Each Day Already is a Challenge

Mothers Don't Forget

This is a rant, so it may not be well organized. It may sound like rambling. But isn’t that what a rant does?

The case of the mother whose two-year-old daughter died because the mom left her in an SUV for eight hours, on a day when the temperature reached over 90 degrees, continues to make the news. This mother is the vice-principal at a school, and last night the school board met to determine her career fate.

Personally, I think she should lose her job. If I had a child in the school where she works, I would be concerned that this woman would ever be responsible enough to care for my child. As a member of the community, I question her ability to have good judgment about the care of children – ever.

I have only one child myself, and he’s 23 years old. When he was a baby, we lived in Houston. When he was 2 years old, we lived on the Gulf Coast of Florida. There were no laws back then about leaving a child in a hot car. People were smart enough to know that it was not safe to do so. We rarely heard of any children – or pets either – dying because they were left in hot cars. Have we really gotten so stupid over the years since my son was that age that there HAVE to be laws about this? Have we gotten so busy that we could possibly forget a child? Have our jobs become so important that our children take a lessor role than our careers? Have we become so self-centered, so self-absorbed, so selfish that the needs of a child do not come first in our lives anymore?

My son was sick much of his first three years of life. His temperature would spike so quickly that he almost went into convulsions. I remember one time when we left the doctor’s office and drove to the drive-through window of our pharmacy. My son was quite ill, lingering somewhere between having bronchitis and pneumonia. He had fallen asleep in his car seat in the back seat of my car. As I spoke to the pharmacy technician through the window, I learned that because the doctor had prescribed a new drug, I would have to talk with the pharmacist and sign a paper showing that I understood the drug and the directions for administering it to my son.

I could have ducked into the drug store, signed the paper and gotten back to the car in a few minutes. But that thought never crossed my mind, even though I was concerned about waking my son. I knew he needed to sleep. I knew I needed the medicine for him. But I would have never dreamed of leaving him in the car alone for even a short time.

I explained my dilemma to the pharmacy clerk, who offered to come to the car to watch my son while I spoke to the pharmacist. I agreed to that and pulled around to the front of the store. How surprised I was when the pharmacist himself came out to the car to talk with me. I had already paid for the ‘script at the window, so after our discussion, the pharmacist handed me the prescription and my son and I were on our way.

When my son was well, he was a handful. He was a pretty big child. I don’t remember what he weighed at two years of age. He had been 8 pounds 14 ounces at birth and grew in leaps and bounds after that. Even so, because he was so active, and because sometimes his little legs just got tired, he was often resting on my hip as we went from the car, into the bank or store.

If he was asleep when we got to a store, I got him out of the car seat and tried to waken him so he could walk. If that didn’t work, I put him on my hip and went on my way. Was he dead weight as he slept? You bet. But I would have never considered leaving him in the car alone, not only because I knew how hot it could get, but because I would not risk having him taken from the car.

If I had done the unthinkable, like the woman in the news, and left him in the car to unload, the slamming of the car door would have probably wakened him. Even if it didn’t wake him the first time, it would certainly have done so the second or third time. The woman in the news appears to have gone back to her car three or four times to unload things from the car.

And that’s what I don’t understand. Maybe this mother was selfish and self-absorbed and busy. Maybe she did forget that the child was in the back seat of the car when she popped in to get donuts. That hardly seems possible, when her thought process included the fact that she could not drop her child off as early as she left the house. That she has admitted. Perhaps she didn’t see the child in the back seat when she put the donuts in the car, although I don’t see how that would have been possible.

Perhaps once she got to the school, she continued her forgetfulness about the fact that her child was in the back seat. (I don’t understand that, mind you.) But when that mother made numerous trips to the car to get the donuts and whatever else she needed for the job she obviously considered more important than that of being a mother – being the vice-principal – how could she not have seen the child sleeping in the car? The tapes shown on the news appear to show the mother opening both the very back door and at least one of the side (back seat) doors to get her stuff out.

That the child didn’t wake up with the numerous car door slammings is something I consider quite odd too. That was one deep sleeping child. I may have only had one child of my own, but I also worked in day care. And I have a number of nieces and nephews. None of them would have remained sleeping with that many disturbances.

I doubt very seriously that this mother forgot her child was sleeping in her vehicle, especially since she had been warned on three other occasions not to leave her child in the hot car. Those were the times she was caught. I doubt those were the only times she left her child alone in the car. To me, there is a pattern there.

I am usually one to think the best of everyone, but in this case I almost have to wonder if this mother didn’t set out to kill her child. If so, she has gotten away with it.

The District Attorney’s office has refused to punish this woman, saying that her forgetfulness resulted in a tragic accident. His decision has caused quite a stir here in the tri-state area. His phone and mailbox have been inundated with responses to this decision, some in agreement, and many not.

As a mother myself, I cannot imagine forgetting a child, even for an instant. My son may be 23, but I still do not forget him.

When he was a baby, I never forgot to pick him up from the baby-sitter. I never forgot when he was asleep in the car seat. I never forgot to pick him up from school. Even now, I have never forgotten to drop him off or pick him up from work, even when his schedule changed.

Last week, my son was in Memphis visiting his best friend (and ex-girlfriend) before she took off for a year in Spain. I did not forget to take him to the airport or to pick him up after his trip. While he was away, I never forgot him either.

You know what else? My mother, who is now very forgetful, has never forgotten any of her four children either. When we talk on the phone now, she does ask me where I live. But she tells me that she prays for me each night, and I believe that. Even in her state of dementia, my mother remembers that she has a son who is homeless and she wishes she could help him. Mothers don’t forget their children.