7 ms·

The very big difference is that child-bakes-in-the-car heat deaths are not because Dad left the kids in the car while he ran in to the store for a few minutes,

by jbellis 12y ago

The very big difference is that child-bakes-in-the-car heat deaths are not because Dad left the kids in the car while he ran in to the store for a few minutes, but because Dad forgot the kid was in the car at all. http://www.parenting.com/article/tragedy-in-the-backseat-hot-car-deaths?cid=plusblog http://www.parenting.com/article/tragedy-in-the-backseat-hot...

DanBC 12y ago
Parent runs into store for few minutes, trips and knocks head becoming unconcious / has stroke / has heart attack / etc etc - child dies. Having said that, This story is a really good example of how tough it is for some parents and how hostile society is to parenting.
- baddox 12y ago
  If the father became unconscious, had a stroke or a heart attack, etc. while driving or doing anything with the child away from other people, the child could die.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    Yes, but people would know the child was there. If someone fall down unconscious in the middle of the supermarket nobody knows which car they arrived in, or even for sure that they arrived in a car, and nobody knows about the unattended child. That's a different kind of risk. On the other hand, for the person in the parking lot to film the child in the car and call police, but not make any contact with the child or wait by the car, borders on malice. Police and prosecutors should investigate but heavily discount such pseudo-testimony because it is deliberately presented without context.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      Approaching a young child who has been left alone in a car is foolish in today's paranoic society. Also, the returning parent is unlikely to be grateful to the comments of "I was just making sure your left alone child was not dying".
      - darklajid 12y ago
        That is an entirely different world of crazy that doesn't belong here, does it? Are we going to turn this into a 'You need to be careful about talking to a child' debate? If you cannot address/talk to a child, things are worse OUTSIDE of that car.
        DanBC 12y ago
        Of course it belongs here! In a sensible world she would have been able to call out to some car-park lurker "hey I'm just going to grab something from the store, can you just wave at my kid through this window"; or she could just run in and grab something and people seeing her run in and then out would not call the police; or etc etc. Society has decided that men wanting to work with children are creepy (try finding pre-schools with male workers and early years schools with male teachers), and this extends to the damaging concept of "stranger danger" where someone waiting by the car to check the child is safe is not going to be seen as a welcome bit of support for a busy harassed mother but will be seen as a creepy threat. It's all part of the same weird system of protecting children without regard to what actual risk is.
      - anigbrowl 12y ago
        The person was near enough to spot the child and take a photograph, so they could have remained at that distance and call the police if they feel it's necessary, not least to advise the returning parent/guardian that the police were called. In that case the police would probably have arrived and written a ticket or something. Although this would have involved a delay and frustration for the temporarily unattentive parent, it would have been better than the actual outcome involving the issuance of arrest warrants. One could say 'why not let the matter drop, the Mom came back and so everything was OK' but that's a classic example of hindsight bias. From the police POV, a child was left alone in a vehicle that was later driven off by someone else. When they followed up, it turned out that the person who drove off was not the owner of the vehicle (which belonged to the child's grandparents). They have to at least consider the possibility of malfeasance.
        DanBC 12y ago
    - darklajid 12y ago
      The argument still sucks. Given a reasonable choice in the beginning ("The weather's cool, the kid strapped in, car is secured, will be right back") the kid would - what? Complain and cry after a while? It's a four year old boy with a tendency (if you read between the lines) to throw fits. Maybe all boys are like that.. If the mother (to stay with the original article) would've fallen unconscious or dead in the supermarket, nevermind that both options would have some consequences for the family, the kid would've been fine. Calling the cops was fine. Creepy the way it was described, but okay. Cops arriving was fine. That's their job. "Huh? The "abandoned" kid is gone already? Let's trace the car and take out our frustration on .. the mother?" wasn't fine. That was just braindead. The correct movie quote variation would've been "Nothing happened, move along". Theoretical "But here's how the kid could've died" arguments are .. weird. And countless.
      - DanBC 12y ago
        I agree that the police reaction is sub-optimal, but there are reasons not to tie a child to a seat and lock them into a car and then leave them unsupervised, even if that is for a few minutes.
        wvenable 12y ago
        And those reasons are?
        darklajid 12y ago
        Reasons not to .. and reasons to to exactly that. The decision is not yours, not ours. It's the parent's. Like everything else about the daily life of the kid. That argument contains no value. Of course there are reasons that one might not do that. Loop/Recur to line 1.
        anigbrowl 12y ago
        That's not much help for kids who do have abusive or neglectful parents, is it? They're citizens too and if they're stuck in a dangerous situation they're entitled to the same level of protection as any other member of society. there's a middle ground between the state as inflexible guardian and complete parental sovereignty.
  - munificent 12y ago
    This can happen when you're home alone with your children too. Should we require night chaperones? What's the acceptable level of present adult redundancy?
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Yes, driving to the store is considerably more dangerous for the child (even if it's in correctly fitted car seat (and many children are not)) than being left for a few minutes in the car. Still, leaving the child alone leaves them open to more risk than taking them out of the car. This parent was not buying anything important - just headphones for a child - and they took the wasy options by i) taking child to shops and ii) not taking child out of car. I don't criticise other people's parenting because I am particularly lucky with my son but the idea of leaving my nearly-four-yo son unaccompanied (out of eyesight) fills me with cold fear. Again, the problem here isn't that they left their son for a few minutes in a car, it is that society is pretty hostile to parents and parenting, simultaneously being quick to judge and slow to offer any real support.
    - darklajid 12y ago
      »I don't criticise other people's parenting because I am particularly lucky with my son but the idea of leaving my nearly-four-yo son unaccompanied (out of eyesight) fills me with cold fear.« The thing is: 1) You do. The post says "She was lazy"¹. That's criticizing. 2) Your pov is noted and fine. You're probably a good parent. But what works for you isn't transferable to other parents and kids. And those parents will make decisions that wouldn't work/make sense for you and your kid. I love that my not-yet-two son disappears and plays in hidden corners. He's probably longer out of my (and my wife's) sight than the boy in that car was, albeit in our apartment. Cold fear sounds nasty. I understand that to a point, but for this particular parent that wouldn't work/would be unhealthy. We're different. Projecting one's idea about child care is different from laws about child care. 1: Blame reading comprehension skills on my English teacher
    - wvenable 12y ago
      > Still, leaving the child alone leaves them open to more risk than taking them out of the car. So a child in an immobile tested-safe metal box with ventilation, locked and alarmed, is more at risk than being outside the car? I'd like to understand how you came to that reasoning.
- imgabe 12y ago
  Parent is driving the car and has a heart attack/stroke/etc. Car crashes and child dies. I guess we better make it illegal for parents to drive cars with kids in them.
- revelation 12y ago
  How hostile society is to parenting? Did I read that right? Parents have free reign to brainwash their kids into some religious cult. Then theres the whole homeschooling thing - yes, enlightened HN readers will protest that they are able to give their kids a better education than the crappy public school system could, but lets face it, home schooling is as much a cover for the many nutjobs out there that don't want the scientific method taught in school. Lets not start on vaccines. Basically, until you are 18, you belong to your parents and have zero rights, treated as a child by society. It's funny how we all forget this once we turn into adults.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    You make some good points about parental rights. Look at vaccinations. (Vaccinations are good; I had no hesitation having my child immunised; I'd like schools to require immunisations for pupils; etc). The early days of the vaccination scandal were not presented as a bit of scientific research, it was "you, as a parent, are harming your child by vaccinating them" (and that's still what the nutjobs are saying). Now that we know that Wakefield is a crook we tend not to say "you were duped by a crook who had financial interests in misleading you so let's help you get your child immunised", we say "you're a nutjob and a bad parent". Look at HN where parents feel guilt about work life balance for one example of how hard it is to be a parent in a rich first world country. Look at the number of people on HN who (ignoring law) say they would hesitate to employ women because of the risk of maternity leave. The fact that "having a child" has to be written into legislation as a protected status shows that status of parents was seen as needing protection.
  - crystalmace 12y ago
    While I recognize that homeschooling is done by some because of their religious beliefs, and yes, some of those beliefs are pretty unusual, I would like to remind you that homeschooling is actually not 100% a cover for the nutjobs out there. I was homeschooled, and I'm now graduated highschool at 16. Homeschooling is a great way to avoid the mess and poor education that is public school, and in my experience with other homeschoolers, there aren't as many nutjobs as you seem to think. I apologize if I missed the point of what you were saying, but I wished to present an alternative view of homeschooling.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  I think like this, always able to consider the worst case scenario. So, whilst I've left my kid(s) in the car on occassions I've never left them without leaving the window open a bit ... of course that makes it easier to open the door and kidnap them ...
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Well, the worse case scenario is that a parent takes the child out of the car and a truck plows into them both leaving them alive but severely brain damaged, requiring 24 hour care. The truck driver is poor and has no insurance, and the parent was inadaquately insured too.
    - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      And the truck was driven by the other parent. Yes, my brain can play that game all day.
jongraehl 12y ago
I was always allowed and encouraged to open doors+windows while waiting in a car as a child.
awj 12y ago
Even the link you cited claims that 15 minutes can be enough time under surprisingly temperate conditions. I've easily spent that amount of time waiting through lines on something that should have been a quick run to the store.

by jbellis 12y ago

DanBC 12y ago

Parent runs into store for few minutes, trips and knocks head becoming unconcious / has stroke / has heart attack / etc etc - child dies. Having said that, This story is a really good example of how tough it is for some parents and how hostile society is to parenting.

baddox 12y ago
If the father became unconscious, had a stroke or a heart attack, etc. while driving or doing anything with the child away from other people, the child could die.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Yes, but people would know the child was there. If someone fall down unconscious in the middle of the supermarket nobody knows which car they arrived in, or even for sure that they arrived in a car, and nobody knows about the unattended child. That's a different kind of risk. On the other hand, for the person in the parking lot to film the child in the car and call police, but not make any contact with the child or wait by the car, borders on malice. Police and prosecutors should investigate but heavily discount such pseudo-testimony because it is deliberately presented without context.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Approaching a young child who has been left alone in a car is foolish in today's paranoic society. Also, the returning parent is unlikely to be grateful to the comments of "I was just making sure your left alone child was not dying".
    - darklajid 12y ago
      That is an entirely different world of crazy that doesn't belong here, does it? Are we going to turn this into a 'You need to be careful about talking to a child' debate? If you cannot address/talk to a child, things are worse OUTSIDE of that car.
      - DanBC 12y ago
        Of course it belongs here! In a sensible world she would have been able to call out to some car-park lurker "hey I'm just going to grab something from the store, can you just wave at my kid through this window"; or she could just run in and grab something and people seeing her run in and then out would not call the police; or etc etc. Society has decided that men wanting to work with children are creepy (try finding pre-schools with male workers and early years schools with male teachers), and this extends to the damaging concept of "stranger danger" where someone waiting by the car to check the child is safe is not going to be seen as a welcome bit of support for a busy harassed mother but will be seen as a creepy threat. It's all part of the same weird system of protecting children without regard to what actual risk is.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      The person was near enough to spot the child and take a photograph, so they could have remained at that distance and call the police if they feel it's necessary, not least to advise the returning parent/guardian that the police were called. In that case the police would probably have arrived and written a ticket or something. Although this would have involved a delay and frustration for the temporarily unattentive parent, it would have been better than the actual outcome involving the issuance of arrest warrants. One could say 'why not let the matter drop, the Mom came back and so everything was OK' but that's a classic example of hindsight bias. From the police POV, a child was left alone in a vehicle that was later driven off by someone else. When they followed up, it turned out that the person who drove off was not the owner of the vehicle (which belonged to the child's grandparents). They have to at least consider the possibility of malfeasance.
      - DanBC 12y ago
  - darklajid 12y ago
    The argument still sucks. Given a reasonable choice in the beginning ("The weather's cool, the kid strapped in, car is secured, will be right back") the kid would - what? Complain and cry after a while? It's a four year old boy with a tendency (if you read between the lines) to throw fits. Maybe all boys are like that.. If the mother (to stay with the original article) would've fallen unconscious or dead in the supermarket, nevermind that both options would have some consequences for the family, the kid would've been fine. Calling the cops was fine. Creepy the way it was described, but okay. Cops arriving was fine. That's their job. "Huh? The "abandoned" kid is gone already? Let's trace the car and take out our frustration on .. the mother?" wasn't fine. That was just braindead. The correct movie quote variation would've been "Nothing happened, move along". Theoretical "But here's how the kid could've died" arguments are .. weird. And countless.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      I agree that the police reaction is sub-optimal, but there are reasons not to tie a child to a seat and lock them into a car and then leave them unsupervised, even if that is for a few minutes.
      - wvenable 12y ago
        And those reasons are?
      - darklajid 12y ago
        Reasons not to .. and reasons to to exactly that. The decision is not yours, not ours. It's the parent's. Like everything else about the daily life of the kid. That argument contains no value. Of course there are reasons that one might not do that. Loop/Recur to line 1.
        anigbrowl 12y ago
        That's not much help for kids who do have abusive or neglectful parents, is it? They're citizens too and if they're stuck in a dangerous situation they're entitled to the same level of protection as any other member of society. there's a middle ground between the state as inflexible guardian and complete parental sovereignty.
- munificent 12y ago
  This can happen when you're home alone with your children too. Should we require night chaperones? What's the acceptable level of present adult redundancy?
- DanBC 12y ago
  Yes, driving to the store is considerably more dangerous for the child (even if it's in correctly fitted car seat (and many children are not)) than being left for a few minutes in the car. Still, leaving the child alone leaves them open to more risk than taking them out of the car. This parent was not buying anything important - just headphones for a child - and they took the wasy options by i) taking child to shops and ii) not taking child out of car. I don't criticise other people's parenting because I am particularly lucky with my son but the idea of leaving my nearly-four-yo son unaccompanied (out of eyesight) fills me with cold fear. Again, the problem here isn't that they left their son for a few minutes in a car, it is that society is pretty hostile to parents and parenting, simultaneously being quick to judge and slow to offer any real support.
  - darklajid 12y ago
    »I don't criticise other people's parenting because I am particularly lucky with my son but the idea of leaving my nearly-four-yo son unaccompanied (out of eyesight) fills me with cold fear.« The thing is: 1) You do. The post says "She was lazy"¹. That's criticizing. 2) Your pov is noted and fine. You're probably a good parent. But what works for you isn't transferable to other parents and kids. And those parents will make decisions that wouldn't work/make sense for you and your kid. I love that my not-yet-two son disappears and plays in hidden corners. He's probably longer out of my (and my wife's) sight than the boy in that car was, albeit in our apartment. Cold fear sounds nasty. I understand that to a point, but for this particular parent that wouldn't work/would be unhealthy. We're different. Projecting one's idea about child care is different from laws about child care. 1: Blame reading comprehension skills on my English teacher
  - wvenable 12y ago
    > Still, leaving the child alone leaves them open to more risk than taking them out of the car. So a child in an immobile tested-safe metal box with ventilation, locked and alarmed, is more at risk than being outside the car? I'd like to understand how you came to that reasoning.
imgabe 12y ago
Parent is driving the car and has a heart attack/stroke/etc. Car crashes and child dies. I guess we better make it illegal for parents to drive cars with kids in them.
revelation 12y ago
How hostile society is to parenting? Did I read that right? Parents have free reign to brainwash their kids into some religious cult. Then theres the whole homeschooling thing - yes, enlightened HN readers will protest that they are able to give their kids a better education than the crappy public school system could, but lets face it, home schooling is as much a cover for the many nutjobs out there that don't want the scientific method taught in school. Lets not start on vaccines. Basically, until you are 18, you belong to your parents and have zero rights, treated as a child by society. It's funny how we all forget this once we turn into adults.
- DanBC 12y ago
  You make some good points about parental rights. Look at vaccinations. (Vaccinations are good; I had no hesitation having my child immunised; I'd like schools to require immunisations for pupils; etc). The early days of the vaccination scandal were not presented as a bit of scientific research, it was "you, as a parent, are harming your child by vaccinating them" (and that's still what the nutjobs are saying). Now that we know that Wakefield is a crook we tend not to say "you were duped by a crook who had financial interests in misleading you so let's help you get your child immunised", we say "you're a nutjob and a bad parent". Look at HN where parents feel guilt about work life balance for one example of how hard it is to be a parent in a rich first world country. Look at the number of people on HN who (ignoring law) say they would hesitate to employ women because of the risk of maternity leave. The fact that "having a child" has to be written into legislation as a protected status shows that status of parents was seen as needing protection.
- crystalmace 12y ago
  While I recognize that homeschooling is done by some because of their religious beliefs, and yes, some of those beliefs are pretty unusual, I would like to remind you that homeschooling is actually not 100% a cover for the nutjobs out there. I was homeschooled, and I'm now graduated highschool at 16. Homeschooling is a great way to avoid the mess and poor education that is public school, and in my experience with other homeschoolers, there aren't as many nutjobs as you seem to think. I apologize if I missed the point of what you were saying, but I wished to present an alternative view of homeschooling.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
I think like this, always able to consider the worst case scenario. So, whilst I've left my kid(s) in the car on occassions I've never left them without leaving the window open a bit ... of course that makes it easier to open the door and kidnap them ...
- DanBC 12y ago
  Well, the worse case scenario is that a parent takes the child out of the car and a truck plows into them both leaving them alive but severely brain damaged, requiring 24 hour care. The truck driver is poor and has no insurance, and the parent was inadaquately insured too.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    And the truck was driven by the other parent. Yes, my brain can play that game all day.

jongraehl 12y ago

I was always allowed and encouraged to open doors+windows while waiting in a car as a child.

awj 12y ago

Even the link you cited claims that 15 minutes can be enough time under surprisingly temperate conditions. I've easily spent that amount of time waiting through lines on something that should have been a quick run to the store.