For this article, I will be providing no links to news stories. I will simply focus on the subject at hand, because you can Google the things that I am about to discuss and you will find thousands of news stories on this matter.
I speak specifically of parents who forget their babies or young children. I’m talking about leaving their child in their seat while they get out of the car while their baby literally bakes in the summer heat. And then there’s the matter of leaving kids unsupervised when they’re in a swimming pool.
Unfortunately, there are many, many incidents in which a parent forgot their child or who stepped back in their home for “just a couple of minutes.” How can you forget your child? How can you forget that that child is helpless, strapped into the car seat that will seal their fates?
In my opinion, most (not all) incidents involve parents who simply don’t care about their children. I find it hard to believe that anyone can forget a child. After the death is discovered, you’ll see crying parents. I have to wonder if those tears are merely crocodile tears.
As for leaving a child unsupervised when they’re swimming, that says, in my opinion, that some parents don’t care about their children. Just like I can’t figure how a parent can, in all honesty, leave their child in a car on a hot summer’s day, I can’t work out how a parent can knowingly leave the pool for whatever reason.
The good news is that many parents who pull these stunts are being charged with numerous felonies. Unfortunately, there are some parents who are left alone to deal with their tragedy while law enforcement refuses to hold themselves accountable.
Now, in my lifetime, I’ve taken care of numerous kids. I’ve driven them where they need to be, and I did so on very hot days in the summer. I always had the air conditioning on at full blast. Would you like to guess how many kids I’ve killed?
Zero!
I’ve supervised many kids over the years at swimming pools, always watching them. Would you like to guess how many kids I’ve killed?
Zero!
When a dead child story appears on the news or online, you often see the parents weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth. I feel no sympathy for these parents. If they forgot, that’s still bad. If they knew what they were doing and still didn’t care, that’s murder!
If you forget your child and you leave them to bake in your car, or if you turn your back on a young, swimming child, you should be charged with as many felonies as the prosecution can find and you should spent several days locked in a car in 104-degree heat with no way to get out.
If you forget to keep an eye on your children at a pool, you deserve to be drowned yourself.
No, in my opinion, no parent truly forgets. They just don’t give a rat’s ass and they put on an act when police and reporters are around.