Parenting Blog

Last Sunday The Washington Post ran a wrenching story by Gene Weingarten about parents who forget their sleeping baby or toddler is still in the car seat, park the car, and leave the baby in a locked, hot or cold car all day to die. 

My first thought, of course, was that I would never do that.  Forget about my baby?!  What's wrong with these people? But these parents were all sleep deprived and overwhelmed.  They were all doing something out of the ordinary, for instance, dropping the baby at daycare because their spouse was out of town, when it wasn't their usual routine.  So their brains went on auto-pilot and they drove to work as usual.  Rear-facing carseats and tinted glass in vans don't help.

I think I'm a terrific parent.  But I know what it's like to be sleep-deprived, and I've done plenty of dumb things on auto-pilot.  So I'm convinced that given the right conditions I, like most parents, could make this unbelievable error and leave my child to die.

But here's what I haven't seen talked about in all the outpouring of response to this story.  The conditions that create such a tragedy aren't conditions any parents should put up with, or any kids grow up in. 

That may sound harsh, given the economic constraints on families today.  But this wasn't the first sign these parents had that their lives were out of kilter.  The universe always taps you on the shoulder before it slugs you in the face.  If these parents had paid attention to those shoulder taps, they could have made appropriate changes in their lives before their children were sacrificed.

I want to be clear that I'm not blaming the parents. They're victims too, of a society that expects parents to "do it all" -- raise small children and work full-time.  Most of us do it and consider it normal, without understanding the high cost to our children.  Most of the time, we muddle through, not realizing that our toddler's tantrums or our preschooler's anxiety come directly from our way of life.  Sometimes, it's a recipe for disaster.

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I want to thank GC, who wrote to the Wall Street Journal Blog The Juggle with a compilation of suggestions for parents.  I'm taking the liberty of passing them on in the hopes that awareness can prevent some future tragedies. 

*Keep your purse or bag in the back seat with the baby
* Ensure that all childcare providers have up-to-date phone numbers and that they will call ALL numbers if a child doesn’t show up
* Mom check in on dad and vice versa, especially if routines are shifted on any given day
* What about setting your cell phone to beep at the time that you arrive at the workplace, and then when it beeps, you always look back to make sure the child isn’t there (or you call your partner to make sure the child is dropped off)?
* A buddy system with another mom or dad?
* Some sort of system where you turn a different radio station on — one you don’t normally listen to — when you get in the car and you need to do something different than your normal routine?
* What about sticking a sign on your chest “Baby on Board!” that you’ll have to remove when you drop off the baby? (or coworkers will alert you to the problem because they’ll see the sign).
* What about getting a reminder flag like the ones that motorcyclists use so that they don’t accidentally drive off with locks on their wheels? (http://www.lockitt.com/accessoriesreminders.htm). Stick one end on the car seat, and the other end on your door handle or somewhere like that, and make it part of the strapping-in process.
* Give a car seat alarm system as a baby-welcoming gift.