Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?
 

This article is really long, but it's a good read if you're interested in the subject matter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022701549.html

Really sad.

I stopped reading when it said Lynn Balfour had to rush to the fertility clinic to get her husbands sperm as he was in Iraq on duty, then a few paragraphs down said how if she had not dropped him off at work that morning the diaper bag would have been on the front seat:conf:

Amazed at how common these incidents are.

Yes,very sad and it happens so often,that guy seemed a really caring dad too,it must be a terrible thing to have to live with.

I wouldn't call it a crime under normal circumstances rather neglect , however if it was a hot day and no windows were left open and the child suffered as a result then yes that is most definitely a crime.

I can clear up your confusion. Her husband used to work in the army base near home, but had to take the Iraq tour because it pays better and there were a lot of legal fees after the child died.

I'm baffled at how you could forget about your own baby? It's neglect. Very, very sad.

The thing is.. the child is not deliberately left in the car, so there wouldn't be windows open. The whole point in the article is that the parent forgot the child was in the car, and spent the remainder of the day under the false impression the child was safely at home or with the childminder..

If it was obvious neglect or deliberately leaving the child in the car, then I would class it as a crime, but it's a mistake made by an otherwise responsible parent. It just happens to be a lethal mistake. If it happened to me, I wouldn't care about charges or jail time, because nobody could punish me more than I would be punishing myself for it.

I live in a small village and I know people who have walked to the shop with the pram, went in the shop, came back out and started walking home ... then realised they had left the pram outside the shop.

I suppose this is the same. When you are juggling a child and a job it is easy to forget things.

I used to hold the exact same view as you Tom, until I read the full article and it scared me how easy it is for it to happen to absolutely anyone. Thankfully I've never done it and my kids are teenagers now so there's no chance of me forgetting they are in the car.

I agree it's not a crime....it's terribly sad and one thing that you would never recover from...

Thanks Lily. Just didn't make sense to me.

I can't imagine the horror of living with such a tragedy.

Yes, I agree you are right the windows would not be opened in those circumstances. So back to the original question ... Is it a crime or inadvertent neglect ?

Yes it is a crime of neglect but is it deliberate or a one off terrible moment of forgetfulness.

Maybe it's a crime if you do it twice.

It is a terrifying yet psychologically interesting phenomenon, one that I find very sad when it comes down to the mechanics. It's yo do with the conscious and unconscious mind and how quickly we can switch to "autopilot", especially when stressed or if there is a lot going on.

HOW EVER, it's not actually true that it can happen to "anyone". The psychological mechanism for it happening means that it can only happen if that persons "autopilot mode" (I. E. Their default mode... The way they are most used to existing) includes NOT having their child with them. For example, it's more likely to happen to fathers than mothers statistically, and that's because (generally) fathers tend to spend most of their week away from the home working, and therefore when their brain switches into that mode, it doesn't "expect" the child to be there. Likewise, it's more likely to happen to parents who heavily utilise childcare / often leave the child with other family members.

It is highly Unlikely to happen to a parent who spends most of their time with a child in tow. The phenomenon actually occurs the other way in that case - when the parent DOESNT have the child with them as usual (a rare occasion left with a grandparent maybe, or their first few months of preschool) then if "auto mode" triggers, they might have a momentary panic response when the child isn't there, before remembering that they're somewhere else.

Essentially... This is a very modern phenomenon driven by the pressures of society. It's psychologically understandable, but it's not "natural", and it makes me quite sad that so many parents (and the vast majority of fathers) are so used to being away from their children most of the time, that it is their psychological "default". It seems arse backwards, really.

Before anyone gets up in arms: I'm not saying that it's their fault or that they have any choice in this. We all have to run the rat race to survive. It's just... ****ty.

Idiot... wow, that poor child, at 9 months he must have screamed the car down and nobody heard him? :(

I've heard some really harrowing accounts of these incidents. In one, a dad had left the car outside work and the car alarm kept going off (movement in the car) for hours, he just kept pointing his key out the window to stop it, thinking it was a fault. Eventually it stopped.

I've also heard accounts with happier endings where passers by have had to smash their way into cars to get children out.

It really is unfathomable how common it is. Consider how many reports of deaths there have been... Then consider that it's only likely to result in a death in extreme circumstances (has to be a very hot day, car has to be left for several hours without the alarm being raised). Then you start to get an idea of how often it actually happens overall...

I honestly dont understand how people do it and I would say that yes, it is a crime. Neglect. When they are left for ages anyway.

I totally get having something on your mind and for example walking out of a shop without your buggy, or momentarily getting out of the car alone. But leaving them for ages before even realising? Nah. You just don't forget your kids unless you are a bad parent, IMO anyway.

Causing the death or injury of a child whether they "forgot" or not is a crime IMO.

It would be manslaughter would it not?

This is horrifying to read.

It has a very well defined psychological explanation and there's lots of precedent for it being considered diminished responsibility due to a type of temporary insanity (almost always triggered by stress).

It's a difficult one, for me. I understand why it happens and have studied the phenomenon a decent amount, it's difficult to say that someone should be considered criminally responsible for something that they genuinely had no intention of doing and never feasibly believed was possible. Manslaughter, generally, is when it's an accident but it can be reasonably proven that the person responsible knew that what they were doing carried risks (e.g. speeding, hitting or shoving someone without an intention to kill but a death occurring anyway, etc). In these cases, the parents didn't KNOWINGLY do anything risky. If they had known that the child was in the car but just "thought they would be fine" then that could be considered manslaughter.

On the other hand, I am completely against the notion that it can happen to "anyone", as I explained above. It happens because in the western worl, far too often, children are considered an inconvenience to be offloaded so that the grown ups can focus on "more important things" such as money, money, stressing about money, making money and spending money. Is this their fault? I don't know. It's pushed on people from birth SO heavily by society that it's not surprising that too many parents' minds are more firmly rooted in work than on their children. I don't know if that's the parent's fault. I just can't decide, and I'm not really comfortable judging, with the issue being so complicated.

You raise some interesting points TS.

This part:

This happened to me several times. I quit work to be a stay-at-home mum and there are almost 4 years between my children.. so by the time my youngest was at nursery and I had time to pop into town for something, I would turn to take his hand, and get that panicky feeling something was missing... since for 7 years I'd always had a child with me. I rarely left them with anyone, because I didn't need to.... so yeah, I understand that completely.


Also.. the guy with the car alarm going off... he was in the article from the link. God knows what goes through his mine now..

What an awful story.

I don't think I would consider it a crime though, just a horrible, horrible accident. There's no point in punishing people in these situations when they're likely to live the rest of their lives despairing over it. It's just a terrible situation and I do feel sorry for the parents, it must be unbearable to live with that.

It isn't a crime in reality but for me it should be.

If it happens, then I think the parent/s need some tests done to assess their capability for looking after and protecting their children.
If there are no other relevant reasons for the lapse then to put a totallty defenceless child in a situation where there are no guardians around it at all,is to endanger its life.
If anything happens to the child then for me,they are fully responsible.

I think I am getting harder as I get older.

As lily has already said though....any parent this happens to will have to live with it and that would be far worse than any criminal record / sentance. It's a life sentance of guilt and one that they would never recover from.

...hmmm, I'm not sure it's about being hard though Joey, punishment is about rehabilitation or keeping someone dangerous away from the public and I don't think that applies in this case..it's very sad and shouldn't have happened but no one knows that more than the father and he has to live with this every day of his life ..there isn't really a punishment anyone could give him that could possibly be worse than that...

I am persuaded to agree with that.

I agree, what judgement would be suitable? If it's about rehabilitation... there's no need; the chances of the person doing this same thing twice have got to be zero, or as close to it as is imaginable. I doubt they'd get out of a car without checking the back seat, ever again, even if they know there are no children in the car.

If it's about punishment, then it's still pointless. What punishment could even come within a mile of having to live with the fact that you not only caused the death of your child - but such an awful death? It's unfathomable. It makes prison or any other punishment look like a joke.

I can't even imagine if it was me. To be frank, I'd probably end up killing myself ...