I have an opinion like everyone else, but on most days I keep my opinion to myself. It’s not worth getting all worked up over trivial things. On other days, however, it is the opinion of the majority that changes something in society. The opinion of the majority just has to start with one voice. This is my voice. It is my turn to say something and this is the first time I’m expressing my opinion in a public forum.
So let me tell you the one thing I find utterly intolerable, horribly inhumane, and downright disgusting! The people who leave children in hot cars to die while they go shopping. I can’t tell you enough how this makes me feel every time I read another story about a couple who left their child in triple digit degrees, inside a car, with windows rolled up, while they went shopping. A child is born into your care. You are responsible for this child. Even if you are only the caretaker or aunt, if that child is left in your care, then you are responsible for him. There is no excuse that you can give to explain away the death of an innocent child, because you went shopping or drinking, or any other reason. Unless you were literally dragged out of that car to your own death, I can’t understand how you would leave a helpless child alone to die under your watch.
These are not isolated incidents, either. They are rapidly becoming more common. There’s the man who went to work and left his child to die in a car. He “forgot” to drop his child off at daycare. How do you forget your child? Tell me. I can understand if you forgot your keys, your purse, or any other inanimate object in the car. I get that. I don’t get how “forgot” your child. There are other cases where the parent has said they “forgot” their child, too. What kind of excuse is that,anyway? Do you really believe anyone else believes you “forgot?” You didn’t forget! You were too lazy to take your baby out of the car seat. You went shopping in a giant supermarket with another child and left one in the car because she was sleeping and it was too much work; or you didn’t want to wake her up because it would be too much of a hassle; or you convinced yourself you’d only be gone a few minutes. What could possibly happen in a few minutes? If you don’t know how hot a car can get in just a few minutes, read this article, it will set you straight. Even if it’s 79 degrees in the car when you stepped out of it, it will be 90 degrees in three minutes. ONLY THREE MINUTES!!! According to this article, an average of 38 children die a year this way, even though awareness programs have increased.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/07/21/hot-car-danger-children
What about the couple that went shopping in a cell phone store for an hour and left their niece in the car? She wasn’t even their child. They only want to know who was going to pay for their shattered window. When a few people saw the poor child locked inside and decided to break the window to get her out of the car, this was their concern!!! Unbelievable! She was drenched in sweat. They didn’t care. Not an ounce of remorse!
I raised four of my own children. When we went places together, we all went together. They held hands. I called them my ducklings and sometimes I still call them my ducklings. Even ducks don’t leave their ducklings behind. They wait for them. Have you ever watched how wildlife waits for their young ones? I have. Some people are just a disgrace to humankind. They shouldn’t ever have children. They should be stripped of all parental rights, sterilized, and spend a few years in a sweltering hellhole to feel how their child died. I know that’s harsh, but that’s the way I feel.
There are accidental cases, of course. Rare events where a child climbed inside a car and no one could find the child. I am not speaking to those parents in this article. I am terribly sorry for your loss and I really mean that. Responsible parents don’t deliberately leave their children behind. I am talking about selfish parents, who say they “forgot” their child. There’s no such thing, in my book.
If your life is so busy, that you can’t remember you are responsible for a small child, please do not have children at all. Children don’t deserve to die of asphyxiation in a 110 degree temperatures inside a locked car, while you go shopping on your own. Children deserve loving, caring parents. They deserve equal amounts of love and discipline, in fact, so that they will grow up to be responsible human beings, who find it repulsive to leave a child in a car to die.
What has become of us? Is this happening anywhere else in the world? Are there other nations experiencing the same selfish, careless events, or is it just the United States? I want to know. I love my country, I really do, but I don’t love what kind of people are evolving in it. That’s a rant for the next blog, though.
I hope that people become more educated about this thing. I hope we develop harsh laws for this kind of negligence. There’s no excuse for leaving children anywhere by themselves, when they are not capable of making clear, concise, mature decisions for themselves. There is absolutely no viable reason to leave a child in a car while you go and take care of your shopping list. Let’s put an end to this.
Maybe if we break into more cars that have children left alone in them, someone will wake up and realize how wrong it really is and I’ll stop reading about how sorry you were that your child died a horrible death at your expense. Because I don’t believe for one second that you “forgot” your child. I never will.
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