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Did stuff like this happen with kids and pets before the 1990s?
I remember the law that makes it unlawful to leave children or pets in cars outside on hot days illegal came about during my life time.
But I am sure the hot cars have existed before I existed. Or did people just have the common sense to leave windows open back then without fear of car theft because maybe less crime back then or there was a mechanism that prevented car theft.
Would these same people also forget their toddlers at home alone when called to fly out for a work assignment? That "breaks the routine too," doesn't it?
Yeah no... No excuses whatsoever.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NJ Brazen_3133
Did stuff like this happen with kids and pets before the 1990s?
I remember the law that makes it unlawful to leave children or pets in cars outside on hot days illegal came about during my life time.
But I am sure the hot cars have existed before I existed. Or did people just have the common sense to leave windows open back then without fear of car theft because maybe less crime back then or there was a mechanism that prevented car theft.
My guess is open windows, and having to manually go to the back door to crank the windows up?
Growing up in the 70's and 80's I really don't recall ever hearing about anyone forgetting and leaving a baby in a hot car. Back then it was actually fairly typical to leave their kids in the car briefly while they ran inside a store to do an errand. They would leave the windows down and the older kids would watch the younger kids until the parent got back to the car. Nowadays that would be frowned on but back then people were trusted to use their judgement and common sense.
I don't know of anyone who left an infant alone inside of a hot car even for a quick trip into the store.
I seem to recall hearing stories of young kids getting locked inside of hot cars while playing hide and seek and whatnot. They would lock themselves into car trunks and not be discovered until it was too late. Now I almost never hear about something like that happening.
We have had a couple of high profile cases where children were left in a daycare bus by the staff. In one case the child died and of course the staff were charged. The second case I think the child survived and everyone was staggered that it could happen again.
As everyone knows it is illegal to leave little children in hot cars or anywhere else for that matter, very often strangers will straight away call the police if they see that happening.
Growing up in the 70's and 80's I really don't recall ever hearing about anyone forgetting and leaving a baby in a hot car.
Because there weren't a) car seats (at least in the back seat); b) distracting cell phones and, I would argue at least, distracting dashboards; and c) AS MANY little kids/babies going to daycare/preschool.
Because there weren't a) car seats (at least in the back seat); b) distracting cell phones and, I would argue at least, distracting dashboards; and c) AS MANY little kids/babies going to daycare/preschool.
Manual roll-down windows. My parents HAD to open the back door to roll up my window when I was in a car seat in the 80s.
Although to me, still, none of this "leaving your child in a car for hours because you're busy, brain is racing, or your routine was disrupted" makes sense. Kids are the one main thing you think about as a parent, day in and day out, even in the heat of unusual, demanding work assignments.
But how would you go from packing up a diaper bag, buckling a baby into their car seat....to forgetting that the baby is even back there?
My mind would be adding in the extra time that I needed to drop the baby off along with the route that I would need to take. I guess my point is, that I wouldn't be on autopilot - I couldn't be on autopilot - with all of those extra logistics going through my brain, if anything my mind would be thinking more about each step I was taking.
I truly don't understand how this happens. I've tried.
I can see how a parent might forget that it's their turn to pick a child up from daycare and drive right home - doh! That I can see happening.
Mom did the diapering, dressing and packing and handed off to Dad. Notice it's not women forgetting the baby, most of the time.
Mom did the diapering, dressing and packing and handed off to Dad. Notice it's not women forgetting the baby, most of the time.
Mothers have done this, too, it's been in the news. Dads do plenty of hands on childcare these days so I wouldn't be assuming that Dad didn't pack the baby's diaper bag.
We do all seem to hear about these senseless tragedies now, the public is aware that this can happen...and, yet, this still happens way too often.
Men do this three times more often than women. This causes me to think that there is a pregnancy, labor, delivery connection. I was in labor for 23 hours and had a horrible delivery. After sleeping 90% of the time for a week, he cried as often as not for a looong time. After that, I used feel spooked and wonder what was going on when he wasn't crying even when he was in his crib or playpen.
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