Mother who forgot baby in car wants changes made to car seats

[Roo]

^^ I can see your points schadenfreude, but there are millions of women who have children with men who leave them and they MUST work. Choices are not always that cut and dried.

[habanerita]

Such harsh and hard line opinions leave out many, many causes and reasons for parents failures, which sometimes may result in great harm to their children, sometimes physical, sometimes mental. A Reality Check is needed when one thinks that such clear cut solutions are the answers.

Originally Posted by schadenfreude

What a horrible incident, and while certainly it wasn't the parent's intent to cause the death of the child, such gross negligence should not go unpunished. I, too, am shocked and kind of grossed out that she was pregnant again so quickly. Shouldn't that whole incident have been a big clue to the woman that she needed to re-evaluate her role as a mother? I'm with Dallas on this one. People are just trying too hard to "have it all" - the career, the family, the ideal life. We are all just human, and I don't think anyone can truly handle all those pressures flawlessly. If you are that devoted to your career where you spend hardly any time with your kids, why bother to have them? Or vice versa, why would you pursue a career? For those who say women "have" to work to support a family... I don't buy it. If you can't afford them - don't have them. If you can't afford kids plus your mortgage/car payment/handbag habit, you give one or more of those up. It's all about choices.

[merika]

Originally Posted by schadenfreude

What a horrible incident, and while certainly it wasn't the parent's intent to cause the death of the child, such gross negligence should not go unpunished. I, too, am shocked and kind of grossed out that she was pregnant again so quickly. Shouldn't that whole incident have been a big clue to the woman that she needed to re-evaluate her role as a mother? I'm with Dallas on this one. People are just trying too hard to "have it all" - the career, the family, the ideal life. We are all just human, and I don't think anyone can truly handle all those pressures flawlessly. If you are that devoted to your career where you spend hardly any time with your kids, why bother to have them? Or vice versa, why would you pursue a career? For those who say women "have" to work to support a family... I don't buy it. If you can't afford them - don't have them. If you can't afford kids plus your mortgage/car payment/handbag habit, you give one or more of those up. It's all about choices.

Some problems with your arguments:

Quote:

If you are that devoted to your career where you spend hardly any time with your kids, why bother to have them?

You're making assumptions. Nowhere did anyone say in this article or discussion that anyone was "so devoted to your career where you spend hardly any time with your kids". I fail to see the relevance.

Quote:

vice versa, why would you pursue a career?

Because some women like to be something other than a SAHM?

Quote:

For those who say women "have" to work to support a family... I don't buy it. If you can't afford them - don't have them.

Sure. This is the most remarkably short sighted statement I've heard in a long time. What if you had them and one of you lost a job AFTER you had them?

[chag]

Originally Posted by merika

Some problems with your arguments: You're making assumptions. Nowhere did anyone say in this article or discussion that anyone was "so devoted to your career where you spend hardly any time with your kids". I fail to see the relevance. Because some women like to be something other than a SAHM? Sure. This is the most remarkably short sighted statement I've heard in a long time. What if you had them and one of you lost a job AFTER you had them?

[Firefly32]

I believe it can happen! When your not getting enough sleep taking care of children and working your not taking care of yourself. I remember early days in college where I was going to school and two jobs! There were plenty of days where I was not eating good and so tired and even out of it at times where I was almost in car accidents because of it. In this day and age it's a fast pace world where you can feel like your on a roller coaster and you can't just get off because your tired or need a break! You have to keep on going because you have responsibilities. This is a horrible tragedy for any family and really sad and heart breaking way for a child to die :-(.

I'm most surprised that this woman had a baby so soon after what happened!

[chag]

Originally Posted by Firefly32

I believe it can happen! When your not getting enough sleep taking care of children and working your not taking care of yourself. I remember early days in college where I was going to school and two jobs! There were plenty of days where I was not eating good and so tired and even out of it at times where I was almost in car accidents because of it. In this day and age it's a fast pace world where you can feel like your on a roller coaster and you can't just get off because your tired or need a break! You have to keep on going because you have responsibilities. This is a horrible tragedy for any family and really sad and heart breaking way for a child to die :-(. I'm most surprised that this woman had a baby so soon after what happened!

Quote:

One year later It wasn't until hours later, after she gave birth to a healthy girl named Peyton, that she realized what day it was: the anniversary of Maddison's death. "It just felt like way too big of a coincidence," Wesley says. "It felt like it was meant to be. It made it feel like it was OK to go on."

Seems to me that fate had a lot to do with it

[everything posh]

I feel horrible for the mother and the baby in this situation. The loss of a child is something that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

I may be a SAHM, but between taking care of the house, two children, groceries, bills and the million other things that go on with taking care of two kids I'm also exhausted and SLEEP DEPRIVED. I just cannot possible imagine EVER forgetting my child in their carseat. My mind is always on my children when we are in the car or anywhere else!

[envyme]

Say the woman prevails, and car seats are tricked out to remind you not to forget your baby - what should happen to a mother who has become desensitized to the alarm and still forgets her baby in the car?

[chag]

Maybe they should move to something a little stronger, a cattle prod maybe j/k. Who knows that's impossible to answer until it happens and the circumstances around it are known.

[sweetneet]

Originally Posted by envyme

Say the woman prevails, and car seats are tricked out to remind you not to forget your baby - what should happen to a mother who has become desensitized to the alarm and still forgets her baby in the car?

i was wondering the same thing. i mean nowadays does anyone pay attention to car alarms anymore? everyone's become desensitized to them, they have become more of annoyance than anything else (e.g. car alarms accidentally going off at 2 am and waking the neighbors, etc. )

since almost all these forgotten child situations happen when a parent forgets to drop the child off at daycare, maybe daycare centers should make all the parents take a mandatory seminar or whatever on the dangers of leaving your child in the car..and tips to avoid it (like those outlined in that other article). it should also describe (like some of the news articles) what actually happens to the poor child who is left in a hot car (internal temp rise, difficulty breathing, burns on skin, etc). because i really think that a lot of people are not really aware how cars essentially can become ovens and can literally bake someone alive in only minutes. i think if more parents were really aware of the potential danger they would be more careful and these things wouldn't happen as often.

[sweetneet]

Originally Posted by Roo

^^ I can see your points schadenfreude, but there are millions of women who have children with men who leave them and they MUST work. Choices are not always that cut and dried.

i agree.

there are always a lot of negative/incorrect assumptions about mothers who work (or those who don't) which is unfortunate. i recall someone in this thread saying something like "not everyone has the luxury of being a SAHM". I want to point out that one shouldn't always assume that women who are SAHMs are living the high life and have less day-to-day stress than working mothers. I have a number of relatives who are SAHMs whose husbands don't make that much money and who struggle every day to make ends meet and pay the mortgage/rent. In places where the cost of living (and therefore, the cost of daycare) is very high, sometimes it just doesn't make economical sense for the mother to work. I have a friend on the east coast who has a graduate degree and made a decent salary at her job, but when she had her 2nd child, she had to quit because by her working & paying for 2 kids in daycare (plus having to hire someone to do cooking/cleaning etc) they would actually have LESS income than if she stayed home and took care of the kids. So for some families, it simply makes more economical sense for the woman to stay at home...it does not necessarily mean that the husband makes a ton of money and the woman gets the choice to stay at home. Furthermore, I don't always see being a SAHM as a "luxury" because IMO being a SAHM seems like extremely hard work!

[ilovepinkhearts]

im a mother of 3...and as of yet i have not forgotten any of them any where. i can only hope and pray that that stays the case. i know that accidents happen, and i feel so bad for the parents. but my heart literally aches for the babies that have had to die that way....i want to cry right now.

[Panda1]

Maybe the gov't can provide some good tax breaks to women or men who choose to work part time only. That way you still have extra income coming in but at least one parent would not be so exhausted that mistakes like this happen.

It is ideal that one parent stay at home but not always feasible especially with rising costs and stagnant wages.

[merika]

Originally Posted by Panda1

Maybe the gov't can provide some good tax breaks to women or men who choose to work part time only. That way you still have extra income coming in but at least one parent would not be so exhausted that mistakes like this happen. It is ideal that one parent stay at home but not always feasible especially with rising costs and stagnant wages.

I don't know how this staying at home vs working, being career oriented and all that is even relevant? I've seen some stay at home parents much more frazzled, distracted and tired than parents who go to work, simply because of the unrelenting chores of taking care of small children.

Distraction, exhaustion and tiredness do not only contribute to the very small number of parents who accidentally lock their kids in their cars. There are many distracted and tired parents who drive their kids around who get in motor accidents. Of course they won't leave their kids in a car seat, but they just might crash into something because they're so tired and distracted.

[omgsweet]

I see this on the news in Az every summer. It is heartbreaking. I am so conscious of the fact that my kids are in the car. I drive much slower, don't have the music on and am usually talking or singing to the kids. When the kids aren't there, I have the window down and the music on.

I am not going to knock this Mom though. I can see how you could forget if you have a lot on your mind and you are distracted. I know I can get absent minded sometimes. I will walk into a room and forget what I was going there to do. I will open the fridge and forget what I was looking for. Because I know I can get like this, I always make sure that I am thinking about my kid's constantly. I have to know what and how they are doing at all times.