I never understood how this could happen. How could a parent, EVER, leave their child in the car and totally forget about them....I never got it. And then I became a very busy, very distracted working mother of a toddler. A toddler that frequently falls asleep in the car. A toddler that is an extended rear facing toddler. and I get it now. I've never left D in the car. I've never "forgotten" he was there, but I completely understand how this happens and I cannot even imagine the guilt and the fury that a parent responsible for this type of accident could feel. I used to think that parents that did this, on accident, should be punished to the full extent of the law. Now, I wonder how parents that do this don't commit suicide. I literally have made 3 habits since D was born to avoid this. One, the car is not a place that I allow stressors to take place. When I'm in the car, I focus on what I'm doing and where I'm going. Secondly, I always always always check in the backseat before I get out of the car. Even when D isn't with me. Lastly, I always leave something of D's in the front seat. A diaper, his bag, his shoes, something. Do I think this could happen to me? Sure, if the circumstances were right, the stress was there, and my mind was somewhere else, I definitely believe this could happen to me. Will I take every step I can to avoid this. You bet your sweet rear end that I will. See, we as parents, we all take precautions. We use baby gates to avoid a child falling down the stairs. We test food temparture. We have thermometers and tylenol for unexpected fever, we check for cuts, bruises, and splinters at bath time. Why wouldn't we take precautions against something so tragic even when we "know" it won't happen to us? B/C it could happen to us. We are not immune to our brains functioning. We are not bad parents, but we are human.
Please remember to take steps to stopping this from happening to you. Even though you think that it never could.
6 comments:
I agree 100% with all of that. Our car is so small the carseat extends a little into the front and we NEVER leave his car seat in the car no matter how convenient it would be, we always bring it in the house so we never get used to seeing it in there. You have some great ideas too!
Oh, when D was still in an infant seat I always brought it in too. Of course I moved him to a convertible at 5 months, but that's when I had to force myself to look in the back even when I knew he wasn't with me. Now of course it's habit.
When I was pregnant with Blake, there was a news story out about how a father was in charge of taking his infant son to daycare one day. This was out of the ordinary for him, as the mother was usually the one to do it. Well, he was running late, stressed, and forgot about the baby in the back. He went directly to work and carried about his normal workday... only to come out to the car at the end of the day to see his child in the back, no longer alive. I remember feeling so badly for the guy, knowing that I would be suicidal if I were responsible for that. There is no way I could live with myself. It is such a sad situation, but you are right - we're human, and we makes mistakes, some more tragic than others. Fortunately for me, my kids are constantly having yelling contests in the back, and it would be hard for me to forget they were there!
It's been a while since my girls were young enough to be in a carseat and potentially left in the car. It never happened to me, but I have nothing but sympathy for the parents who forget. In this busy world, in which we are always running from place to place and hurrying from here to there? It is easy to forget.
I never did.
But I could have.
Anyone could.
Thank you for posting this. It stuck in my head and your idea of creating a habit of checking the back seat is one I'm going to implement. I'm used to the noisy toddler back there but when he's at school and I just have the baby, who sleeps in the car, i enjoy peace and quiet while running errands. While I've never forgotten to get him out of the car, I have let my mind wander while driving and could see myself just hopping out of the car to go do the 50,000 chores on my mind, especially because I'm usually in a big hurry.
Janell - Sad, sad sad story. I want to cry just thinking about it.
I read this story last month and got so upset at the mere thought of losing my twins I began to shake and cry... It is scary how something like this could happen. I mean, how often have any one of us forgotten to get something at the grocery store or forgot to bring something with them? Josh and I have only been without eachother in the car once with the babies - he had them and I had to go to a class. I made him call me when he got home, let me know what they were doing, and I also put a bright pink pig in the front seat. It's not that I didn't trust him, I just know that sometimes things happen.
There are also systems you can put in your car that will play a lullaby or chime when you stop the car to remind you to check the backseat....
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