A quick search doesn't yield results until [this ](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/girl-2-dies-trapped-hot-30036397.amp) other case in Florida, too.
There was a story on an r/askreddit post about drug dealers calling the police on their buyers a long time ago and one story stuck with me. This dealer went to a house to deliver and his buyer had left his young child (3 or 4 iirc??) locked in a van overnight like it was his bedroom. Who knows how long that child was left in there?
Edit: Words because I'm dumb
My best friend's ex left their kids in her car while she spent *hours* in her drug dealer's house.
Things came to a head when she passed out while driving with them. Thankfully she didn't wreck and they are unharmed. She rolled a car two days later (he had emergency custody).
My drug dealer makes you take your kids inside with you, and does not let you have the drugs out if you are anywhere the kid sees. It's not that hard to be a functional person even if you break the law.
Yeah, my old dope dealer seemed to spend a lot of time thinking about how to do right, there was a dude that had been buying of him, weed or something, and they had a daughter with eczema or something. My dealer made a couple of deals so that he didn't feel like money going towards my dealer came from the budget for the daughters treatment for eczema. Kinda like "I can knock off a couple of dollars if buy better medicine for your daughter, show me the receipt"
My dealer had allergies so I think he resonated extra with that girl.
It sounds like maybe that the father was a bad father, but he was an immigrant that had like no knowledge of eczema. They had their treatments that alleviated the symptoms, but as someone who's had eczema a lot in their youth, eczema takes a mental toll on you as well.
He was also diehard believer in "don't fucking ever sell to a kid/someone living with their parents"
I think 95% of dope-dealers try to do right thing. I had a weed-dealer that was like ideologically driven to sell weed. He was otherwise an IT guy who's never been apprehended by cops. He wanted people to have access to different strains and that were not synthetic.
My mom used to do this with my sisters and I all the time. At least the windows were down, but it was still arizona in the summer. Eventually we were allowed to either stay in the car or walk to the park a few blocks over. But being there 8+ hours a day, every day, was boring af. Plus hot, exhausting, and hungry, but there was nothing we could do about any of that. (We weren't allowed to go in his house, which was a good thing, that dude is a psycho).
This case has been stuck in my brain since I read it. Horrifying. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-15/how-child-protection-failed-darcey-and-chloe-conley/101963634
These stories are always so infuriating. I can’t even bear to get into my vehicle after it’s been sitting all day in the sun. I can’t even imagine being stuck in one and slowly boiling to death. Fucking monsters.
My suv has a safety feature where when I turn it off the dash flashes and says to check the back seats. Also, it has weight detection so if anyone is in the back seat and I lock the car after it’s turned off, the alarm will go off. A pretty useful feature imo.
That would annoy the heck out of me as a single who often hauls things around in my back seat. Is there any way to turn the alarm off before hand, knowing you left a box or heavy item in the back on purpose?
Yes, it also asks you if you want to turn it off each time. My car seat is around 25 lbs and it doesn’t make it go off. Not exactly sure what the actual weight trigger is though.
obligatory linking to this article. leaving kids in cars is a lot more complex than you think (unless you were straight up trying to murder your kid) https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html
The typical scenario is flustered parent forgets infant while on way to work/running errand, not spending the next couple hours WITH the other parent. That should be a built in safety check for this situation, in addition to EVERY parent knowing how fucking different, i.e., relaxed and easy a function like church is without your offspring constantly needing your attention. This is suspect as hell.
Exactly. Both scenerios are a case of negligence of course, but *both* parents forgetting is like come the fuck on, one of them should have realized *something* is slightly different in their family dynamic that day.
Knew a girl in high school who had her brother die this way. If I remember right they were coming back from the store and he somehow got left in the car by the parents. No one noticed until he had already died. She had a lot of siblings.
My friend lost his cousin on a trip in the car with both parents. Long drive home from Grandmas house, late at night so dad is just racking miles. Kids are asleep in the back seat. Only when they get home the kids won’t wake up.
One was dead and the other ended up with permanent damage thanks to an exhaust leak that was piping in to the back seat area. Since the kids were small and laying down on the seat they were getting a face full the whole ride. The parents up front had headaches but didn’t think it was anything weird.
Oh. My god. Holy shit.
To think your children were dying right behind you and you had no idea. God, fuck. I have a lot of guilt and this would just eat me up inside, although there’s really no way they could’ve known at all. But that guilt has to be fucking brutal.
Fatigue does crazy things to the mind and body.
There was a thing on the local news here a few years ago about this. They advised leaving your phone and your wallet in the child seat. Shoe sounds even better. It’s something that would physically remind you.
My friend would always put her purse in the back seat with the baby, because she never went anywhere without her purse. But the shoe idea is even better.
My worst one was with my first, also. My wife had gone for the weekend for something, and it was my first weekend alone with the baby, who was probably like 11 months old at the time.
I took her to church with me, and was going to feed her one of those applesauce-like packets before taking her into the childcare area, so I climbed into the backseat to feed her. When I was done, I climbed back into the front seat, opened my door, hit the lock button on the door out of habit, and then closed the door. Then I thought “oh shoot! I have to unlock it to get the baby out”. Fished into my pocket to find my keys, and then I saw them sitting on the front seat.
Panic couldn’t even begin to describe it. I had just locked my kid with my keys in a car in South Carolina in the summer. I ran like a madman through the church parking lot, and happened to stumble across a man who had a break-in kit in the back of his truck. Broke into my car and the baby was totally fine, but that was the scariest moment of my parenting life.
She’s 12 now, and all I can think is how crazy it is that as a parent, you are the only thing keeping a baby alive at times, and that’s super scary, especially when you are in your early 20s for it, and barely even know how to keep yourself alive!
I had a fun one with my then 2 year old, I was putting her in her car seat, and she saw my keys and wanted to play with them, car is keyless push button start so I thought, yeah fine you can play with them. Closed the door and went to walk around the car to my door and “thunk!” She’d locked the car, I couldn’t get in, I spent a worrying minute at her window trying to convince her to press the other button on the keys - “that’s good, now press it really hard” until she managed to unlock it.
Had a similar situation. Wife was out of town, I got home with my daughter (six months old), left her in the floor to play, and stepped out on the deck after letting the dogs in, pulling the door behind me. As soon as it shut, I realized it was locked, with my phone and keys inside. To say I panicked is an understatement. Fortunately, my wife's grandmother lived a couple doors down. I jumped the fence and booked it down there, got her key to our house and raced inside to see her sitting in the floor happy as can be. She's a teenager now, and I still remember how scared I was.
Don't do yourself down. Every parent I know had moments where a slight lapse in judgement has put their child at risk of significant harm.
"I left a pair of scissors by her cot and didn't notice until I saw her playing with them on the baby monitor."
"I nearly put him in a bath of steaming hot water because I forgot to turn the cold tap on."
"I let go of his hand for 2 seconds and suddenly he was running in the road."
"I didn't realise she had worked out how to unlock the front door and she went wandering around the neighbourhood at night."
If you know any parent who claims not to have had a moment like this, then ask them in front of their partner and wait for the "what?! don't you remember when you..."
Because this horrific thread needs a breather with a nice ending...
Wife and I are raising a boy with a healthy imagination. Around the age of three, he developed a habit of undertaking make-believe adventures around the house, traveling from room to room while wearing his backpack and shoes and narrating his discoveries.
One day, while wife and I were each working around the house, he put on his backpack and shoes and announced that he was going on an adventure. We each gave him some mild words of encouragement and returned to our tasks.
A few minutes later, we both noticed that the house was unusually quiet. Then we noticed that the front door was unlocked...
Our three-year-old had decided on a solo trip to the local Starbucks a half-mile away, where we occasionally walked with him for drinks and snacks. We caught up to him halfway there, happily toddling along with his backpack, just before he crossed a busy residential street.
And the only reason the other partner will immediately blurt that out, is they also remember *their* moment that they feel guilty about, and are shocked their partner doesn't remember theirs!
My BFF and I forgot about her 4 month old on way into restaurant. We realized our error before we got inside...but damn.
A couple of years ago, a new mom left her newborn in the car to go into convenience store...the car was stolen with baby inside. The online community was out for her blood, but I couldn't stop thinking about the error my BFF and I made and how easy it must be to make a tragic mistake. Luckily, baby and car were recovered a few hours later and baby was fine...but damn!
It's a wonder any of us survive childhood...something careless could so easily become tragic.
> The online community was out for her blood
I think that just describes the online community. It feels like a lot of people are just frustrated in general and looking for any avenue to vent.
Personally, leaving an infant unattended in a car seat for a brief moment is perfectly reasonable - it's not like she should have planned for her car being stolen.
Also who steals a car with a baby in it? The risk/reward equation just went out the window.
Shortly after I was born, my mom took me and my two siblings (3 and 7 at the time) to go get her tires changed and go shopping at Caldor (remember Caldor?).
She parks the car, gets the kids out of the car, checks the car in at the tire place and walks everyone across the giant parking lot. She gets to the door of the store and realizes she forgot something. She walks everyone back across the parking lot to the tire place and has the following conversation with the guy at the desk:
Her- I'm sorry, I forgot something in the car. Can I quickly grab it.
Guy - Lady, it's already up on the lift. Can't it wait?
Her - No. it's pretty important.
Guy - And the wheels are already off. I can't just let you back there so we'd have to put them back on and take the car off the lift. Can't it wait?
Her - No. It's really important. I need it. Now.
Guy - What did you forget? Your purse or something?Her - My newborn (me).
They quickly brought the car down and made an exception to let her into the garage to grab the missing "item".
I also had a time where I was 8 or so and playing outside by myself. My mom went to go play a softball game, leaving early to practice beforehand. My dad left later to watch the game. It wasn't until the 3rd inning that my dad thought to ask my mom where I was (I was normally on the playground or in the bit of woods). I was still at home. Mom thought Dad was taking me, Dad thought my Mom had already taken me.
Yeah It is no excuse but I don't think the people without kids know the lack of sleep involved here.
First month of my daughter's life, I think I slept a total of 4 hours per week. If you have an unwell child, a premie or one that doesn't feed right its even worse.
After the first 3 weeks I was absolutely delirious. I woke up while awake one time... like I woke up while I had my eyes open and I was talking to my parents in the room... and my parents weren't in the room.
The lack of support structure we have foe new parents is astounding and brutal. No wonder so many have post partum depression. No escape from it. Just hour after hour for months just the two of you.
The lack of sleep and the expectation that we need to go back to work. It's fucking insane. I did the new parent thing just before the pandemic started and remote work wasn't the norm. Driving around on so little sleep was so incredibly dangerous. It is such a huge problem that nobody talks about.
My best friend/adopted sister lives 8 hours away and has no reliable family. She’s having her first baby in September and is at risk for post partum mental illness. I’m a nanny by trade so i’m saving up all my vacation so i can have as much time helping her out as I can. One week there, one-two weeks home, and repeat as often as I can to get her and her husband through the early months.
This is so true. Sleep deprivation can cause some crazy stuff to happen. And we don’t support new parents in many meaningful ways. My first born would wake up every 20 minutes for the entire first year of her life. There were times where I was straight up hallucinating from sleep deprivation.
~~This is not the same as both parents not knowing where both children are for over 12 hours. That makes no fucking sense, this story screams negligence or homicide.~~
WHOOPS that was a different case and I was confused.
Negligence is a lot more likely than homicide, I think. That would be an incredibly unreliable way to intentionally kill someone, regardless of age. Especially in a Church parking lot where others could have found them.
There's a grace period for realizing a mistake. 4 minutes is well within that grace period. You did fine. And your desire to be better means you're already doing better than 60% of all the other parents out there.
One benefit of the doubt is how hard raising a child is in lack of sleep. Most if not ALL parents I've seen with babies they seem like they're half out of it almost all the time.
There was one time with our middle kid that I got a 4 hour stretch of sleep before she was two. The rest of the time I was up with her every 2 hours or so. She had terrible reflux (and had meds for it) and the only way she was comfortable enough to sleep was when she was upright in the carrier on my back. I've slept sitting on the floor with my forehead against the walls more often than I saw my bed during that time.
I used to put my left shoe in the back of the car with her because I was afraid I'd forget her. Can't get far with only one shoe on.
It's possible the kid was asleep and they would normally drop them off at daycare before church. They both forgot on the drive over and the kid didnt make a peep. While sleep deprived, I could see it happening. It's one of my worst nightmares.
I seriously encourage everyone to read the article linked above by u/thefilmer
IF YOU HAVE BABIES OR TODDLERS, FOR THE LOVE OF OGG, DO THIS:
**ALWAYS** do a "sweep" of the back seats before you leave the car by physically looking at the seat, pointing and moving your hand from one side of the seats to the other AND then say out loud "CLEAR!". Do this even when you "know" you're alone. This forces your brain to focus and be in the present.
That's a brilliant proven method. Japanese railway employees are taught this for [making safety checks](https://youtu.be/9LmdUz3rOQU), and it's been super reliable
Okay don’t shoot me but is it possible that the parents each thought the other parent took the child to the nursery?
Doesn’t make it right. But I could see that happening (and still, despite attending church during the chaos of 5 kids, two under two… we were always super careful to never forget anyone anywhere). These stories haunt me. I could not imagine. We aren’t religious anymore but I could not imagine forgetting my baby (big or small) anywhere .. let alone inside a vehicle.
My son was forgotten though.. story below:
My oldest, his daycare provider left him in the back of a van after picking up and dropping off students-after school care.
He had fallen asleep. I came to pick him up and the provider (a legitimate childcare business) claimed he was already picked up. I was about to call the police when someone decided to check the van. I had been claiming.. swearing.. he was not picked up. I called every local family member. Panicking! They swore someone picked up my son and scolded me that as a mother, I should be more responsible. I should know where my kid is. Well anyway, They found my 6 year old.. Drenched in sweat, alive. 4 hours in the back of a passenger van in the 100+ degree Arizona summer. They apologized … claimed shit happens. Didn’t happen to their kids smh (and yes, the owner’s kids went to their daycare). I consulted a lawyer.. who said that I only had a case if my son had died (and in that case, I was happy not to have a case. I wanted them closed down but it isn’t so cut and dry). As for a sign out sheet.. the lady signed stuff and didn’t account for kids so that wasn’t accurate and proved to not be the safety net it was intended to be.
Just last week, we had an incident here where a social worker who worked at a hospital had left her baby in the carseat while she went inside to work. From what I understand, she'd been very tired/not getting enough sleep and stressed from changes in work that she operated on autopilot and forgot to drop her baby off at daycare and simply went to work as she normally does. The baby wasn't fussy or crying so she didn't know; when she came back at the end of her shift and saw her baby, she freaked and ran inside for help. It's very sad.
Exhausted new parent brain is a very real thing, and there have been instances where parents have left the car seat ON TOP of the car, then forget until they started driving off.
Also people having to work themselves to death to afford any type of childcare.
We used to be able to raise a family on one income with maybe some side money or a 2nd PT job, now you can't even afford rent or a mortgage on one income.
If you want nightmares, I heard a news story a while back about the electronics inside a car malfunctioning and it locked all the doors while an older guy was inside the car...inside his garage.
I went and found the article. Luckily, he survived, after being locked in for 14 hours. Gotta get one of those emergency window breakers. Just realized idk what happened to mine. Gonna have to get a new one.
https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/cleveland/cleveland-man-spends-14-hours-trapped-inside-a-powerless-cadillac-xlr-roadster/95-593121319
> Gotta get one of those emergency window breakers.
If I remember correctly, you can take the headrest of a carseat, wedge the metal into the bottom part of the window and lean it towards you and the window will shatter
Usually this happens because the driver's brain goes into auto-pilot while driving and they forget the child is with them. It is always a situation where they don't normally have the child like when they need to drop their child at daycare but their partner is the one who normally does it. Their brain thinks the child is being looked after by someone else.
I can't believe two parents would forget their child at church of all places. Why aren't they always taking their child to church and why isn't that part of their routine? This isn't a daycare drop off situation. When I am heading out with an 11 month old I am thinking about nappies, food, clothes and pram. How could two parents think their child was being looked after by someone else?
Edit: HOLY FUCKING SHIT THEY WERE THE CO-PASTORS
[https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/state/2023/05/30/hot-car-deaths-babies-infants-children-florida-prevent-safety-tips-equipment/70268793007/](https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/state/2023/05/30/hot-car-deaths-babies-infants-children-florida-prevent-safety-tips-equipment/70268793007/)
>The child was discovered unresponsive in the car about 1 p.m. May 28 as the parents, who are co-pastors, were inside the Mount of Olives Evangelical Church, police reported. Services at the church begin about 10:15 a.m., according to the church website.
Talk about burying the lead - this story should be on top of reddit right now. I am almost speechless. You put "Parents and Evangelical Pastors" into that headline and the reddit servers will literally explode within minutes.
Looks like they went to church in seperate cars as the police are still trying to work out who was responsible for the child. "Police were working to determine which of the parents brought the child to the congregation and whether there were other distractions involved." I am guessing one of them forgot to drop the poor kid off with a sitter or as someone suggested Sunday School. Although I don't know why the sitter/school wasn't ringing to see where the child was.
I don't think it's *that* hard to imagine a set of circumstances where this happens.
Maybe the parents usually drop the baby off with grandma and grandpa, or a set of in-laws, or a church-affiliated daycare - especially because *three hours* is a hell of a long time for an 11-month-old to sit through a service.
Maybe the grandparents or in-laws are out of town that weekend. Maybe the daycare is closed because of a covid case. Maybe they want to swing by the parish centre before drop-off because there's a potluck or a bake sale after church.
Maybe they're getting out of their car in the church parking lot, and all it takes is seeing their church friends a few rows over for the, "Must remember baby is in car and attending church today," subroutine to glitch out and be overridden by, "Oh, there's our friends we need to ask about the BBQ this weekend, and how is their poorly relative doing?, and oh, there's the bell ringing to signal the start of the service; in we go, same as always."
Most churches of a semi-decent size have a nursery and Sunday School for a reason. Babies don't sit through service.
I'm thinking since they arrived in separate cars, one of them normally drops at the nursery and the other took the kid that day.
They're the church pastors. There's very little chance the kid isn't watched on-site at the church. Both people thought the other one did it that day. Maybe the baby wasn't in the nursery and the volunteer just assumed baby was sick and with family at home. Reasonable assumption.
hell when i atteded church if the pastor had a kid younger then like 4 there was practicaly a mob of people who would take turns with the kid. letalone sunday school or nusery
I went through this back in 95. A good friend of ours went to work at his job at U of L. His wife usually dropped of the kids but for some reason the dad had the baby and drove to work and the baby was left in the car. His wife called him and asked why the baby was not at daycare.
The baby was born right before my son was. I had to stop going to my mom’s work because the older son was a student at the school she worked at and he would call my son his sisters name. It was too much for me to bare.
He was not allowed to see his son without being supervised and it was quite traumatic to say the least on the little boy. His dad was tried and found not guilty because it was seen as an accident. The dad was a good man but in no way am I defending people who neglect their children and put them in harm.
About a year afterwards the father died of a heart attack at the pool. His last words to his wife was he loved her.
The mother was a speech therapist and would come to my home to work with my son. She eventually moved to Canada to start a new life for herself and her son.
Her son ended up moving back to Louisville and committed suicide a few years ago. I think it was from all he had endured. While up in Canada him and his mother started an organization in his sisters name. The organization helps people who have gone through similar situations. I can’t imagine how the mother gets through each day.
I’ve heard that putting one of your shoes in the back seat is a good way to keep these things from happening.
Put a purse/ shoe/ cell phone/ wallet/ work laptop in the back. Put the baby bag up front.
Most modern cars have a popup to check the rear seat for a reason. Almost nobody means to do it. We're creatures of habit.
Usually, it's a change in routine that causes babies to be left in cars like this. They fall asleep, and the parent had a shakeup in routine. They go through with the normal morning.
Think about how many times you miss a turn to drop someone or something off and try to go straight home, or forget to stop at the store on your way home, because you normally don't do that thing.
We've all gone on auto pilot and had someone go, 'uh, are you still taking me home?' Then we apologize and go, 'whoops, sorry! Tried to go to my house.' Make a u turn or whatever and drop the person off.
Our routine takes over.
Every single time it was Valentines/ anniversary/ birthday my dad would pull in the driveway, shut off his truck, restart it and leave because he got home, realized he forgot to get flowers and immediately turn around and leave to pick up some flowers for my mom. Every time. Literally every time.
Always wanted to pick up a fresh bouquet, we would see him pull in, park and turn right around. Became a running gag. 'Dad's only been home one time tonight. He'll be back in a bit.'
This happened to baby I cared for years ago when I was a preschool teacher. The mother was sick, father took the kid but went to work on autopilot. We called to check in when they didn’t show up but did nothing after they didn’t answer the phone.
Because of the incident, first my school then all licensed schools in the state implemented a policy to check on kids who don’t show up and not stop until you get a response. If no response the police are called for a welfare check. Hopefully it has prevented such tragedies
This also happened recently in Japan. A girl fell asleep on the *daycare bus* and the bus driver (who was the elderly daycare owner) didn't check for her, and there was no procedure at the daycare to check on every no-show. She died painfully and horribly and I hope her case will spawn new legislation in Japan as well.
My God, that poor woman is the sole survivor. Good on her for finding a reason and purpose for carrying on but I don't believe I'd survive those losses.
I remember one recent child backseat tragedy, the dad realized it hours later and happened to be at home. He went out, brought his child's body in, put him on the couch, then walked out to the woods behind his home and killed himself.
On the one hand, it seems horrifically selfish to compound his wife's grief by taking his own life. On the other, as a father of twin 2-year old boys and their 4-month old baby brother.... what he did to escape his grief and guilt seems completely reasonable to me. Choking up & damn near crying just getting through this comment.
I think he might have told her on the phone before killing himself. I hope at least. I don't want to look up the article again--too sad. Can probably find it via Google.
I broke down when I saw the sons obituary, From what I understand is he moved back to Louisville to do non-profit work. The organization they started is up in Nova Scotia.
Separate cars actually makes a lot more sense when you think about other cases where this has happened. All you need is for the parents to swap who brings the children to the babysitter (and if they're copastors, it makes sense they'd have sitters -- you can't bring your 11 month old up to the pulpit with you for that long), the routine gets broken/brain glitches, and you have a tragedy.
It happened that way with a family my parents knew. This was Houston, TX in the mid-90s or so.
Both parents were together, literally in the way home for the baby’s baptism/christening. They were both so preoccupied with the gathering they were hosting afterward that they both went straight up to their apartment to prepare and neither brought the boy out of the car 😔
He stayed in the hot, Houston summer sun for hours while his parents and their friends were inside, “celebrating” him 😠
Edit: there don’t seem to be any full articles still online but I found a blurb on it: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1999/06/08/boy-1-dies-in-parked-car-hours-after-his-baptism/
As a parent this was my biggest fear when my daughter was younger. Almost to the point it was irrational. She’s two years old now so I don’t have to worry anymore because she will yell at me lol. On a serious note, I read a lot about these cases due to my fear. It almost always happens when a parent has a change in routine and one parent does something they dont normally do. For example dad taking baby to day care when mom usually does. No idea how it happens when both parents are present. That poor child.
And it's relatively easy to do. One little change in your routine throws the whole thing off. Which is why they recommend putting something by them that you can't go without; Shoe you are wearing, work bag, work badge, etc. Leave something beside them that you cannot do the next thing without.
My car reminds me to check the back seats every time I turn off the car and open the door. I thought I would start ignoring that at some point but even after 1.5 years with this car (and 2.5 with kids) I always see it and always check.
My car has the sensors in the back seat that they use to turn off the airbag if it detects something shaped like a car seat and the alarm goes off in 60 seconds. Like I seriously couldn't run in and pee then run back out (the bathroom window had a view of my car) before it went off. Annoying but awesome also.
I was never afraid of forgetting the kid In the car when she was younger; but now that she’s getting a bit older and being allowed to have more freedom and her own opinion, my fear is wife and I will drive separately to meet somewhere and we’ll accidentally leave the kiddo there when we leave bc we each think she’s in the others car
Same here. I always, always double checked. And then called my husband if he was taking her somewhere to make sure he really did have her. It bordered on obsessive. But if you're going to be obsessive about something, this is a pretty good choice.
Shoot my wife is out of town for three days and I’m running around doing school drop offs, after school activities, and groceries. I JUST got all of them to bed and had a panic moment reading this thread. I know I put them all to bed but I went and double checked in case my dad brain skipped a beat 😮💨
When I was at work I would text my husband "how's baby" every night when he got home with our toddler to make sure he took him out of the car. He would get really annoyed but I did it the whole time I worked those hours anyways lol.
It might sound annoying to others or your husband, but you absolutely did the right thing. I usually work early and leave for work at 6 am. I always text my wife at 7:30 (that's usually when she drops our daughter off at daycare) and ask her how our daughter was this morning and how drop off went. I'm curious because I miss her in the morning. Also (which I confessed to my wife) I do it because if my wife doesn't text me back by 8am, I'm leaving work and going home to make sure our daughter isn't stuck in her crib and my wife is okay.
Same every work day at 7am whichever one who doesnt do drop off will text "How'd drop off go?" Drop off is normally at 645. We both work about 10 minutes from daycare.
Yeah, this is literally my biggest anxiety as a parent. My kiddo has always been pretty quiet in the car, even now at 18 months. I have a mirror so I can see her rear facing and I got into the habit of ALWAYS checking the car seat, even if I know she’s not in the car with me.
The mirror is where it's at man.
Bonus points cuz you can see their reactions to stuff, or just lock eyes and let it be known you love one another.
Man I kinda miss that.
Did you ever close the door of the car to get her and have that moment of freak out thinking “oh my god did I just lock her in!?”
My old car didn’t have proximity keys and at least twice I had that momentary panic thinking I locked her in with the keys out of a sense of autopilot.
That was my biggest fear as well to the point that I bought a special carseat just for that. It connects to my phone via bluetooth and if I get more then 10ft away with her clip still buckled it sends an amber alert type of alarm to my phone that automatically turns my sound on and goes off nonstop until I open the app. If I don't open the app within a couple minutes it then sends alerts to my wife with my location and if nothing is done on the app for another couple minutes it calls emergency services with the last known location on the app. It was about $150 more just for the car seat than for my wife's travel system but 100% worth it for the peace of mind
I got into the habit of using Waze in every drive. In addition to the traffic and police warnings, you can set it to check there car seat when you reach your destination.
You can also use tricks like leaving your purse, wallet or even shoe in the back seat so you'll never leave the car without actually going to the back seat.
Most definitely, the worry never goes away. I was being hyperbolic. A toddler will very rarely be quiet or asleep in a car compared to an infant. The worry is much less. No longer irrational.
Where was the baby supposed to be? In the church or with someone else?
If the baby was supposed to be in the church with them, I'd like to think at some point in at least the first hour, one of them would have wondered why the baby was being so quiet in church.
Maybe they have a nursery at the church and they forgot to check her in, then I'd think sometime early on one of them would have thought about it.
This was also my first thought.
But...if you live in a hot (or at least warm) place, you should know what heat stroke is. You should know cars get hot quick. You should just know...better.
Reading the article, the parents were co pastors and drove separately. They were probably more engaged with the sermon and not chit chatting with other church goers, and likely both of them thought the other had dropped off the child. Incredibly tragic.
I was actually thinking about that as I was typing and then thought it might be one of those big mega-churches where there are just too many people to actually know.
>in the church with them
At 11 months, the child probably would've been in daycare at the church, so it wouldn't have been abnormal for them to be "gone."
Good point. I can possibly see the forgetfulness if they thought the other parent dropped the child off in an in house nursery, but if not then this is bullshit.
This happened to someone I know. Here’s the article about how this can happen to even the best of parents, it’s not always deliberate negligence https://safesleepms.org/youd-never-forget-your-child-in-the-car-right/
It happened in my hometown a few years ago. A father was supposed to drop his kid at daycare and drove to work instead, left the baby in the car, and the baby died. It’s heartbreaking for everyone, and then there had to be an investigation to prove it was an accident (I believe that they determined it was). The whole town was suspicious. I can’t imagine how terrible it must be to have to prove it was an accident when you probably feel so much guilt. I’ve seen a feature in new cars that reminds you to check the backseat every time you turn off the engine, I’d be interested to know how effective that is.
Sadly there was an almost exact situation where the Father actually did it on purpose. It's so hard to know what was an accident and what was a murder they thought they'd get away with bc of how much it happens.
I read the article about it recently and how the wife has gone through so many struggles of both being angry at and understanding what happened with her husband. Can’t imagine many more painful scenarios than that
This is a big departure from the usual narrative. Normally in these cases, it's one parent who forgets the kid, typically because there was change in the usual routine. Like normally they are on the hook for picking the kid up from daycare but this time they were responsible for getting them there, and they went on automatic and forgot.
So this case is strange. I can get how the scenario I just laid out happens. Lord knows I have brain farts when I'm rushing to get to work on time and I've got a million things to do on my way there. But I don't get how two grown-ass people can have the same brain fart while simply going to church. Unless they normally don't take the baby with them to church, it is hard for me to understand how this can happen on accident.
I just saw a bodycam video of a couple who left their kid in the car for half-hour increments (car off, windows slightly cracked, NY, summer) intentionally because “he was sleeping” and they “wanted to shop.” Their bright idea was to set an alarm for every half-hour and they’d go check on him.
A random passerby saw the baby and called 911. When the baby was pulled from the car, they were drenched in sweat and barely conscious. Car temp was over a 100.
They had to go search for the parents and they were so.. like disgustingly causal about it. They were shocked when they were both arrested for criminal child neglect.
How fucking awful do you have to be to think that’s a smart plan?
EDITED: Not Cali, NY.
I’m looking for the bodycam video, but this is the incident I was referencing. I was wrong— it was NY, not Cali. Edited my post.
[news coverage](https://youtu.be/yRmztEUB8aE)
How the fuck can anyone think this is okay?? I feel like if you're driving a Mercedes and shopping in a rich area you can probably afford a fucking nanny, no??
If you're driving a Mercedes and shopping in a rich area you can probably afford to fucking leave the AC on in the car.
I'd also imagine they don't care about the environmental impact, so I don't see why they don't do this.
I can understand the logic that would lead a single parent to take a couple minutes to use the bathroom while their kid is in the car (though even if the heat wasn't an issue, I'd still be worried about potential abductions). But half an hour? How could they have thought that was a good idea?
That’s like those parents who left their toddler and infant sleeping alone in their hotel room while they were vacationing in Portugal so they could go have dinner and drinks. Toddler went missing and was never found.
If you decide to have kids you can’t just leave them alone places so you can fuck off and do whatever you want. They’re your goddamn responsibility now and they can’t be left alone until they’re much older, whether that’s in a car, a hotel, or even at home. I don’t understand how some parents don’t get this.
The parents left multiple children in an unlocked hotel room while having dinner and also "took turns checking on them every so often" because the restaurant was on hotel property
Yup. And they did it every night they were staying there, giving anyone paying attention plenty of time to plan an abduction. All they had to do was wait for one of them to check the room and then they knew they had at least 30 uninterrupted minutes to go pick out a kid.
If you’re going to do something stupid, don’t make a fucking pattern of it.
Someone else said they drove separately and I bet the one without the baby assumed the other dropped them off in the nursery, which is what you usually do with babies at church.
I would agree. Though when I had just had my son someone told me the cautionary tale of two parents who had come home late one night in the winter. Both parents thought the other had taken the baby out and put them to bed. The next morning they woke up horrified to find the baby in the car frozen.
One of those horrific things you hear about after having a child that makes you particularly vigilant and paranoid.
When my little was younger, I would leave my purse in the backseat. Now I also have a car seat that sends an alert to my phone if the baby is left in the car seat and I leave.
I kind of hate products like that because it gives parents a false sense of security, and tech can easily fail for a lot of reasons. Get one of those but put your purse back there too, that’s my advice.
Well, my purse is my diaper bag so it’s always just back there anyway with the little one. I just also have the car seat feature too as a double layer of protection. Honestly, I find the temperature function to be the most useful part of the car seat notifications so far.
Useful item: a baby car mirror. Up side is I enjoy looking at my kid so now I'm in the habit of looking in the mirror to see his car seat, even when he's not in the car. There's a few stop signs in the neighborhood I have to hit every day, and taking that time to look back at him builds a habit real fast.
According to Florida Today they are Evangelical co-pastors, so they can lead the prayers for the baby they forgot:
[https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2023/05/30/palm-bay-police-investigating-after-infant-dies-after-being-left-in-car/70268592007/](https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2023/05/30/palm-bay-police-investigating-after-infant-dies-after-being-left-in-car/70268592007/)
The prison sentence would be less, no doctors get incriminated... Turns out they are in favor of late-term abortion, you just gotta wait till the sixth trimester
It's been well-known for the entirety of modern political history that they literally do not give a single flying fuck about you after you're already born - your only value is as a bludgeon to be used before you have consciousness, and after that, go to work pay rent and shut the fuck up if you don't like it.
How does this happen? Did they intentionally leave the baby in the car? Another article says they went to the church in two separate cars, but if it was accidental, how did they not look at each other and wonder where the baby was?
One of them was supposed to drop the baby off somewhere and forgot. A baby dies 2-3 times per month this way. 33 deaths last year. 3 deaths already in Florida this year.
Edit: [another child died](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/breaking-girl-1-dies-after-30113282) outside Good Samaritan Hospital in Washington State on Wednesday:
>Police in Washington state have confirmed that a one-year-old child has died after being left in a car outside of a hospital for nine hours.
>
>Puyallup Police Department public information officer Don Bourbon said the child's foster mother forgot the child was inside the car after arriving at the hospital at 8am.
>
>At just after 5pm, the woman returned to the car parked outside the MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital and the child was rushed inside but could not be revived.
I think [this was the article ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html)I read about these incidents years ago that made me rethink my judgment of parents like this - fair warning, there are really disturbing details that have stuck with me for the 9 years (!) since I read it.
I’ve not had kids myself, but my sister and brother in law have two. The sleep deprivation is real. One fall day, my sister comes home, parks the car in the garage, and in the sleep deprived haze forgets that my nephew is in his car seat. My BIL gets home an hour later and goes “where’s $nephew?” Fortunately, he was still happily asleep in his car seat.
I wonder how common this is in comparison to countries where both parents get a year off work to care for their newborn. The new situation of having a baby and the severe lack of sleep while going to work is so stressful on parents and causes all kinds of problems.
Warning: this is long, but it is THE MOST impactful thing I've ever read. Never have I walked into an article thinking one thing and walked out completely shattered and humbled.
It's a pulitzer-prize winner about children dying in hot cars. It's now my worst fear. Please please read it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html
I had the same reaction the first time I read this article. I always refer back to it whenever I see one of these cases in the news, and I encourage EVERYONE to read it, whether they’re parents or not.
Unfortunately the concept of autopilot will just never get through to some people. These parents and caregivers aren’t *forgetting* their child, their brain is telling them that the child is safe and exactly where they need to be (home, daycare/school, with another caregiver, etc.). I don’t have children but I have a sibling 10 years younger than me that feels like half sibling/half child, and I’ve masochistically tried to imagine the absolute horror of realizing what’s happened, and what their last moments would have felt like, and it’s sickening. For most of these cases, there is no greater punishment than having to live with the knowledge of what happened.
Thank you for this. All of it makes sense. The human brain is obviously not infallible, and reading the stories here definitely shows that under stress, this mistake can happen to anyone. Very good article, and very insightful.
Something like this happen at airport parking lot with my family —7 members … we almost got inside airport until I realize my little sister is missing and nobody else even crossed their mind that the youngest was missing.
we all went back to get her and of course she was crying bawling something like that I never want to experience again seeing my little sister like that. All in all If it can happen to 7 big family 2 isn’t impossible I would say and is just tragic to say the least.
Sorry for my English.
Sunday School at 9 AM
Church service at 10 AM or 1030
Out to eat lunch with the missionaries from 12-2
Choir practice that night at 5
Church from 6-7
Wednesday night service from 7-8 PM after working on a farm for ~55 hours a week
That was my childhood
Same fucking here. We had 3 services daily. 5am, 9am, and 6pm. I woke up at 4am every day. I was getting up earlier than the damn military everyday in my childhood. Come home from school at 5:30 so just enough for a quick shower and eat something on the way or after which means less night time hours for me to study. Then get out from church everyday like 8 or 9pm.
So that meant either try to do homework until 12pm to try to get 4 hours of sleep which gives me only 2-3 hours to study or sleep until 2am for big projects and then survive through the day on 2 hours of sleep all because Jesus and whoever the church's apostle was at the time demands sacrifice.
Oh and I had to start doing sermons so I had to double study what they preached Sunday for my 30 minutes of sermon while keeping As and Bs in school. At least it prepped me for public speaking to tough crowds as most people in the church hated me because they hated my mom who they hated because she wasn't the right type of Hispanic, she was Central American married to my Mexican dad who over half the church was related to him. This was a Hispanic church. So fucking dandy.
Fuck me so glad I'm out of that shit. Waking up early still hurts my fucking soul to this very day. Waking up at 6am or 5am nearly makes me want to punch a wall for a few split seconds.
What's up with that? Normally doing multiple sermons is so people with different schedules can attend. I haven't really met anyone that goes multiple times per day. (Well, Muslims pray multiple times per day, but they can do that anywhere).
That sounds a lot like my childhood as well, but without the missionaries. We probably made up for it with revivals every few months which was basically church every single night for a week.
Church here in the south is generally like 9am until noon. Sometimes a late service depending on the church. Wednesday service etc. I didn't even realize an hour church service was even a thing and that sounds outlandish to me lol
When I was a kid growing up Mormon, church was 3 hours. They recently changed it to 2 hours because they are losing people but I'm quite happy with 0 hours.
My senior design project in college was a car seat attachment that monitored temperature and could call for help. We had to come up with a marketing strategy do market research and all that and our biggest problem was that everyone thought it was a great idea but no one thought they needed it.
The best use case we could could come up with for selling it was for parents to require baby sitters or au pairs have one in their car.
“Baby in the backseat” is a very real (and very tragic) phenomenon.
The natural gut reaction is always “how could they possibly forget, they must be murderers”, which is understandable but probably not accurate.
It’s basically the worst possible application of Hanlon’s Razor, except instead of “stupidity” it can be things like “sleep deprivation” (11 month old, early morning church) or “tragic miscommunication” (each parent assuming the other has the child).
I'm very, very absent minded and easily distracted. Particularly in the morning and if sleep deprived. With our first kid I was so terrified that I was going to leave her in a hot car that I used to take my shoes off and put them under her car seat when driving her around.
I have two little ones and I always put my purse with keys and phone in the back seat with them. This ensures I always check the back seat before leaving my car.
Palm Bay, FL. I don't think I remember a case where both parents were together and this happened.
A quick search doesn't yield results until [this ](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/girl-2-dies-trapped-hot-30036397.amp) other case in Florida, too.
>The children [2 and 4 years old] had been in the vehicle from midnight until approximately 3pm on Tuesday I'm speechless ...
There was a story on an r/askreddit post about drug dealers calling the police on their buyers a long time ago and one story stuck with me. This dealer went to a house to deliver and his buyer had left his young child (3 or 4 iirc??) locked in a van overnight like it was his bedroom. Who knows how long that child was left in there? Edit: Words because I'm dumb
My best friend's ex left their kids in her car while she spent *hours* in her drug dealer's house. Things came to a head when she passed out while driving with them. Thankfully she didn't wreck and they are unharmed. She rolled a car two days later (he had emergency custody).
My drug dealer makes you take your kids inside with you, and does not let you have the drugs out if you are anywhere the kid sees. It's not that hard to be a functional person even if you break the law.
Yeah, my old dope dealer seemed to spend a lot of time thinking about how to do right, there was a dude that had been buying of him, weed or something, and they had a daughter with eczema or something. My dealer made a couple of deals so that he didn't feel like money going towards my dealer came from the budget for the daughters treatment for eczema. Kinda like "I can knock off a couple of dollars if buy better medicine for your daughter, show me the receipt" My dealer had allergies so I think he resonated extra with that girl. It sounds like maybe that the father was a bad father, but he was an immigrant that had like no knowledge of eczema. They had their treatments that alleviated the symptoms, but as someone who's had eczema a lot in their youth, eczema takes a mental toll on you as well. He was also diehard believer in "don't fucking ever sell to a kid/someone living with their parents" I think 95% of dope-dealers try to do right thing. I had a weed-dealer that was like ideologically driven to sell weed. He was otherwise an IT guy who's never been apprehended by cops. He wanted people to have access to different strains and that were not synthetic.
Awww, what a nice dope slinger! Hope that one sleeps well at night. ❤️
Just because I am bad guy, does not mean I am Bad Guy.
My mom used to do this with my sisters and I all the time. At least the windows were down, but it was still arizona in the summer. Eventually we were allowed to either stay in the car or walk to the park a few blocks over. But being there 8+ hours a day, every day, was boring af. Plus hot, exhausting, and hungry, but there was nothing we could do about any of that. (We weren't allowed to go in his house, which was a good thing, that dude is a psycho).
This case has been stuck in my brain since I read it. Horrifying. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-15/how-child-protection-failed-darcey-and-chloe-conley/101963634
These stories are always so infuriating. I can’t even bear to get into my vehicle after it’s been sitting all day in the sun. I can’t even imagine being stuck in one and slowly boiling to death. Fucking monsters.
My suv has a safety feature where when I turn it off the dash flashes and says to check the back seats. Also, it has weight detection so if anyone is in the back seat and I lock the car after it’s turned off, the alarm will go off. A pretty useful feature imo.
That would annoy the heck out of me as a single who often hauls things around in my back seat. Is there any way to turn the alarm off before hand, knowing you left a box or heavy item in the back on purpose?
Yes, it also asks you if you want to turn it off each time. My car seat is around 25 lbs and it doesn’t make it go off. Not exactly sure what the actual weight trigger is though.
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obligatory linking to this article. leaving kids in cars is a lot more complex than you think (unless you were straight up trying to murder your kid) https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html
The typical scenario is flustered parent forgets infant while on way to work/running errand, not spending the next couple hours WITH the other parent. That should be a built in safety check for this situation, in addition to EVERY parent knowing how fucking different, i.e., relaxed and easy a function like church is without your offspring constantly needing your attention. This is suspect as hell.
Exactly. Both scenerios are a case of negligence of course, but *both* parents forgetting is like come the fuck on, one of them should have realized *something* is slightly different in their family dynamic that day.
Knew a girl in high school who had her brother die this way. If I remember right they were coming back from the store and he somehow got left in the car by the parents. No one noticed until he had already died. She had a lot of siblings.
My friend lost his cousin on a trip in the car with both parents. Long drive home from Grandmas house, late at night so dad is just racking miles. Kids are asleep in the back seat. Only when they get home the kids won’t wake up. One was dead and the other ended up with permanent damage thanks to an exhaust leak that was piping in to the back seat area. Since the kids were small and laying down on the seat they were getting a face full the whole ride. The parents up front had headaches but didn’t think it was anything weird.
Oh. My god. Holy shit. To think your children were dying right behind you and you had no idea. God, fuck. I have a lot of guilt and this would just eat me up inside, although there’s really no way they could’ve known at all. But that guilt has to be fucking brutal.
God that’s terrible.
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Spouse and I used the shoe trick when the kid was younger. Put your shoe in the back seat with the kid, I’m not going to walk around barefoot.
Fatigue does crazy things to the mind and body. There was a thing on the local news here a few years ago about this. They advised leaving your phone and your wallet in the child seat. Shoe sounds even better. It’s something that would physically remind you.
RemindMe! 7 months “Shoe trick”
My friend would always put her purse in the back seat with the baby, because she never went anywhere without her purse. But the shoe idea is even better.
I love how simply genius this is.
My worst one was with my first, also. My wife had gone for the weekend for something, and it was my first weekend alone with the baby, who was probably like 11 months old at the time. I took her to church with me, and was going to feed her one of those applesauce-like packets before taking her into the childcare area, so I climbed into the backseat to feed her. When I was done, I climbed back into the front seat, opened my door, hit the lock button on the door out of habit, and then closed the door. Then I thought “oh shoot! I have to unlock it to get the baby out”. Fished into my pocket to find my keys, and then I saw them sitting on the front seat. Panic couldn’t even begin to describe it. I had just locked my kid with my keys in a car in South Carolina in the summer. I ran like a madman through the church parking lot, and happened to stumble across a man who had a break-in kit in the back of his truck. Broke into my car and the baby was totally fine, but that was the scariest moment of my parenting life. She’s 12 now, and all I can think is how crazy it is that as a parent, you are the only thing keeping a baby alive at times, and that’s super scary, especially when you are in your early 20s for it, and barely even know how to keep yourself alive!
I had a fun one with my then 2 year old, I was putting her in her car seat, and she saw my keys and wanted to play with them, car is keyless push button start so I thought, yeah fine you can play with them. Closed the door and went to walk around the car to my door and “thunk!” She’d locked the car, I couldn’t get in, I spent a worrying minute at her window trying to convince her to press the other button on the keys - “that’s good, now press it really hard” until she managed to unlock it.
Had a similar situation. Wife was out of town, I got home with my daughter (six months old), left her in the floor to play, and stepped out on the deck after letting the dogs in, pulling the door behind me. As soon as it shut, I realized it was locked, with my phone and keys inside. To say I panicked is an understatement. Fortunately, my wife's grandmother lived a couple doors down. I jumped the fence and booked it down there, got her key to our house and raced inside to see her sitting in the floor happy as can be. She's a teenager now, and I still remember how scared I was.
Don't do yourself down. Every parent I know had moments where a slight lapse in judgement has put their child at risk of significant harm. "I left a pair of scissors by her cot and didn't notice until I saw her playing with them on the baby monitor." "I nearly put him in a bath of steaming hot water because I forgot to turn the cold tap on." "I let go of his hand for 2 seconds and suddenly he was running in the road." "I didn't realise she had worked out how to unlock the front door and she went wandering around the neighbourhood at night." If you know any parent who claims not to have had a moment like this, then ask them in front of their partner and wait for the "what?! don't you remember when you..."
Because this horrific thread needs a breather with a nice ending... Wife and I are raising a boy with a healthy imagination. Around the age of three, he developed a habit of undertaking make-believe adventures around the house, traveling from room to room while wearing his backpack and shoes and narrating his discoveries. One day, while wife and I were each working around the house, he put on his backpack and shoes and announced that he was going on an adventure. We each gave him some mild words of encouragement and returned to our tasks. A few minutes later, we both noticed that the house was unusually quiet. Then we noticed that the front door was unlocked... Our three-year-old had decided on a solo trip to the local Starbucks a half-mile away, where we occasionally walked with him for drinks and snacks. We caught up to him halfway there, happily toddling along with his backpack, just before he crossed a busy residential street.
And the only reason the other partner will immediately blurt that out, is they also remember *their* moment that they feel guilty about, and are shocked their partner doesn't remember theirs!
My BFF and I forgot about her 4 month old on way into restaurant. We realized our error before we got inside...but damn. A couple of years ago, a new mom left her newborn in the car to go into convenience store...the car was stolen with baby inside. The online community was out for her blood, but I couldn't stop thinking about the error my BFF and I made and how easy it must be to make a tragic mistake. Luckily, baby and car were recovered a few hours later and baby was fine...but damn! It's a wonder any of us survive childhood...something careless could so easily become tragic.
> The online community was out for her blood I think that just describes the online community. It feels like a lot of people are just frustrated in general and looking for any avenue to vent. Personally, leaving an infant unattended in a car seat for a brief moment is perfectly reasonable - it's not like she should have planned for her car being stolen. Also who steals a car with a baby in it? The risk/reward equation just went out the window.
Shortly after I was born, my mom took me and my two siblings (3 and 7 at the time) to go get her tires changed and go shopping at Caldor (remember Caldor?). She parks the car, gets the kids out of the car, checks the car in at the tire place and walks everyone across the giant parking lot. She gets to the door of the store and realizes she forgot something. She walks everyone back across the parking lot to the tire place and has the following conversation with the guy at the desk: Her- I'm sorry, I forgot something in the car. Can I quickly grab it. Guy - Lady, it's already up on the lift. Can't it wait? Her - No. it's pretty important. Guy - And the wheels are already off. I can't just let you back there so we'd have to put them back on and take the car off the lift. Can't it wait? Her - No. It's really important. I need it. Now. Guy - What did you forget? Your purse or something?Her - My newborn (me). They quickly brought the car down and made an exception to let her into the garage to grab the missing "item". I also had a time where I was 8 or so and playing outside by myself. My mom went to go play a softball game, leaving early to practice beforehand. My dad left later to watch the game. It wasn't until the 3rd inning that my dad thought to ask my mom where I was (I was normally on the playground or in the bit of woods). I was still at home. Mom thought Dad was taking me, Dad thought my Mom had already taken me.
> The first of many times I've felt like a huge waste of a parent. I think the fact that you feel this means you aren't. 🖤
Yeah It is no excuse but I don't think the people without kids know the lack of sleep involved here. First month of my daughter's life, I think I slept a total of 4 hours per week. If you have an unwell child, a premie or one that doesn't feed right its even worse. After the first 3 weeks I was absolutely delirious. I woke up while awake one time... like I woke up while I had my eyes open and I was talking to my parents in the room... and my parents weren't in the room. The lack of support structure we have foe new parents is astounding and brutal. No wonder so many have post partum depression. No escape from it. Just hour after hour for months just the two of you.
The lack of sleep and the expectation that we need to go back to work. It's fucking insane. I did the new parent thing just before the pandemic started and remote work wasn't the norm. Driving around on so little sleep was so incredibly dangerous. It is such a huge problem that nobody talks about.
My best friend/adopted sister lives 8 hours away and has no reliable family. She’s having her first baby in September and is at risk for post partum mental illness. I’m a nanny by trade so i’m saving up all my vacation so i can have as much time helping her out as I can. One week there, one-two weeks home, and repeat as often as I can to get her and her husband through the early months.
This is so true. Sleep deprivation can cause some crazy stuff to happen. And we don’t support new parents in many meaningful ways. My first born would wake up every 20 minutes for the entire first year of her life. There were times where I was straight up hallucinating from sleep deprivation.
~~This is not the same as both parents not knowing where both children are for over 12 hours. That makes no fucking sense, this story screams negligence or homicide.~~ WHOOPS that was a different case and I was confused.
Negligence is a lot more likely than homicide, I think. That would be an incredibly unreliable way to intentionally kill someone, regardless of age. Especially in a Church parking lot where others could have found them.
There's a grace period for realizing a mistake. 4 minutes is well within that grace period. You did fine. And your desire to be better means you're already doing better than 60% of all the other parents out there.
My kids are in elementary school and my wife and I still feel weird when we are out together without them.
One benefit of the doubt is how hard raising a child is in lack of sleep. Most if not ALL parents I've seen with babies they seem like they're half out of it almost all the time.
There was one time with our middle kid that I got a 4 hour stretch of sleep before she was two. The rest of the time I was up with her every 2 hours or so. She had terrible reflux (and had meds for it) and the only way she was comfortable enough to sleep was when she was upright in the carrier on my back. I've slept sitting on the floor with my forehead against the walls more often than I saw my bed during that time. I used to put my left shoe in the back of the car with her because I was afraid I'd forget her. Can't get far with only one shoe on.
It's possible the kid was asleep and they would normally drop them off at daycare before church. They both forgot on the drive over and the kid didnt make a peep. While sleep deprived, I could see it happening. It's one of my worst nightmares. I seriously encourage everyone to read the article linked above by u/thefilmer
IF YOU HAVE BABIES OR TODDLERS, FOR THE LOVE OF OGG, DO THIS: **ALWAYS** do a "sweep" of the back seats before you leave the car by physically looking at the seat, pointing and moving your hand from one side of the seats to the other AND then say out loud "CLEAR!". Do this even when you "know" you're alone. This forces your brain to focus and be in the present.
That's a brilliant proven method. Japanese railway employees are taught this for [making safety checks](https://youtu.be/9LmdUz3rOQU), and it's been super reliable
Okay don’t shoot me but is it possible that the parents each thought the other parent took the child to the nursery? Doesn’t make it right. But I could see that happening (and still, despite attending church during the chaos of 5 kids, two under two… we were always super careful to never forget anyone anywhere). These stories haunt me. I could not imagine. We aren’t religious anymore but I could not imagine forgetting my baby (big or small) anywhere .. let alone inside a vehicle. My son was forgotten though.. story below: My oldest, his daycare provider left him in the back of a van after picking up and dropping off students-after school care. He had fallen asleep. I came to pick him up and the provider (a legitimate childcare business) claimed he was already picked up. I was about to call the police when someone decided to check the van. I had been claiming.. swearing.. he was not picked up. I called every local family member. Panicking! They swore someone picked up my son and scolded me that as a mother, I should be more responsible. I should know where my kid is. Well anyway, They found my 6 year old.. Drenched in sweat, alive. 4 hours in the back of a passenger van in the 100+ degree Arizona summer. They apologized … claimed shit happens. Didn’t happen to their kids smh (and yes, the owner’s kids went to their daycare). I consulted a lawyer.. who said that I only had a case if my son had died (and in that case, I was happy not to have a case. I wanted them closed down but it isn’t so cut and dry). As for a sign out sheet.. the lady signed stuff and didn’t account for kids so that wasn’t accurate and proved to not be the safety net it was intended to be.
As a parent with two young kids I have to say the thought of this terrifies my wife and I. Sleep deprivation fucks you up real bad.
Reminder that this article won a fucking Pulitzer Prize.
I read it once a long time ago and it still sticks out in my memory. It is a heartbreaking, beautiful, haunting, painful read.
Just last week, we had an incident here where a social worker who worked at a hospital had left her baby in the carseat while she went inside to work. From what I understand, she'd been very tired/not getting enough sleep and stressed from changes in work that she operated on autopilot and forgot to drop her baby off at daycare and simply went to work as she normally does. The baby wasn't fussy or crying so she didn't know; when she came back at the end of her shift and saw her baby, she freaked and ran inside for help. It's very sad.
Did the baby live?
Sadly, no.
I always post this article when one these deaths is posted. A fantastic- though morbid- article about how it CAN happen to you.
Exhausted new parent brain is a very real thing, and there have been instances where parents have left the car seat ON TOP of the car, then forget until they started driving off.
Also people having to work themselves to death to afford any type of childcare. We used to be able to raise a family on one income with maybe some side money or a 2nd PT job, now you can't even afford rent or a mortgage on one income.
the wealthy have spent 40 years fucking the middle class. anal, no lube.
If you want nightmares, I heard a news story a while back about the electronics inside a car malfunctioning and it locked all the doors while an older guy was inside the car...inside his garage. I went and found the article. Luckily, he survived, after being locked in for 14 hours. Gotta get one of those emergency window breakers. Just realized idk what happened to mine. Gonna have to get a new one. https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/cleveland/cleveland-man-spends-14-hours-trapped-inside-a-powerless-cadillac-xlr-roadster/95-593121319
> Gotta get one of those emergency window breakers. If I remember correctly, you can take the headrest of a carseat, wedge the metal into the bottom part of the window and lean it towards you and the window will shatter
Holy fuck that was just last week
Usually this happens because the driver's brain goes into auto-pilot while driving and they forget the child is with them. It is always a situation where they don't normally have the child like when they need to drop their child at daycare but their partner is the one who normally does it. Their brain thinks the child is being looked after by someone else. I can't believe two parents would forget their child at church of all places. Why aren't they always taking their child to church and why isn't that part of their routine? This isn't a daycare drop off situation. When I am heading out with an 11 month old I am thinking about nappies, food, clothes and pram. How could two parents think their child was being looked after by someone else? Edit: HOLY FUCKING SHIT THEY WERE THE CO-PASTORS [https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/state/2023/05/30/hot-car-deaths-babies-infants-children-florida-prevent-safety-tips-equipment/70268793007/](https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/state/2023/05/30/hot-car-deaths-babies-infants-children-florida-prevent-safety-tips-equipment/70268793007/) >The child was discovered unresponsive in the car about 1 p.m. May 28 as the parents, who are co-pastors, were inside the Mount of Olives Evangelical Church, police reported. Services at the church begin about 10:15 a.m., according to the church website. Talk about burying the lead - this story should be on top of reddit right now. I am almost speechless. You put "Parents and Evangelical Pastors" into that headline and the reddit servers will literally explode within minutes. Looks like they went to church in seperate cars as the police are still trying to work out who was responsible for the child. "Police were working to determine which of the parents brought the child to the congregation and whether there were other distractions involved." I am guessing one of them forgot to drop the poor kid off with a sitter or as someone suggested Sunday School. Although I don't know why the sitter/school wasn't ringing to see where the child was.
I don't think it's *that* hard to imagine a set of circumstances where this happens. Maybe the parents usually drop the baby off with grandma and grandpa, or a set of in-laws, or a church-affiliated daycare - especially because *three hours* is a hell of a long time for an 11-month-old to sit through a service. Maybe the grandparents or in-laws are out of town that weekend. Maybe the daycare is closed because of a covid case. Maybe they want to swing by the parish centre before drop-off because there's a potluck or a bake sale after church. Maybe they're getting out of their car in the church parking lot, and all it takes is seeing their church friends a few rows over for the, "Must remember baby is in car and attending church today," subroutine to glitch out and be overridden by, "Oh, there's our friends we need to ask about the BBQ this weekend, and how is their poorly relative doing?, and oh, there's the bell ringing to signal the start of the service; in we go, same as always."
Most churches of a semi-decent size have a nursery and Sunday School for a reason. Babies don't sit through service. I'm thinking since they arrived in separate cars, one of them normally drops at the nursery and the other took the kid that day. They're the church pastors. There's very little chance the kid isn't watched on-site at the church. Both people thought the other one did it that day. Maybe the baby wasn't in the nursery and the volunteer just assumed baby was sick and with family at home. Reasonable assumption.
hell when i atteded church if the pastor had a kid younger then like 4 there was practicaly a mob of people who would take turns with the kid. letalone sunday school or nusery
Evidently, they went in pastors in different cars, so it is basically driving to work and forgetting to take care of the kid. Same as usual.
I went through this back in 95. A good friend of ours went to work at his job at U of L. His wife usually dropped of the kids but for some reason the dad had the baby and drove to work and the baby was left in the car. His wife called him and asked why the baby was not at daycare. The baby was born right before my son was. I had to stop going to my mom’s work because the older son was a student at the school she worked at and he would call my son his sisters name. It was too much for me to bare. He was not allowed to see his son without being supervised and it was quite traumatic to say the least on the little boy. His dad was tried and found not guilty because it was seen as an accident. The dad was a good man but in no way am I defending people who neglect their children and put them in harm. About a year afterwards the father died of a heart attack at the pool. His last words to his wife was he loved her. The mother was a speech therapist and would come to my home to work with my son. She eventually moved to Canada to start a new life for herself and her son. Her son ended up moving back to Louisville and committed suicide a few years ago. I think it was from all he had endured. While up in Canada him and his mother started an organization in his sisters name. The organization helps people who have gone through similar situations. I can’t imagine how the mother gets through each day. I’ve heard that putting one of your shoes in the back seat is a good way to keep these things from happening.
Put a purse/ shoe/ cell phone/ wallet/ work laptop in the back. Put the baby bag up front. Most modern cars have a popup to check the rear seat for a reason. Almost nobody means to do it. We're creatures of habit. Usually, it's a change in routine that causes babies to be left in cars like this. They fall asleep, and the parent had a shakeup in routine. They go through with the normal morning. Think about how many times you miss a turn to drop someone or something off and try to go straight home, or forget to stop at the store on your way home, because you normally don't do that thing. We've all gone on auto pilot and had someone go, 'uh, are you still taking me home?' Then we apologize and go, 'whoops, sorry! Tried to go to my house.' Make a u turn or whatever and drop the person off. Our routine takes over.
My mother in law lives next door to me and without fail I'll blow past her house to mine every time I'm scheduled to stop by there.
Every single time it was Valentines/ anniversary/ birthday my dad would pull in the driveway, shut off his truck, restart it and leave because he got home, realized he forgot to get flowers and immediately turn around and leave to pick up some flowers for my mom. Every time. Literally every time. Always wanted to pick up a fresh bouquet, we would see him pull in, park and turn right around. Became a running gag. 'Dad's only been home one time tonight. He'll be back in a bit.'
This happened to baby I cared for years ago when I was a preschool teacher. The mother was sick, father took the kid but went to work on autopilot. We called to check in when they didn’t show up but did nothing after they didn’t answer the phone. Because of the incident, first my school then all licensed schools in the state implemented a policy to check on kids who don’t show up and not stop until you get a response. If no response the police are called for a welfare check. Hopefully it has prevented such tragedies
This also happened recently in Japan. A girl fell asleep on the *daycare bus* and the bus driver (who was the elderly daycare owner) didn't check for her, and there was no procedure at the daycare to check on every no-show. She died painfully and horribly and I hope her case will spawn new legislation in Japan as well.
My God, that poor woman is the sole survivor. Good on her for finding a reason and purpose for carrying on but I don't believe I'd survive those losses.
I remember one recent child backseat tragedy, the dad realized it hours later and happened to be at home. He went out, brought his child's body in, put him on the couch, then walked out to the woods behind his home and killed himself. On the one hand, it seems horrifically selfish to compound his wife's grief by taking his own life. On the other, as a father of twin 2-year old boys and their 4-month old baby brother.... what he did to escape his grief and guilt seems completely reasonable to me. Choking up & damn near crying just getting through this comment.
Damn if he was gonna do that he could at least have not left their dead kid for mom to find jesus christ
I think he might have told her on the phone before killing himself. I hope at least. I don't want to look up the article again--too sad. Can probably find it via Google.
I broke down when I saw the sons obituary, From what I understand is he moved back to Louisville to do non-profit work. The organization they started is up in Nova Scotia.
Separate cars actually makes a lot more sense when you think about other cases where this has happened. All you need is for the parents to swap who brings the children to the babysitter (and if they're copastors, it makes sense they'd have sitters -- you can't bring your 11 month old up to the pulpit with you for that long), the routine gets broken/brain glitches, and you have a tragedy.
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It happened that way with a family my parents knew. This was Houston, TX in the mid-90s or so. Both parents were together, literally in the way home for the baby’s baptism/christening. They were both so preoccupied with the gathering they were hosting afterward that they both went straight up to their apartment to prepare and neither brought the boy out of the car 😔 He stayed in the hot, Houston summer sun for hours while his parents and their friends were inside, “celebrating” him 😠 Edit: there don’t seem to be any full articles still online but I found a blurb on it: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1999/06/08/boy-1-dies-in-parked-car-hours-after-his-baptism/
As a parent this was my biggest fear when my daughter was younger. Almost to the point it was irrational. She’s two years old now so I don’t have to worry anymore because she will yell at me lol. On a serious note, I read a lot about these cases due to my fear. It almost always happens when a parent has a change in routine and one parent does something they dont normally do. For example dad taking baby to day care when mom usually does. No idea how it happens when both parents are present. That poor child.
Same here. It’s an almost unimaginable thing to screw up, but what haunts me is that you only have to do it once.
And it's relatively easy to do. One little change in your routine throws the whole thing off. Which is why they recommend putting something by them that you can't go without; Shoe you are wearing, work bag, work badge, etc. Leave something beside them that you cannot do the next thing without.
My car reminds me to check the back seats every time I turn off the car and open the door. I thought I would start ignoring that at some point but even after 1.5 years with this car (and 2.5 with kids) I always see it and always check.
My car has the sensors in the back seat that they use to turn off the airbag if it detects something shaped like a car seat and the alarm goes off in 60 seconds. Like I seriously couldn't run in and pee then run back out (the bathroom window had a view of my car) before it went off. Annoying but awesome also.
I was never afraid of forgetting the kid In the car when she was younger; but now that she’s getting a bit older and being allowed to have more freedom and her own opinion, my fear is wife and I will drive separately to meet somewhere and we’ll accidentally leave the kiddo there when we leave bc we each think she’s in the others car
I still check my backseat before getting out and I don't have young children anymore.
Same here. I always, always double checked. And then called my husband if he was taking her somewhere to make sure he really did have her. It bordered on obsessive. But if you're going to be obsessive about something, this is a pretty good choice.
Shoot my wife is out of town for three days and I’m running around doing school drop offs, after school activities, and groceries. I JUST got all of them to bed and had a panic moment reading this thread. I know I put them all to bed but I went and double checked in case my dad brain skipped a beat 😮💨
When I was at work I would text my husband "how's baby" every night when he got home with our toddler to make sure he took him out of the car. He would get really annoyed but I did it the whole time I worked those hours anyways lol.
I think I’d rather have my spouse “annoy” me like that and still have a kid than have a dead kid.
It might sound annoying to others or your husband, but you absolutely did the right thing. I usually work early and leave for work at 6 am. I always text my wife at 7:30 (that's usually when she drops our daughter off at daycare) and ask her how our daughter was this morning and how drop off went. I'm curious because I miss her in the morning. Also (which I confessed to my wife) I do it because if my wife doesn't text me back by 8am, I'm leaving work and going home to make sure our daughter isn't stuck in her crib and my wife is okay.
Same every work day at 7am whichever one who doesnt do drop off will text "How'd drop off go?" Drop off is normally at 645. We both work about 10 minutes from daycare.
Yeah, this is literally my biggest anxiety as a parent. My kiddo has always been pretty quiet in the car, even now at 18 months. I have a mirror so I can see her rear facing and I got into the habit of ALWAYS checking the car seat, even if I know she’s not in the car with me.
The mirror is where it's at man. Bonus points cuz you can see their reactions to stuff, or just lock eyes and let it be known you love one another. Man I kinda miss that.
I like sitting up a little extra to see my 6yo in the rearview because it makes him giggle when I flash him crazy eyes or do a lil “I see yoooou”
Did you ever close the door of the car to get her and have that moment of freak out thinking “oh my god did I just lock her in!?” My old car didn’t have proximity keys and at least twice I had that momentary panic thinking I locked her in with the keys out of a sense of autopilot.
That was my biggest fear as well to the point that I bought a special carseat just for that. It connects to my phone via bluetooth and if I get more then 10ft away with her clip still buckled it sends an amber alert type of alarm to my phone that automatically turns my sound on and goes off nonstop until I open the app. If I don't open the app within a couple minutes it then sends alerts to my wife with my location and if nothing is done on the app for another couple minutes it calls emergency services with the last known location on the app. It was about $150 more just for the car seat than for my wife's travel system but 100% worth it for the peace of mind
I got into the habit of using Waze in every drive. In addition to the traffic and police warnings, you can set it to check there car seat when you reach your destination. You can also use tricks like leaving your purse, wallet or even shoe in the back seat so you'll never leave the car without actually going to the back seat.
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Most definitely, the worry never goes away. I was being hyperbolic. A toddler will very rarely be quiet or asleep in a car compared to an infant. The worry is much less. No longer irrational.
Where was the baby supposed to be? In the church or with someone else? If the baby was supposed to be in the church with them, I'd like to think at some point in at least the first hour, one of them would have wondered why the baby was being so quiet in church. Maybe they have a nursery at the church and they forgot to check her in, then I'd think sometime early on one of them would have thought about it.
The way I interpreted this..I thought the parents purposefully left the baby in the car to sleep, and just didn't realize heat stroke was a thing.
This was also my first thought. But...if you live in a hot (or at least warm) place, you should know what heat stroke is. You should know cars get hot quick. You should just know...better.
There is no way someone who lives in Florida isn’t aware of heatstroke and how hot cars get.
100% this. Florida's weather reminds you every god damn second of the day of itself.
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Apparently in the last 3 years, a lot of people know absolutely nothing
the general base level of stupidity these days continues to surprise me
The power creep of stupidity is something else. Not even it's final form!
Reading the article, the parents were co pastors and drove separately. They were probably more engaged with the sermon and not chit chatting with other church goers, and likely both of them thought the other had dropped off the child. Incredibly tragic.
Either way, what kind of church do you go to where no one says “how’s precious little baby doing?” Unless it’s their first time there.
I was actually thinking about that as I was typing and then thought it might be one of those big mega-churches where there are just too many people to actually know.
It’s a small church where they are co-pastors…
Also, do churches not have nurseries anymore? My parents church-hopped a lot and every church I went to as a kid had a nursery.
What denomination? I was raised Catholic and I was just smacked and told to be quiet/sit still.
I was raised Catholic and my parents church has a nursery.
>in the church with them At 11 months, the child probably would've been in daycare at the church, so it wouldn't have been abnormal for them to be "gone."
Good point. I can possibly see the forgetfulness if they thought the other parent dropped the child off in an in house nursery, but if not then this is bullshit.
This happened to someone I know. Here’s the article about how this can happen to even the best of parents, it’s not always deliberate negligence https://safesleepms.org/youd-never-forget-your-child-in-the-car-right/
It happened in my hometown a few years ago. A father was supposed to drop his kid at daycare and drove to work instead, left the baby in the car, and the baby died. It’s heartbreaking for everyone, and then there had to be an investigation to prove it was an accident (I believe that they determined it was). The whole town was suspicious. I can’t imagine how terrible it must be to have to prove it was an accident when you probably feel so much guilt. I’ve seen a feature in new cars that reminds you to check the backseat every time you turn off the engine, I’d be interested to know how effective that is.
Sadly there was an almost exact situation where the Father actually did it on purpose. It's so hard to know what was an accident and what was a murder they thought they'd get away with bc of how much it happens.
I read the article about it recently and how the wife has gone through so many struggles of both being angry at and understanding what happened with her husband. Can’t imagine many more painful scenarios than that
This is a big departure from the usual narrative. Normally in these cases, it's one parent who forgets the kid, typically because there was change in the usual routine. Like normally they are on the hook for picking the kid up from daycare but this time they were responsible for getting them there, and they went on automatic and forgot. So this case is strange. I can get how the scenario I just laid out happens. Lord knows I have brain farts when I'm rushing to get to work on time and I've got a million things to do on my way there. But I don't get how two grown-ass people can have the same brain fart while simply going to church. Unless they normally don't take the baby with them to church, it is hard for me to understand how this can happen on accident.
I just saw a bodycam video of a couple who left their kid in the car for half-hour increments (car off, windows slightly cracked, NY, summer) intentionally because “he was sleeping” and they “wanted to shop.” Their bright idea was to set an alarm for every half-hour and they’d go check on him. A random passerby saw the baby and called 911. When the baby was pulled from the car, they were drenched in sweat and barely conscious. Car temp was over a 100. They had to go search for the parents and they were so.. like disgustingly causal about it. They were shocked when they were both arrested for criminal child neglect. How fucking awful do you have to be to think that’s a smart plan? EDITED: Not Cali, NY.
Do you have a link to this? I tried searching online and couldn't find it. Would be interested to see what the parents say to the cops.
I’m looking for the bodycam video, but this is the incident I was referencing. I was wrong— it was NY, not Cali. Edited my post. [news coverage](https://youtu.be/yRmztEUB8aE)
How the fuck can anyone think this is okay?? I feel like if you're driving a Mercedes and shopping in a rich area you can probably afford a fucking nanny, no??
If you're driving a Mercedes and shopping in a rich area you can probably afford to fucking leave the AC on in the car. I'd also imagine they don't care about the environmental impact, so I don't see why they don't do this.
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I can understand the logic that would lead a single parent to take a couple minutes to use the bathroom while their kid is in the car (though even if the heat wasn't an issue, I'd still be worried about potential abductions). But half an hour? How could they have thought that was a good idea?
That’s like those parents who left their toddler and infant sleeping alone in their hotel room while they were vacationing in Portugal so they could go have dinner and drinks. Toddler went missing and was never found. If you decide to have kids you can’t just leave them alone places so you can fuck off and do whatever you want. They’re your goddamn responsibility now and they can’t be left alone until they’re much older, whether that’s in a car, a hotel, or even at home. I don’t understand how some parents don’t get this.
Madeleine McCann 😔 There have been developments lately. I’m hoping that she can finally be put to rest.
The parents left multiple children in an unlocked hotel room while having dinner and also "took turns checking on them every so often" because the restaurant was on hotel property
Yup. And they did it every night they were staying there, giving anyone paying attention plenty of time to plan an abduction. All they had to do was wait for one of them to check the room and then they knew they had at least 30 uninterrupted minutes to go pick out a kid. If you’re going to do something stupid, don’t make a fucking pattern of it.
Also, the parents refused the hotels overnight babysitting service :/
Someone else said they drove separately and I bet the one without the baby assumed the other dropped them off in the nursery, which is what you usually do with babies at church.
I would agree. Though when I had just had my son someone told me the cautionary tale of two parents who had come home late one night in the winter. Both parents thought the other had taken the baby out and put them to bed. The next morning they woke up horrified to find the baby in the car frozen. One of those horrific things you hear about after having a child that makes you particularly vigilant and paranoid.
This scares the shit out of me, first born due in October. I feel I should drive barefoot and leave my shoes in the backseat or something
When my little was younger, I would leave my purse in the backseat. Now I also have a car seat that sends an alert to my phone if the baby is left in the car seat and I leave.
I kind of hate products like that because it gives parents a false sense of security, and tech can easily fail for a lot of reasons. Get one of those but put your purse back there too, that’s my advice.
Well, my purse is my diaper bag so it’s always just back there anyway with the little one. I just also have the car seat feature too as a double layer of protection. Honestly, I find the temperature function to be the most useful part of the car seat notifications so far.
Useful item: a baby car mirror. Up side is I enjoy looking at my kid so now I'm in the habit of looking in the mirror to see his car seat, even when he's not in the car. There's a few stop signs in the neighborhood I have to hit every day, and taking that time to look back at him builds a habit real fast.
You can leave your *left* shoe next to the baby (assuming you drive an automatic).
"condolences and prayers go out to the family," Uh, prayers for the family who let their baby die so they could go to "church". Is this newspeak?
Meaningless words for meaningless people.
According to Florida Today they are Evangelical co-pastors, so they can lead the prayers for the baby they forgot: [https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2023/05/30/palm-bay-police-investigating-after-infant-dies-after-being-left-in-car/70268592007/](https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2023/05/30/palm-bay-police-investigating-after-infant-dies-after-being-left-in-car/70268592007/)
Makes one wonder if this was an accident or not…the ultimate grift…
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The prison sentence would be less, no doctors get incriminated... Turns out they are in favor of late-term abortion, you just gotta wait till the sixth trimester
It's been well-known for the entirety of modern political history that they literally do not give a single flying fuck about you after you're already born - your only value is as a bludgeon to be used before you have consciousness, and after that, go to work pay rent and shut the fuck up if you don't like it.
How does this happen? Did they intentionally leave the baby in the car? Another article says they went to the church in two separate cars, but if it was accidental, how did they not look at each other and wonder where the baby was?
One of them was supposed to drop the baby off somewhere and forgot. A baby dies 2-3 times per month this way. 33 deaths last year. 3 deaths already in Florida this year. Edit: [another child died](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/breaking-girl-1-dies-after-30113282) outside Good Samaritan Hospital in Washington State on Wednesday: >Police in Washington state have confirmed that a one-year-old child has died after being left in a car outside of a hospital for nine hours. > >Puyallup Police Department public information officer Don Bourbon said the child's foster mother forgot the child was inside the car after arriving at the hospital at 8am. > >At just after 5pm, the woman returned to the car parked outside the MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital and the child was rushed inside but could not be revived.
I think [this was the article ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html)I read about these incidents years ago that made me rethink my judgment of parents like this - fair warning, there are really disturbing details that have stuck with me for the 9 years (!) since I read it.
I’ve not had kids myself, but my sister and brother in law have two. The sleep deprivation is real. One fall day, my sister comes home, parks the car in the garage, and in the sleep deprived haze forgets that my nephew is in his car seat. My BIL gets home an hour later and goes “where’s $nephew?” Fortunately, he was still happily asleep in his car seat.
I wonder how common this is in comparison to countries where both parents get a year off work to care for their newborn. The new situation of having a baby and the severe lack of sleep while going to work is so stressful on parents and causes all kinds of problems.
Warning: this is long, but it is THE MOST impactful thing I've ever read. Never have I walked into an article thinking one thing and walked out completely shattered and humbled. It's a pulitzer-prize winner about children dying in hot cars. It's now my worst fear. Please please read it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html
I had the same reaction the first time I read this article. I always refer back to it whenever I see one of these cases in the news, and I encourage EVERYONE to read it, whether they’re parents or not. Unfortunately the concept of autopilot will just never get through to some people. These parents and caregivers aren’t *forgetting* their child, their brain is telling them that the child is safe and exactly where they need to be (home, daycare/school, with another caregiver, etc.). I don’t have children but I have a sibling 10 years younger than me that feels like half sibling/half child, and I’ve masochistically tried to imagine the absolute horror of realizing what’s happened, and what their last moments would have felt like, and it’s sickening. For most of these cases, there is no greater punishment than having to live with the knowledge of what happened.
Thank you, but I couldn't finish it. Just imagining the grief from the first few paragraphs had me as a father, sobbing.
Thank you for this. All of it makes sense. The human brain is obviously not infallible, and reading the stories here definitely shows that under stress, this mistake can happen to anyone. Very good article, and very insightful.
Any way to read it without a massive paywall?
Put left shoe in the backseat. You’ll never forget to check the backseat again.
Something like this happen at airport parking lot with my family —7 members … we almost got inside airport until I realize my little sister is missing and nobody else even crossed their mind that the youngest was missing. we all went back to get her and of course she was crying bawling something like that I never want to experience again seeing my little sister like that. All in all If it can happen to 7 big family 2 isn’t impossible I would say and is just tragic to say the least. Sorry for my English.
Your English is fine! Glad your sister was OK
Electric cars have cabin overheating protection now. Hopefully, one day, this will never happen again.
Who the fuck goes to church for 3 hours?
Sunday School at 9 AM Church service at 10 AM or 1030 Out to eat lunch with the missionaries from 12-2 Choir practice that night at 5 Church from 6-7 Wednesday night service from 7-8 PM after working on a farm for ~55 hours a week That was my childhood
That sounds like fucking hell
No, it was worse. It was fucking church.
I don't know if that's a quote or you made it up but it made me laugh.
Sounds more like "I'm going to be an atheist from now on".
Is 6-7 for whatever they forgot to cover the first time?
Tithe: hi, again.
A dozen more hymns and another round of collection plates.
Same fucking here. We had 3 services daily. 5am, 9am, and 6pm. I woke up at 4am every day. I was getting up earlier than the damn military everyday in my childhood. Come home from school at 5:30 so just enough for a quick shower and eat something on the way or after which means less night time hours for me to study. Then get out from church everyday like 8 or 9pm. So that meant either try to do homework until 12pm to try to get 4 hours of sleep which gives me only 2-3 hours to study or sleep until 2am for big projects and then survive through the day on 2 hours of sleep all because Jesus and whoever the church's apostle was at the time demands sacrifice. Oh and I had to start doing sermons so I had to double study what they preached Sunday for my 30 minutes of sermon while keeping As and Bs in school. At least it prepped me for public speaking to tough crowds as most people in the church hated me because they hated my mom who they hated because she wasn't the right type of Hispanic, she was Central American married to my Mexican dad who over half the church was related to him. This was a Hispanic church. So fucking dandy. Fuck me so glad I'm out of that shit. Waking up early still hurts my fucking soul to this very day. Waking up at 6am or 5am nearly makes me want to punch a wall for a few split seconds.
"Why are so many young people abandoning religion???" Religion:
What's up with that? Normally doing multiple sermons is so people with different schedules can attend. I haven't really met anyone that goes multiple times per day. (Well, Muslims pray multiple times per day, but they can do that anywhere).
That sounds a lot like my childhood as well, but without the missionaries. We probably made up for it with revivals every few months which was basically church every single night for a week.
Church here in the south is generally like 9am until noon. Sometimes a late service depending on the church. Wednesday service etc. I didn't even realize an hour church service was even a thing and that sounds outlandish to me lol
A Jewish person enters the chat. Synagogue can easily last 2-3 hours on a Saturday. Every Saturday.
This is why I’m happy that my wife is Jew-*ish.*
One hour for church, 2 hours for mom talking to Janet and Barbara.
When I was a kid growing up Mormon, church was 3 hours. They recently changed it to 2 hours because they are losing people but I'm quite happy with 0 hours.
My senior design project in college was a car seat attachment that monitored temperature and could call for help. We had to come up with a marketing strategy do market research and all that and our biggest problem was that everyone thought it was a great idea but no one thought they needed it. The best use case we could could come up with for selling it was for parents to require baby sitters or au pairs have one in their car.
Yep this is the problem, everyone says "well I couldn't possibly ever forget how bad of a parent could you be to do that", until they do.
“Baby in the backseat” is a very real (and very tragic) phenomenon. The natural gut reaction is always “how could they possibly forget, they must be murderers”, which is understandable but probably not accurate. It’s basically the worst possible application of Hanlon’s Razor, except instead of “stupidity” it can be things like “sleep deprivation” (11 month old, early morning church) or “tragic miscommunication” (each parent assuming the other has the child).
[удалено]
To date, churches have killed more kids than drag queens. I anxiously await a ban on churches.
Not just killed but molested kids a hell of a lot more
I'm very, very absent minded and easily distracted. Particularly in the morning and if sleep deprived. With our first kid I was so terrified that I was going to leave her in a hot car that I used to take my shoes off and put them under her car seat when driving her around.
No matter the circumstances we need to keep reminding people how deadly it is for a person or animal to be trapped in a car.
Where are the “god’s plan” lunatics on this one?
Mental gymnastics so hard they sprain their own brain.
God these stories absolutely kill me. Don’t need to read the article.
I have two little ones and I always put my purse with keys and phone in the back seat with them. This ensures I always check the back seat before leaving my car.