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Post by wmdkitty on Jul 8, 2009 19:27:55 GMT -5
I believe that, in a majority of cases, it was an honest accident. The data given supports this.
In some cases, it may have been a deliberate act. I am not disputing this.
A GOOD parent is capable of acknowledging that, yes, there are times that they feel negatively towards their child(ren), but doesn't let it effect their parenting.
A GOOD parent will be able to see both sides -- "I could never forget -my- baby" and "Oh, god, I thought he was with Grandma!" I'm not even a parent, and -I- can understand the horror of accidentally leaving your child in a hot car.
I understand that people, in general, want to think that they're infallible, which is what leads to such statements as, "well I could NEVER forget MY kid, I'm super-vigilant!" or "Oh, that could NEVER happen to me, I'm too smart/careful/whatever to do THAT!" (Strangely, the ones who are just SO sure about it are the ones "it" happens to most often.)
I thought the same thing about abuse victims -- "if she was smart, she wouldn't have allowed him to hit her," "why don't you just leave," -- until I found myself in an abusive relationship, and realized it wasn't about how smart I was, that you can't "just leave", it was about the abuser having power over the victim. (Not the same, I know, but it's a fair example of the "it could never happen to me" mindset.)
To draw a parallel, most parents are going to think, "well, I'm hypervigilant, so I could NEVER forget my kid." And then, one day, they forget the kid. 95% of the time, it's not a dangerous or fatal situation, but when it does turn dangerous or fatal, everybody just jumps to assume that the parents were abusive, or negligent, or "wanted to kill the child" when it was nothing more than a tragic accident.
Keresm has been beating the (very dead) "if you forget your kid, you're stupid, and you never -really- cared about your kid at all" horse for the whole damn thread.
Change the words a bit, see how it sounds: "If you turned to atheism, you're stupid, and you were never -really- a Christian at all." It's a very fundie statement.
Keresm is saying that I "don't properly value children" (direct quote, btw) BECAUSE I have no desire to have my own, and "can't possibly understand."
I understand that parenting is a tough job, and not for everyone. I commend those who take it on.
I understand that nobody WANTS to forget their child, and that it can and does happen.
I understand that heaping "you're stupid" and "you never -really- gave a damn about your kid" on top of the already immense self-inflicted guilt ("how could I do that?") that these parents feel doesn't HELP anything. Especially when delivered with this ridiculous assumption that they "wanted" the child to die.
And I understand all too well what "it can never happen to me" leads to.
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Post by keresm on Jul 8, 2009 19:46:37 GMT -5
I believe that, in a majority of cases, it was an honest accident. The data given supports this. Then you haven't examined the data. |
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Post by wmdkitty on Jul 8, 2009 19:47:34 GMT -5
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Post by keresm on Jul 8, 2009 19:54:33 GMT -5
I see you still haven't read my posts or actually examined the data.
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Post by wmdkitty on Jul 8, 2009 20:01:22 GMT -5
I see you still haven't read my posts or actually examined the data. I see you're still ignoring evidence. |
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Post by dantesvirgil on Jul 8, 2009 20:14:56 GMT -5
Kitty, you don't have "evidence" -- you have the stories the parents gave after they discovered their infants dead in hot cars. Why you would automatically take them at their word when at the very least these parents would be facing endangerment charges is beyond me. That's what is being pointed out to you -- you're accepting the IT HAPPENED excuse on the face of it.
Let me pose this another way. Suppose someone takes a cat somewhere in the back of their car, pulls in some place else, leaves cat in car with rolled up windows for an unacceptable period of time, cat dies. You're telling me you would buy the "I forgot" excuse on its face?
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Post by wmdkitty on Jul 8, 2009 20:28:34 GMT -5
Kitty, you don't have "evidence" -- you have the stories the parents gave after they discovered their infants dead in hot cars. Why you would automatically take them at their word when at the very least these parents would be facing endangerment charges is beyond me. That's what is being pointed out to you -- you're accepting the IT HAPPENED excuse on the face of it. Let me pose this another way. Suppose someone takes a cat somewhere in the back of their car, pulls in some place else, leaves cat in car with rolled up windows for an unacceptable period of time, cat dies. You're telling me you would buy the "I forgot" excuse on its face? I cited an actual STUDY, and the evidence shows that in most cases it WAS entirely accidental. <snark> Oh, but because a couple of people with kids think it's always the intent of the (now grieving) parent to murder their child, the source must be wrong. </snark> In the case of the cat, I'd expect, as in the case of a child, or a dog, or a fucking goldfish, a FULL INVESTIGATION, to determine intent. If the act was intentional, as very few cases are, it was murder. If the act was accidental, it is a tragedy, and the parent(s) ought to be left in peace. Again, can you prove with any certainty: A) The intent of the parent/caregiver? B) The mental state of the parent/caregiver at the time of the incident? Until you can show that, in all cases of a child dying of hyperthermia, it was an intentional act, designed to result in the death of a child, you cannot claim that it doesn't happen accidentally.EDIT: Amended to include non-parental caregivers. |
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Post by keresm on Jul 8, 2009 20:33:14 GMT -5
I cited several of them, as well as a few books, and I have taken psychology courses in the past. And your claim that you cited a study proving it's accidental is a bald faced lie, your study proves nothing of the sort, as in depth research on WHY children are left in cars and a close examination of the parental mindset has never been done. But in any event, your study doesn't cite what you think it does. It cites that the parents CLAIM it was accidental. Considering how many murderers claim they didn't do it either, it amuses me that you will set the parents free on nothing more than their word. I did state that it could occur accidentally. I just also stated that it is highly unlikely if not completely improbable that a good parent would 'forget' their child in the car and that even if it is an accident, it's still criminal negligence and the 'forgetter' should be held liable. Perhaps you should actually read my posts. |
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Post by dantesvirgil on Jul 8, 2009 20:34:05 GMT -5
I'm sorry, did you just say that unless you can prove 100% of the time it's murder you can never say it's murder? Do you realize how stupid that is? I'm not calling you stupid, by the way, I'm calling what you said stupid. If you read the posts, you'd see we're discussing the difficulty of knowing the mental state. But by all means, don't let actual literacy get between you and an argument about how parents think they're better than you.
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Post by wmdkitty on Jul 8, 2009 20:38:00 GMT -5
Oh, wait, THERE'S MORE! ggweather.com/heat/Might want to pay attention to this part: And this part: Hate to break it to ya, but the data firmly backs up my view. |
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Post by dantesvirgil on Jul 8, 2009 20:41:36 GMT -5
You are choosing to overlook the fact that this is solely based on the perp's story because of previously mentioned cultural desire to see these things as "tragedies" instead of "neglect". A contention you'd know about if you actually read the posts.
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Post by keresm on Jul 8, 2009 20:41:38 GMT -5
No, actually, it doesn't.
Perhaps you should learn how to interpret data?
As we have pointed out, repeatedly, your 'studies' only prove that the parents claim it was accidental.
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Post by tygerarmy on Jul 8, 2009 20:49:02 GMT -5
I've only been skimming the posts. But it looks like the two main issues are HOW you can forget a kid in a car. And is it Negligence?
I've seen the argument that a parent shouldn't forget a child because of all the stuff that goes with them. Not all kids are noisy the sit quietly or sleep in the car. Adding to that if the parent is taking the child to day care or a family member they may not be packing accessories, everything the kids needs is at the other location. If they're not the parent who does the drop off normally or if the child usually gets picked up by day care or the family member. Any combination can lead to disaster.
It is still negligence no matter what. But for most parents they've been punished enough. Unless it can be proven that the parent is an all around bad parent it shouldn't be criminal. Innocent 'til proven guilty.
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Post by keresm on Jul 8, 2009 20:55:07 GMT -5
But for most parents they've been punished enough. Unless it can be proven that the parent is an all around bad parent it shouldn't be criminal. Innocent 'til proven guilty. Wow, that's a major double standard. See, if I accidentally leave the gate to a pool unlocked, and someone's kid trespasses onto my property, unsupervised, and drowns, I should be punished for that. Heck, I'm punished even if the kid climbed the fence. |
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Post by wmdkitty on Jul 8, 2009 20:57:07 GMT -5
I'm sorry, did you just say that unless you can prove 100% of the time it's murder you can never say it's murder? Do you realize how stupid that is? I'm not calling you stupid, by the way, I'm calling what you said stupid. If you read the posts, you'd see we're discussing the difficulty of knowing the mental state. But by all means, don't let actual literacy get between you and an argument about how parents think they're better than you. I'm just saying that you have no right to go assigning blame when you don't know the whole story, and to repeatedly imply that they -are- murderers (keresm) is dishonest. None of us knows the mental state, or the intent, of a parent/caregiver. We are not that person, and CANNOT know. Therefore, NONE OF US has any right to point the finger and say, "you didn't -really- give a shit about your child." Let's say, hypothetically, that you've told your child, "don't play in the road," and you watch your child play every day, and constantly remind him, "don't play in the road." You'd consider yourself a good parent for watching out for your kid, right? One day he's outside playing safely in the yard, so you go to use the bathroom, you're away for five minutes, thinking, "I've told him a million times, he knows not to play in the road." Kids being kids, he goes and plays in the road and is fatally hit by a car speeding through. How would YOU feel if everyone was pointing at you and saying, "It's YOUR fault your child is dead! You should have been a better parent! You should have been more vigilant!" when you did NOTHING wrong? You made a mistake, yes, but you didn't place your child in the path of the speeding car. Wouldn't you already feel bad enough that your child is dead, without people being dicks about it and blaming you? I know that the worst kind of guilt isn't the kind that comes from without ("Jewish" guilt). It's the "Catholic" guilt, the internalized "I'm a bad person, it's MY fault, I DESERVE this shit" kind that KILLS. To heap blame from external sources on top of that is just cruel, and that is what you and keresm have been doing to the parents who have lost their children to (car-related) hyperthermia. They made the mistake of leaving the child in the car, yes, but do they deserve to have shit heaped on them for making that mistake? Don't they have enough to deal with, without having to be bombarded with negative judgments from people who really have no clue what the circumstances were? Lay off. These deaths are thoroughly investigated, and since the number of charges brought are next to zero, it's a reasonable conclusion that the majority of these deaths are truly accidental. A trial, let alone a conviction, on negligent-homicide-via-hot-car would make national news. **** Fixed the formatting. **** |
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