Friday, July 31, 2015

Parents who have left their children in a hot car are human, just like you.

chla.org
I've never left my children in the car alone. I don't understand how any parent can forget they have children buckled in the back seat. But when I see the hatred lashed out at parents who accidentally left their children in a hot car, it makes me sick.

They made a mistake. They're human.

Just like you.

How many of us have taken our children to InstaCare or the ER for something that could've been prevented had we just been paying a little more attention? But what do we say when asked about it?

"Dude, it was an accident! I'm only human!"

Could leaving a child in a hot car cause that child's death? Yeah. Do you honestly think that good, upstanding people--which most parents are--wouldn't be beating themselves up over that for a long time? Do you think they're not going to take every precaution possible to make sure it never happens again? Do you think they're ever going to look at their child from then on and not remember that terrible day?

If the child died, how do you think the parents feel when they have to bury that child for a mistake they made? Isn't that punishment enough?

We're human, We've ALL make both small and big mistakes. Sometimes, our children are the victims of those mistakes. Don't even try to tell me you've never messed up with your kids.

The only reason the hot car incidents get all the attention is because those situations usually happen in public places. The parents get publicly shamed because they had no chance to take the child to the ER to show they're taking responsibility for their mistake; someone else found the child first. Now in this case, it's a very good thing the child was found. But we shouldn't take the situation as an opportunity to shame the parent because of it. I promise they're beating themselves up enough.

We don't need lectures on how bad of a parent we are when we make a big mistake. Really, it's not necessary. We are painfully aware of how it could've been prevented and guess what? We are never going to forget. Any horrible accident involving our children--be it truly terrible or just terrible in our perspective--will be seared into our minds FOR-E-VER. Sometimes, it will haunt us in our nightmares. We don't need the public to remind us that we did something stupid.

Believe me, we know.

But the car seat thing's different because children left in cars are defenseless, right? Um, children who found that medicine bottle that you thought was safe or choked on something they never should have been able to touch in the first place become just as defenseless as children who were accidentally left in a car. Just because you can take them to the ER doesn't mean you'll get there in time. And even if you do, will there be permanent damage to your child's body because of what he/she ingested? Either way, you don't have Facebook in an uproar accusing you of absolute negligence and saying you shouldn't get to keep them.

What if we started finding ways to report on every infant and toddler who went to the ER because of accidents that were 100%  preventable had the parents just been paying a little more attention? How many more parents would be fighting in court to keep their children for not-so-public, yet potentially fatal, mistakes?

You may call the parent who left a child in a car "stupid," but I can guarantee that you will make--or already have made--mistakes with your children that the Hot Car Parent wouldn't be "stupid" enough to make.

How about we stop cutting each other down and start cutting each other some slack?


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