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I couldn't fathom it either but it happened to me. I honestly don't remember putting dd into the car. I got in the car and in my mind it was any other morning when I drove right to work. I didn't forget her. I didn't know she was there. I know I must have put her in the car but I don't remember putting her in the car. Not then and not now though every event after realizing she was in that car is a permanent memory right down to the angle of the sun on the window of the car that morning. Do some research on how the brain works. If we had to process every piece of information we are faced with every single day our brains would be overloaded. To deal with this our brains often (as in hundreds of times a day) substitute "Normal" occurrences and move on quickly to processing other stuff. I forget how many seconds you have to get something into permanent memory but if it doesn't get there the memory is lost. Somehow with everything going on that morning my brain did not stay on baby in car long enough to override "Normal morning". FTR, I also was more aware of the cars around me when I knew dd was in the car. That morning I did not know she was in the car. In my mind it was a normal morning and dh had dropped her off at day care only it wasn't a normal morning and she was in the seat behind mine. My reaction when I realized she was in the car is telling. I did not thing OMG I forgot the baby. I thought "What is she doing in my car?". I did not remember putting her in the car.
I never thought this could happen to me. I prayed for that baby for 17 years. Anyone can tell you I was a doting mother. But our brains are swiss cheese when it comes to processing memories and they often insert "normal" events into the holes. I can't tell you how many times I made the 45 mile commute to work when I worked in the factory and couldn't remember anything about the trip or how many mornings I have to ask myself if I took my meds. You'd think a baby would be important enough to our brains that it wouldn't do the same thing it does with a routine trip or medicine you take every day but it does. My dd didn't make a sound during that trip. Her car seat was behind the drivers seat out of view. I thank the Lord that she happened to move her hand as I looked back at the car. I remember the sun shining and blocking the view into the car. I never would have seen her.
I used to trust my memory. Now I don't. I know how easily my brain can insert normal events over the top of unusual events if the unusual ones don't make it into long term memory. Most of the time the consequences are minimal. You forget to pick up milk, You don't pay a bill because you're certain you paid it only you're remembering paying it last month, you forgot to wash your hair in the shower, you drive past the gas station when you're on empty, you leave something in the car you meant to take in for a coworker, etc, etc, etc...but sometimes the consequences are deadly. Do some research on how our memories work and how our brains process our days. If we had to process every split second every single day our brains would be overwhelmed so our brains set things up so they don't have to process everything every day and we go on auto pilot a lot. The sad part is that too many people think this can never happen to them so they don't take precautions to make sure it doesn't and then it does. From that day forward a teddy bear rode in her empty car seat that I put up front with me when I put her in the car. I never had this happen again. Once I was aware of just how flawed my memory could be I took measures to make sure it never failed me again.
I have nothing but sympathy for these parents. They must live with this the rest of their lives. There but for the grace of God go I. If dd had not moved her hand the instant I looked back at the car....
"This type of memory failure is the result of a competition between the brain's "habit memory" system and its "prospective memory" system -- and the habit memory system prevails"
In my opinion, I think its dangerous to try and rationalize these tragedies with science or with labels like “Forgotten Baby Syndrome”, which is what the media calls this now. I think the underlying reason why this is happening is not because this is how our mind and memory works but because our mind and memories are overtaxed and overburdened like never before! Because, as a society, we have willingly embraced a level of acceptable distraction and commitments to the point where we need reminders to not forget our children!
Instead of labeling this a syndrome of trying to explain it with neuroscience, maybe we all should examine our priorities and what we can cut OUT of our lives to make them less hectic, harried, sleep deprived and insane. Do we really NEED that new iPhone? Health Club or Soccer practice for the kids every night? It’s part of who we are and what we are all used to.
As Americans, we work more than anyone in the industrial world, we work longer hours and take less vacations. We pack our schedules so full that being sleep deprived has become an acceptable part of life. Studies have shown that driving while sleep deprived is as bad or WORSE than driving drunk, yet most of us have done it and most of us consider it an acceptable or at least unavoidable part of normal life.
Calling this a syndrome or inventing car seats that beep when a kid is forgotten really doesn’t solve the underlying problem, it just
addresses the symptoms. I think the real problem here is we live an unsustainable, crazy, sleep deprived life style to the point where many of us HAVE to do so just to survive and until we address THAT, there will be more tragedies like this and new ones that we haven't even fully contemplated yet.
I think the real problem here is what we accept as "normal" in this society isn't very healthy for our brains, our memories or our health and our true priorities, such as our responsibility to our children, suffer as a result.
In my opinion, I think its dangerous to try and rationalize these tragedies with science or with labels like “Forgotten Baby Syndrome”, which is what the media calls this now. I think the underlying reason why this is happening is not because this is how our mind and memory works but because our mind and memories are overtaxed and overburdened like never before! Because, as a society, we have willingly embraced a level of acceptable distraction and commitments to the point where we need reminders to not forget our children!
Instead of labeling this a syndrome of trying to explain it with neuroscience, maybe we all should examine our priorities and what we can cut OUT of our lives to make them less hectic, harried, sleep deprived and insane. Do we really NEED that new iPhone? Health Club or Soccer practice for the kids every night? It’s part of who we are and what we are all used to.
As Americans, we work more than anyone in the industrial world, we work longer hours and take less vacations. We pack our schedules so full that being sleep deprived has become an acceptable part of life. Studies have shown that driving while sleep deprived is as bad or WORSE than driving drunk, yet most of us have done it and most of us consider it an acceptable or at least unavoidable part of normal life.
Calling this a syndrome or inventing car seats that beep when a kid is forgotten really doesn’t solve the underlying problem, it just
addresses the symptoms. I think the real problem here is we live an unsustainable, crazy, sleep deprived life style to the point where many of us HAVE to do so just to survive and until we address THAT, there will be more tragedies like this and new ones that we haven't even fully contemplated yet.
I think the real problem here is what we accept as "normal" in this society isn't very healthy for our brains, our memories or our health and our true priorities, such as our responsibility to our children, suffer as a result.
Is this your opinion or do you have research to back it up? If you do I'd like to read it for myself. I've read a lot of research on how the brain works when it comes to habits and think it explains why these incidents happen (I couldn't believe it happened to me and wanted to know why). The research explains why we must guard against our own memories. They are fallible. Sometimes the brain overwrites the days events with those of a typical day. Therein lies the danger. The research tells us to not trust our memories and to take extra precautions especially when our day is different than normal. As I said, my reaction to seeing dd in the car was not OMG I can't believe I forgot the baby. It was "What is she doing in there?". I did not remember putting her into the car. Once I made my normal left turn out of the sub in my mind her dad was dropping her off to day care. This is not explainable WRT being busy and having a lot on my mind because I wasn't and I didn't. All that happened is I changed my routine. My brain changed it back. Habit pushed out different. This is something every parent needs to be aware of. If your brain goes into auto pilot it can even overwrite baby in car. Put a teddy bear in the car seat and move it to the front seat when the baby is in the back....put your briefcase in the back seat and be in the habit of opening the back door to get it out....develop the habit of ALWAYS checking the car seats before you lock the car...Do something to prevent your brain from doing to you what mine did to me. I'm not stupid. I'm not a negligent mother. I wasn't stressed. I wasn't hurried. I just changed my routine.
If the issue is stress and busy lives then explain why most cases happen when there was a change to the parent's routine? If stress and busy lives being unhealthy for our brains is the issue why don't we see parents forgetting babies in the car on normal days more often? We see it happening on days when routines were changed. Our brains overwriting unusual events with typical ones explains this. The moral of the story is don't trust your memory when it comes to something as important as your kids. We'd all like to think it won't happen to us but we all suffer from the same lapses in memory. It's how our brains work. Habit can and does overwrite unusual events. Usually this happens with no more than inconvenience as a result. Sometimes it has deadly consequences. We must guard against them.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-17-2016 at 07:24 AM..
Amazing just how many perfect people that there are on C-D that never make a mistake and can be so judgemental of others. Can't speak for everyone-but in the morning going to work, my body is on autopilot. The entire drive is done with minimal "mental input" early in the morning. I can very easily see how he could forget a kid in the back of the car, especially if dropping that kid off wasn't part of his everyday routine. Sad and tragic, but nothing but an accident (unless something comes up we don't know about).
I'm sorry, but, I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that it is possible for anyone mother or father to leave their child in a hot car on a hot day, all day?
It really angers me, to know that another child has died slowly and suffered this way until it's death, by a parent.
It's time to hold these parents accountable...to me, this is a parent who is just not in their right mind, and actually shouldn't be a parent....another example of why kids grow up to join groups like BLM...and end up living a life of crime...
B/c Their parents should have never been parents....
Amazing just how many perfect people that there are on C-D that never make a mistake and can be so judgemental of others. Can't speak for everyone-but in the morning going to work, my body is on autopilot. The entire drive is done with minimal "mental input" early in the morning. I can very easily see how he could forget a kid in the back of the car, especially if dropping that kid off wasn't part of his everyday routine. Sad and tragic, but nothing but an accident (unless something comes up we don't know about).
My guess would be that some of the parents who have done this condemned other parents prior to their own loss.
We've all done something so dumb that we are in amazement that we actually just did what we did.
No threat of punishment will ever stop this, because no punishment wifi ne worse than the loss.
Is this your opinion or do you have research to back it up?
I said in the first sentence, "In my opinion.."
I think the research is being interpreted in a way to make this seem normal or an unavoidable part of how our brains work. I don't think it is. I think we are overtaxing and overstimulating our brains and memories with our crazy, hectic, harried society and something has to give.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
I'm not stupid. I'm not a negligent mother. I wasn't stressed. I wasn't hurried. I just changed my routine.
I don't think you are negligent or stupid and you sound like a wonderful, caring mother and I hope that I did not imply that. I do disagree with your opinion on this subject though. I really think this is a result of our crazy, hectic society and the effect it has on our brains and memory.
Despite saying you were not stressed, in your earlier post, you said there WAS a lot going on that morning:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
To deal with this our brains often (as in hundreds of times a day) substitute "Normal" occurrences and move on quickly to processing other stuff. I forget how many seconds you have to get something into permanent memory but if it doesn't get there the memory is lost. Somehow with everything going on that morning my brain did not stay on baby in car long enough to override "Normal morning".
Quote:
ROBYN HYNES: There's so much happening in our lives, our lives are so full, our minds are so busy.
DAVID DIAMOND: The habit memory system, the basal ganglia part of the brain tends to dominate. And so it actually suppresses you ability then to interfere with it and that is much more likely to happen also if a person has a poor night's sleep or if the person is very stressed.
My guess would be that some of the parents who have done this condemned other parents prior to their own loss.
We've all done something so dumb that we are in amazement that we actually just did what we did.
No threat of punishment will ever stop this, because no punishment wifi ne worse than the loss.
Lots of people probably never intended to drive drunk and kill innocent people either. They might not even be alcoholics, maybe they just made a bad judgement about how much they had to drink or didn't realize how much they could handle.
So. we've raised awareness and enforcement of this issue and the statistics went down.
My guess would be that some of the parents who have done this condemned other parents prior to their own loss.
We've all done something so dumb that we are in amazement that we actually just did what we did.
No threat of punishment will ever stop this, because no punishment wifi ne worse than the loss.
they have been warning people all summer, and yet, still people leave their animals and their children in these ovens....
I'm sorry, but after a while you have to wonder? Especially on such hot days...
Just cannot believe they've done this to a child....out of forgetting, unless, they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol, which is still no excuse what so ever, I'm just saying, maybe that is the problem?
I mean, in one case, it was a mother and daughter, or sisters, who left a child in the car? Come on?
6-month-old Texas boy dies after being left in hot car for 9 hours
It's the annual summer ritual.
Clueless parents killing their kids in superheated cars.
But now summer's coming to an end. How many more will add to this year's total?
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If you do I'd like to read it for myself. I've read a lot of research on how the brain works when it comes to habits and think it explains why these incidents happen (I couldn't believe it happened to me and wanted to know why). The research explains why we must guard against our own memories. They are fallible. Sometimes the brain overwrites the days events with those of a typical day. Therein lies the danger. The research tells us to not trust our memories and to take extra precautions especially when our day is different than normal. As I said, my reaction to seeing dd in the car was not OMG I can't believe I forgot the baby. It was "What is she doing in there?". I did not remember putting her into the car. Once I made my normal left turn out of the sub in my mind her dad was dropping her off to day care. This is not explainable WRT being busy and having a lot on my mind because I wasn't and I didn't. All that happened is I changed my routine. My brain changed it back. Habit pushed out different. This is something every parent needs to be aware of. If your brain goes into auto pilot it can even overwrite baby in car. Put a teddy bear in the car seat and move it to the front seat when the baby is in the back....put your briefcase in the back seat and be in the habit of opening the back door to get it out....develop the habit of ALWAYS checking the car seats before you lock the car...Do something to prevent your brain from doing to you what mine did to me. I'm not stupid. I'm not a negligent mother. I wasn't stressed. I wasn't hurried. I just changed my routine. 
6-month-old Texas boy dies after being left in hot car for 9 hours
