What Is WRONG With These Mothers??

A 3 month old baby died in Greenfield.

A 16 month old had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital.

A 4 year old was rescued.

A 6 month old.

An 11 month old.

I don't understand it.  They all have something in common.  Something I can't comprehend.

All were left in sweltering hot cars in Central Indiana this summer.

The most tragic, the death of the infant in Greenfield, was the only one that seems to be a true accident.  The young father forgot that the baby was in the car until he came back out of his home and discovered his deadly mistake.  He rushed the baby to the hospital but it was too late.

From what I've read, all other cases were incidents where the mother chose to leave the child in the car.  And usually so she could go shopping.  One to go to a meeting.

Moms leaving babies in hot cars so they can go shopping.

I remember an episode of Oprah a few years ago that told the story of a woman who left her 2 year old in her minivan when she went to work.  From what I remember, the family lived in the Cincinnati area, the mom was a school principal, and one of the big moments of the surveillance video of mom parking the van and going into school was that she got a box of donuts from the back of the van and never noticed her baby girl still in the car.  The episode focused on moms being pulled into this out of balance state because we try so hard to be everything.

Blah, blah, blah.

What I remember the most about the story were the details of what this little girl went through in her dying.

I can't go there.

I'm angry.  I'm angry that people refuse to be parents.  The most recent case was in my neighborhood at the Super Target I frequent.  A friend actually happened to pull into the parking lot when this woman was yelling at the cops.  She had left her 4 year old in the car for at least 30 minutes while she went shopping because "he didn't want to go in."

EXCUSE ME?

He's 4.  You're the GROWN UP.  If he doesn't want to go in and you simply MUST go, guess what??  He has to go, too!!  If you're going to give in to a 4 year old, you still have to be safe about it.  If he flat out refuses and you simply don't want to deal with the meltdown, everyone goes home.

And don't even get me started on leaving your small children vulnerable like that.  Not even the heat issues- but the bad people in the world who are looking for that chance to harm our children.

"Back in the day" it was no big deal to see a car parked in a parking lot with windows all down and a kid or 2 waiting for mom to come out of the grocery store.  But back in that day, people weren't stealing cars and kids like they seem so eager to do these days.  Back in that day, most of those parking lots were in a small town market where the people walking past knew those kids and knew your mom and were going to tell her inside if you were being stupid in that car.

I'm angry.  I don't want to see yet another headline about a small person left trapped inside an oven.  There are few situations where I just can't imagine the perspective of the other person... but this is one that gets my ire up.  I cannot fathom leaving my children in the car alone, no matter what the temp, while I go shopping.

Teagan asked us about this yesterday.  And we joked with her that we were going to go get dinner and she could babysit her brother.  She insisted she can't be left alone like that until she's 16.

We're totally holding her to it.

The way I see it at this point in my life, until my child is capable of handling some basic emergency situations, they need to rely on the care and compassion of the adults placed in their lived to take care of them.  It's a job I take very seriously.  I'm not Supermom, I don't do even half of everything right, I fail daily as a parent.  But at least my kids are safe.  I've got the basics down.  I don't intentionally put them in potentially harmful and dangerous situations.

It's truly the very least that any parent should be willing to do.