) and I think it really is important. Not only for this tragic topic, but for the common judgmentalism of “Well, I would never do that!” usually accompanied by condemnation.
I think this would be harder to implement in places where the temperature can be in the single digits for days in a row.
I am not equating dogs and kids here. I do want to say that it is easy to have a false memory of doing or not doing something. I always walk my dogs in the early morning going out through my garage door. One morning I saw something left out in the back yard and went out through the kitchen door with the dogs. Left the sliding glass door open too. Went around the house and walked the dogs. Went in through the garage, unleashed the dogs and headed out to do errands
Got a phone call a half hour later that my dogs were running around the neighborhood. They’d gone right out the still open patio door.
I had forgotten to shut that door.