Katje took issue with my post about the child who died after being left in a car all day by a custodial grandparent.
Katje, I know that in the business of a hectic day, you can forget a kid for a few minutes. I know this doesn't make one a bad parent. (I've met you, and know you aren't a bad parent, so clearly good parents can do this.) It certainly doesn't make you a felon.
What boggled me was not that a parent could forget a kid for a few minutes, it was that a parent could forget for eight hours. So I looked for other explanations.
I think she made a conscious choice to leave him in the car all day. And I think that choice was motivated not by malice or negligence, but frustration with trying to earn enough money to support her and the kid while being unable to afford child care.
It's tragic that this child died. But the thing to take away is not "parents need mnemonics to remember where they left their kids", it's "working parents need affordable, safe child care."
well, i'm just going to post this icb conversation with davinator, and if he doesn't like it it's his blog and he can delete it!
<*Davinator*> ok response posted
<*Q*> yeah.
<*Q*> i think the problem is maybe somewhere in between. i don't think she made a complete *conscious* choice to leave him for 8 hours. that doesn't make sense. i can believe, however, taht she could make an
<*Q*> end-of-her-rope choice, a less conscious one. but i don't know. 8 hours doesn't make sense- if you're leaving the kid in the car on purpose, wouldn't you check on him?
<*Q*> i think the problem isn't affordable safe child care, or needing mnemonics, it's that people need to SLOW THE FUCK DOWN. stop living a life where if one thing is slightly altered in your morning then
<*Davinator*> she might have a job where she can't leave the building on her
<*Davinator*> breaks.
<*Q*> everything's gone to hell and you don't remember if you made the side trip to the daycare and figure you did.
<*Q*> stop living a life where every adult with responsbility for a child has to work 8+ hours a day.
<*Davinator*> yeah, that too.
<*Q*> stop living a life where you have your entire day, week, year scheduled down to 15 minute blocks.
<*Davinator*> but i think the hecticness is a symptom, not a cause
<*Davinator*> not every adult has that as an option.
<*Q*> well, what i mean is,
<*Q*> stop having a society where that's how things have to work.
<*Davinator*> yes.
<*Q*> we're all such busy little cogs.
It's really hard to know what motivated someone else, but when we're talking *plausibility* I think you do have to take into account how incredibly sleep-deprived people who take care of babies are... I can't tell you how many times I've been completely unable to remember whether I did something or just thought it was a good idea. This is probably how many next children come into the world.
I get really nervous about people being sure they know what someone else could or couldn't do; I keep seeing court t.v. shows in which juries decided someone would never do something I can totally see myself doing.
Posted by: sleeky on September 10, 2002 10:04 PM