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Post by lonelocust on Jul 7, 2009 12:35:59 GMT -5
I would appreciate if you would try to not be insulting in your responses. I attempted to not be insulting in my responses to you. If I failed in that, then I apologize (unless you found the fact of my disagreement with your assertions, or the request for data insulting, in which case I don't know what to say). I will make every effort to not be insulting with the further response. There was no assumption that it was or was not, but it has generally found to not be when investigated in a court of law. Do not confuse 'not found guilty' with 'innocent'. All this means is that they cannot prove beyond a 'reasonable doubt' that it wasn't an accident, in part because so many people are convinced that clean-cut normal-looking people are incapable of killing their children. You will notice socio-economic indicators among those actually convicted. I will investigate the socio-economic correlations in those convicted vs. those not. I was not specifically looking for that information. It seemed that you were, since I got multiple statements that the socio-economic-educational factors were not linked to abuse and neglect, which I never said that they were. I wished to be clear that I was not making that statement and had brought up lack of such correlations in response to other unrelated assertions. And I can also easily agree with this statement. I am completely willing to extrapolate from several studies. In fact, I have done so. It may be that we have extrapolated differently. I did find CDC data, and I did extrapolate from it, as well as combining several studies to explore the relevant questions. If I was unclear on that, I can reiterate and attempt to be more explicit. However, it does not help me to see what data you are using if you do not want to draw the line for me to show me where you are pointing. It is very disappointing to an academic mindset to be told that someone will not present data because you will not look at it. So, again, I found this insulting, and would appreciate if you would make an attempt to not be. And I am asking sincerely for the information that you have. I understand that information in academic sources can often not be accessed outside of university sytsems. Could you paste the relevant data if it is not a violation of copyright, or share the specific data or statistics from which you are extrapolating here? I am not a parent, and I do not ever intend to be a parent. I think I would be in prime danger of becoming infanticidal if I were to become a parent against my will. I am, however, aware of the advice against co-sleeping as well as against putting a child down alone prone rather than supine. Additionally, statistics show that when such became the suggestion, cases of SIDS fell dramatically. This however was rather later than RvW, and I couldn't find any statistics to make a determination if there was a decrease in reported SIDS at that time. (And yes, I did look. I would be happy to be pointed at it if you can find it.) [quotoe] Then you didn't look. [/quote] Yes, I did look. As I said previously, "roll over deaths" and similar phrases brought up items about car accident deaths involving the car rolling over. Again, I am asking for the data that you have. I am absolutely open to the data that you have, and have asked for it and even stated what my problem was when I looked. And I did look. So again, would you be willing to share the data that you are basing your claims on? I'm sorry, are you now refuting the argument that you expected me to make but that I did not make? I have done a lot of research and seen certain patterns. I have asked for the data that you think doesn't support my current thoughts on the matter, and you have told me that I didn't look or haven't done the research. I would love actual specifics. I am requesting them in all seriousness. I have tried to look, but have clearly not found the things that you are referring to. I'm not even aware how one would quantify the "rise of car culture". However, the number of left-in-car-related deaths has come nowhere near to the number of previous SIDS deaths (which I am unclear whether or not this includes roll over deaths - I am finding mixed results and claims when searching using the term "co sleeping" rather than "roll over"), current SIDS deaths, or the disparity between historic and current SIDS deaths. Because of this, I don't see how leaving children in cars could have meaningfully "replaced" the previous forms of allegedly-not-really-accidental deaths. I don't see how 25 deaths can be the result of replacing the same motives that caused 2500 deaths. "That's because car culture was just rising at the same time" is immaterial, because there was no numerically-meaningful replacement. I thought you said that it was easier to leave kids in the car because you just had to walk away and didn't have to feel them struggle or see them suffer? I also thought that you alleged that car hyperthermia deaths were on the rise because the people who would have "accidentally rolled over" on their babies are now "accidentally forgetting" their babies. Did I miss something in your claim? Again, I did look. I looked for "roll over deaths" which led to car accident deaths. Now that I have looked for "co sleeping" I have found more information related to the thing we are talking about. (This is why I asked if there was another term. There is.) However, I still can't find statistics, number of co-sleeping deaths by year, etc. Could you clarify whether your claim is ONLY that the act of forgetting a child makes you bad parent, or if you are ALSO claiming that the act of forgetting a child necessarily (or almost always) implies that you wanted to be rid of the child, didn't want the child, were neglectful in a larger sense, etc.? You have seemed to be claiming the latter. I will accept the tautology that "accidentally killing a child makes you a bad parent", regardless of other factors. You have not told me HOW my data is suspect. Could you please be explicit about that? Also, could you address how numerous reviews of specific cases, compilation of data regarding the causes, compilation of data regarding the relationship of the caregive (i.e. parent vs. other non-custodial relative vs. childcare provider etc.), the anlysis of the large spike of car-hyperthermia deaths in the 90s (long after car culture was on the rise, a while after the giant drop in SIDS when cosleeping and prone sleeping were discouraged, and of totally differing total numbers) are not "honest studies" of the topic? What about the study related to emotion, stress, and memory? Is the Gallagher study not an honest study? What about it makes it not an honest study, or rather what would need to be changed? Are you seeing other indications in it, that support your beliefs? What about everything on Kids and Cars related to the subject? Also, do you see a difference in "you didn't present any data" and "your data is suspect"? The latter is a more complicated claim. And do you think that means that fewer parents wanted to kill their children because they didn't want them, or that fewer parents rolled over on their children because they weren't taking something that made them able to sleep extremely heavily? Also, again, I'd love to see the actual statistics that you're getting this from, able to see the correlation with laudanum being sold over the counter, Roe v Wade, etc. I have looked for it and cannot find it. If it's all in stuff not accessible outside of the university, a rundown a single graph that just shows flat numbers per year would be helpful, as I can find other indications of what happened in various years very easily from the internet. I don't like to believe something because I lack the evidence to make a more informed analysis. However "I am a parent, and I just know" is not evidence or convincing. Again, I never claimed that all SIDS deaths were completely unexplainable. That fact is not mathematically relevant to whether some of the reasons and correlations you claim exist - for example, the claim that car hyperthermia deaths increased at the same time that SIDS deaths decreased. This does not require a belief that SIDS deaths are or are not explainable to demonstrate. [/quote] Again, you're taking on an extremely attacking tone when I am requesting information. I do appreciate the links that you have given me. However, none of these contradict the statements I have made. If I was unclear on some of those, then I would like to clarify. I did not claim that all SIDS deaths are unexplainable, nor all accidental. I did not claim that all child deaths period are accidental. I did not claim that no parent purposefully kills their child and uses a common seemingly-accidental explanation. I DID claim that MOST left-in-car deaths specifically do not seem to be purposeful. While there are two specific cases here of which I was unaware, I was not disbelieving of, in general, fake "accidents" to cover infant deaths. I am refuting the claim that ALL or even the vast majority of such cases are actually purposeful. I am claiming that there is not a correlation with left-in-car deaths rising and any other sort of seemingly-accidental death falling (or at least that I cannot find data to support that, and that I would be open to seeing your data on such). I will ask again if possible if you could be polite and assume that when I say I am open to data, or that I have looked, that I am telling the truth.
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Post by tygerarmy on Jul 7, 2009 12:41:29 GMT -5
Can't it be that you are both right. A parent of a four or younger year old might not have a history of neglect just because they didn't have time to develope a history. But a parent of a kid left behind in car could have had several kids grow up and never neglected or left one behind 'til that one time. People fuck up and some people are fucked up.
Maybe it is automatic. When I first got keys I'd forget them all the time. I attached them to a chain, which I then attached to my wallet and then usually attach to my pants. Since adopting this system I didn't forget my keys for about 7 years about a week ago I forgot my keys. I changed pant to go running grabbed a whole bunch of crap I needed, left my keys. After leaving a mosh pit I checked myself to make sure I had everything pulled my chain heard my keys. I walk over to buy a shirt pull keys out and my wallets no longer attached. Other times specific keys would be missing because I took them off and forgot to put them back. A good parent could check their car without really checking their car look in and see what they expect to see insead of what's really there.
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Post by lonelocust on Jul 7, 2009 12:47:45 GMT -5
Lonelocust, I'm sure you'd love to see some "actual data" -- what people are trying to point out to you is that your request is somewhat absurd, given the average age of child deaths from hot cars. Then could you please address the point I've asked about several times as to why we have data on OTHER neglect deaths in that age range (in fact, enough data to know that it is the most common age range for deaths that we ARE able to determine are the result of continuing neglect or abuse) yet we cannot make such determinations about this specific phenomenon? And I continue to request an explanation of the problem with the data. And it seems to me that I continue to just be told that my data is not good (or actually, until I pressed the point with showing data multiple times, non-existent). I am really, sincerely interested in what is wrong with the data presented. I do think the objection about the children being very young is very reasonable, except in light of the fact that we have plenty of other data on children in the same age range. Though I've said it, just to reiterate, I'm fine with just defining that as neglect. I am comfortable with saying "they neglected to get their child out of the car" or something like that. I am comfortable with just saying that IS neglect. That is reasonable. What I am not convinced of is that all the parents that did this (or other caretakers) did it ON PURPOSE. You can reasonably define neglect in a way that involves neglecting children you sincerely did not mean to neglect. I am not seeing the evidence that these deaths were at their core on purpose. I don't believe you did. Some other people in the thread did, and I disagreed with that at the same time I was disagreeing that the deaths had to be purposeful. Some wires got crossed due to that as to who was saying what was a prerequisite. Yeah, it's the "purposely" part that's sticking with me. Common sense says it would need to be. The data I can find (and again, I'm open to seeing what's wrong with it, but I'd need specifics or conflicting data, not just a statement that it's bad/unreliable/nonexistent, but HOW) says something else. If your opinion includes the fact that neglect can be non-deliberate, then I think you and I actually have no disagreement. I can get on the wagon that non-purposeful neglect is still neglect. (I can forget to fill out a report at work. I really really forgot and meant to do it, but I still didn't do my job like I was supposed to.) It's just the "on purpose" (or rather, necessarily on purpose) part that I can't find support for in objective information. Also, thank you for being polite with me. And I apologize if I came across as impolite. I am genuinely interested, on principal, in having as-correct-as-possible opinions based on the best data available. If I was abrasive, or especially if I seemed dismissive when you were trying to present data, then I hope you will accept my apologies.
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Post by Tiger on Jul 7, 2009 12:55:40 GMT -5
I agree with Tyger. Some people do horrible things, others just make horrible mistakes.
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Post by canadian mojo on Jul 7, 2009 13:35:58 GMT -5
A good parent could check their car without really checking their car look in and see what they expect to see insead of what's really there. A very good point, and it is something I'm sure has happened, but when the stakes are higher, a little bit more attention really should be paid. As a parent myself, I have a hard time believing that you can forget an infant in the backseat given the hassle of stuffing them in there in the first place. It is a conscious effort to take an infant with you. You need to make sure they are dressed properly, that you have their diapers, bottle, stroller, toy, wet naps, hat, sunscreen, sunglasses, etc. That's all before you even get to wrestle them into the seat, fart around, adjust the straps, make sure you don't click them on skin, that they are tight, and all the rest of it. Now, if you haven't done all that, and there is no one in the car who did, then I can see how you might forget. It's a rare set of circumstances though. Maybe the numbers match with that exact scenario, I'm not a statistician, so I really don't know. As long as the explanation isn't "I only meant to go leave him/her for a few minutes", I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
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Post by lonelocust on Jul 7, 2009 13:42:53 GMT -5
Can't it be that you are both right. A parent of a four or younger year old might not have a history of neglect just because they didn't have time to develope a history. But a parent of a kid left behind in car could have had several kids grow up and never neglected or left one behind 'til that one time. People fuck up and some people are fucked up. That is actually my stance. Not that no one ever murders a child they don't want via leaving them in a car and pretending they forgot, but that it is possible for them to actually forget and actually not have wanted to kill the child. Not because it's a compromise, as facts don't really care about compromise, but because I believe it to be the case based on evidence. (Additionally I am led to believe that the majority of such cases are actual accident and not disguised homicide, but the exact proportions are a lot harder to ascertain than "this can and does happen".)
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Post by dantesvirgil on Jul 7, 2009 13:59:00 GMT -5
I can, but another poster already did. I will try to explain it another way. I think the problem might be that you seem unwilling to make cultural extrapolations. Neglect (whether one occasion or history of) by leaving an infant in a hot car long enough to kill it is not a frequently recognized form of neglect. It is not popular right now to consider that form of neglect as worthy of being called "child abuse". It's much easier to identify when a parent is starving a child or hitting it or sexually abusing it, and those are commonly accepted forms of child abuse. People are trained to look at it that way. People are not necessarily trained to look at leaving an infant in a hot car as a form of neglect. Does that make sense? OK, let me try it another way. Your original claim was that we cannot correlate infanticide by hot car (a loaded term, I know) with socioeconomic data. You seemed to be making several implications with your presentation of this data. The first implication was that because there were not recognizable patterns to who leaves infants in hot cars, that we somehow can't make judgments about whether or not this is neglect. Your other point with your data is that because there is no "history" of abuse in all but 7% of case, we can't possibly equate infanticide by hot car with neglect/abuse. If we've all misunderstood these implications (or even if it's only me that misunderstood them), that might be at the heart of the problem here. There are several problems with your "data" here. First, frankly, it doesn't prove a damned thing about neglect. You're getting an argument about neglect, because that's how your posts seem to read. This quoted post is the first one I've read where you took a position on whether it's neglect or not -- but maybe I passed that up the first time through. The "lack" of defining demographic parental data means nothing -- except for the fact that this finding is exactly like the data for abusive parents. You certainly wouldn't assert that just because abusive parents have different income levels that this somehow disproves abuse exists, would you? The data you're giving doesn't seem to have much to do with the issue at hand. Careless parents don't have to have the same educational backgrounds. "Proving" they have different educational backgrounds really doesn't do much for the topic at hand, except to show that the problem is culturally pervasive, no? The second problem with your data is relying on the 7% of past abuse. Again, I'm not sure why you would put that figure up as though it explains something. Infants have little history. The average age of first report is 7 years old. Of course there would be limited history of past abuse. And sometimes people only neglect or abuse once or a few times. It's just when that one time kills the child, well, that's rather quite enough, isn't it? This helps clarify things, actually. Unfortunately, it might not be resolvable due to differing experiences and the difficulty with data. Let me explain. Part of this might come from your admission and avowal that you never want to be a parent and the implication that you not only don't want to be a parent but actively dislike babies. That's not really the focus of this issue, and I'm not trying to make it one. I'm also not trying to pull the "You Wouldn't Understand" card. But there is a tremendous amount of suspension of belief -- in my opinion -- between choosing to leave your infant in a hot car and claiming you forgot your child was in a hot car. It lacks plausible deniability. What you're asking for data on is human motivation. You'll find a difficult time finding any data on that whether for infanticide or otherwise. That's the sort of thing a prosecutor makes a circumstantial case for in a court of law. I can only speak from my own experience. But as a parent of a new infant, one thing that would have described me and most of the people I know is "hyper vigilant." I could no more forget that my infant son was behind me in the car than I could forget that I have arms and legs. There was almost a kind of nervous energy about taking care of an infant. I simply cannot believe that the majority of people who claim they "forgot about" their babies for sometimes several hours at a time are telling the truth. Especially the women, and I can only speak from a woman's point of view on this. Let me try to explain why. The reason I say this is because having been pregnant once, you "know" you have a kid from before the child is even born. It's not like you're not used to thinking about it, because you think about it every time it kicks you in the ribs before it's born. Most of your waking hours are dedicated to taking care of a brand new baby. Going somewhere with a baby is a lot of freaking work -- you can't just shove it in the car and go. You have to pack diapers, you have to pack formula (or plan when/how you're going to breastfeed), you have to pack wipes, you have to settle it in the car seat a certain way, you usually try to make sure the sun is out of its eyes. It's not the same thing as tossing your backpack in the back seat. It is a very purposeful activity with many steps to it. To go have lunch with someone for two hours, for example, and then claim you have forgotten your baby, quite possibly when your body is still recovering from childbirth, your boobs might still be trying to dry up with milk, and you spent all that time getting it into the car, packing its things, etc. is incredibly disingenuous. Leaving it is one thing. Saying you forgot is another thing entirely. I maintain that to leave your infant is to make a purposeful decision. If you care to explain to me how it could happen, I would be very willing to entertain the idea. I realize my experiences are not the same as everyone else's. Again, it's not about forgetting to pick the kid up after class. It's about all the steps that go into taking a baby somewhere and then claiming you forgot you did all those things, including the fact, apparently, that you'd given birth. Gotcha. I did say they did it on purpose, though. But I don't think the "data" really tells you anything about their state of mind, does it? How does it demonstrate purposefulness, which is what you're really asking about? Well, I definitely agree neglect itself can be non-deliberate. I think particularly of those instances where a parent forgets to close the pool gate and the three year old runs out, falls in and drowns. Or when toddlers get into chemicals under the sink. That's still neglect, but it's not intentional. Just careless. I'm not so sure about the specific death by hot car, though. Maybe, considering that I think 70% of the heat-up happens within the first five minutes. I can see unintentional neglect happening if you ran into the grocery, baby asleep in the back of the car, and, I don't know, the cash register breaks down and you spend 20 minutes in the store instead of the 5-10 you thought you were going to and then your baby was dead when you came out. It's hard to find information about how long it takes to kill a child that way, because it's just so dependent on type of car, windows up/down, color of car, temp outside, etc. But *two hours* later, and you didn't bother to check? You went and had lunch without thinking about your infant? I'm not sure about that. And thanks for being polite with me. I like discussions quite a bit (which is what I consider this). I don't like "fights."
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Post by keresm on Jul 7, 2009 15:07:39 GMT -5
I would appreciate if you would try to not be insulting in your responses. You'll find I have no respect for people who don't do their homework. I also have no respect for people who try to find justifications for the criminal neglect that results in a child's death. So we made a statement that you agreed with and you wanted to argue about it? If you had done so, you would have noticed the correlations I already pointed out. You claimed you already found the CDC data. Why then do you want me to point you to the CDC data? CDC has this information. As does this site - www.sidscenter.org/Statistics.htmlYou'll notice countries with accessible abortions have lower instances of SIDS than the US. Interestingly enough, I'm told that co-sleeping is actually still the norm in several of these countries. But when unwanted children are not forced upon parents, there is a lower infant mortality rate. Interesting, isn't that? You'll also notice that the real push for proper sleeping began in the 90s and the drop in SIDS actually began prior to that. You will also note that the overall crime rate went down when abortion was legalized, as there were fewer mothers having children they didn't want and then neglecting or otherwise mistreating these children, which correlates back to the original statements. Funny, googling 'roll over infant deaths' would have turned up thousands of results. As does 'smothering deaths'. Nope, I'm pointing out what your argument would have been if you wanted to hold to your original assertions but actually had done the research. Because some SIDS deaths were genuinely SIDS deaths and, as I've already mentioned and you've apparently ignored, it is still easier and less detectable with less chance of getting caught to just leave a pillow over the kid's face. However, that's harder to justify to yourself, so people leave their kids in the car so they can convince themselves it was just a horrible accident and they aren't really bad people. Because you are mistakenly assuming that leaving children in the cars would have totally replaced leaving a pillow on the kid's face or letting him drown in the bathtub. We've more or less eliminated actual SIDS deaths. Of those still occurring, I'd wager around a quarter are actually legitimate or truly accidental. Of course, since society has serious issues coming to grips with the idea that parents can kill their children (don't give me the site your source crap here, I already sited several articles of this nature in my previous post that you apparently didn't actually read) you won't find real numbers here. It goes back to the reason doctors won't sterilize women who request it. People just can't cope with the thought that some people just don't want to be parents and having a baby won't magically change that. Because they love their children and it's fulfilling to them, they cannot comprehend how someone else couldn't. Or, they actually resent their children, and can't admit that to themselves or anyone else so overcompensate. Did you miss where there are other ways than rolling over or leaving them in the car? I even cited two already. Forgetting in the bathtub and leaving a pillow on their faces. No, you just mistakenly assumed it was a one for one transfer and I made no such statement. The folks who left their kids in the car would have, prior to the invention of the car, have 'accidentally rolled over' on their infant. That does not mean everyone who would 'accidentally roll over' on their infant will now leave them in a car instead. See the above statements. I thought I was quite clear in my statement. But I will rephrase it for you - If you 'forget' your child in an environment in which you KNOW there is a greatly increased risk of harm/death to your child, you are a shitty parent and deserve to go to jail. The only type of parent who would do this is the type who consciously or unconsciously wants to be rid of the child or just plain doesn't give a shit about the child. Yes. I have. Based on the stuff you apparently had no idea about (roll-over death, SIDS/smothering, abortion reducing infant mortality rates) I find your data suspect because if you had actually done any significant research you would have been aware of that information. Try thinking about what I stated, and you'll figure out what it means. NM, you won't. Children were dying because their parents were dosing them to shut them up. If you looked for it, you'd find it. This is not a counter to the point I raised. This is the point I raised - It's a known fact that many child deaths are not properly investigated and instead simply excused as accidental or a result of SIDS. The fact that you didn't uncover this in your 'research' is quite telling. For years SIDS deaths went completely uninvestigated, allowing situations like this - www.crimezzz.net/serialkillers/F/FORNUTO_debbie.php to occur. Yes, I am, because this information is widely available and you've claimed you've gone looking for it but been unable to find it. Then you haven't read them. 'roll over infant deaths'. Why, when you were getting information on vehicle roll-overs, it didn't occur to you to add the word 'infant' to the search doesn't speak much for your research abilities. And this is your claim that is very much mistaken. These folks who left their children in the car? How many of them forgot their purses/briefcases? If you were a parent, you'd know your kid is always in the back of your mind. A good parent is always aware of their child's existence. Only folks who don't really want their children aren't. We have, repeatedly. You've simply mixed up unwanted and neglected. Yates was considered a good mother until she killed her kids. Read this - crime.about.com/od/female_offenders/a/mother_killers.htmBy most accounts, until these women killed their children, their children were actually well taken care of. www.associatedcontent.com/article/14935/why_some_mothers_kill_their_children.htmlwww.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/women/marybeth_tinning/index.htmlmetapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=1077&cn=139books.google.com/books?id=KGALfhsfJm0C&dq=mothers+who+killed+their+own+children&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=BqdTSqK7O4HUM6OxsN4I&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11books.google.com/books?id=e-ZQuzbXEtMC&dq=mothers+who+killed+their+own+children&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=BqdTSqK7O4HUM6OxsN4I&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12All found in just a few seconds on google. Amazing what you can find when you look. And you've received it. There are entire books written discussing the explanations of the problems with the data. I've linked you to a few. No, I don't actually think this is the case. I think lonelocust, in the back of the mind, thinks that because there are no socio-economic indicators, it means that it is an accident, because otherwise normal, clean-cut, middle class + above parents couldn't do something like this on purpose. That's the common assumption, anyway. Of course. Because you get more sympathy and understanding when you say 'OMG I FORGOT MY BABY' then you do when you say 'I didn't think about him, I figured he'd be fine and I could go do what I wanted to do instead of be a parent'. No kidding. My son is two and sleeps in a crib in a different room and I still wake up when his breathing patterns change. And the simple reason for that is because they aren't. It would be more accurate to say they didn't think about their babies for sometimes several hours at a time. If my kid was away from me for two hours, my boobs were actively leaking. If you want to become a parent, then your child's well-being should be the most important thing in the world to you. If you can't cope with that, don't breed.
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Post by wmdkitty on Jul 7, 2009 15:42:39 GMT -5
@keresm -- So just because -you- "could never forget your kid" means that -everybody- is the same as you, and anyone who does happen to forget is "stupid".
Nice.
Real nice.
I could easily forget a child. Same as I could easily forget to lock the door, to check the mail, to forget a textbook or homework, or even my head (if it wasn't attached). I've forgotten to take important medications, to make important phone calls, even forgotten to -eat-.
Does that make me "stupid"?
How about you quit being a douchebag about it, and admit that it is possible to simply forget a sleeping child.
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Post by dantesvirgil on Jul 7, 2009 15:50:59 GMT -5
Yeah, I guess as a woman, I have a different perspective on it. Hell, there were times my uterus still hurt weeks after having given birth. I guess it was still contracting every now and then to get back to pre-birth size, I don't know. I was also one who woke up whenever my son's breathing pattern changed. I couldn't help it. I wasn't trying to be Hyper-Mom, I just was, and there was nothing to be done about it. I try to allow for the fact that some women don't breastfeed, and so there might not be a physical reminder, but you'd still have to pack the formula, etc. It's a very purposeful activity. I think what the dispute seems to be about is the "purposefulness" of the act of "forgetting" you have an infant in a hot car. We seem to all be in agreement now that it is an act of neglect. The OP asks basically, how do parents "forget" a kid in the car? I don't think they do, I think they choose to put it there. That's an admittedly difficult thing to prove, though. For one thing, who in their right mind (and there is nothing to suggest these parents aren't in their right minds) would tell a newspaper that they did it on purpose? Especially since some parents are charged with child endangerment. I think the previous examples about moms who were "good" until they killed their kids is very cogent to this situation. It's not easy for a parent to prove mental incapability when they choose to kill a kid. Sometimes, but not always. I have great sympathy for mothers who suffer from more than the "baby blues" as my grandma called it, because it hit me damned hard after Dante was born, too. So, I get how a person snaps from this kind of chemical imbalance. I don't think it's justified, but I get it. I get not everybody is able to walk away, like I did a bunch of times when the crying got to me and I was depressed, nutritionally deficient and sleep deprived. But a lot of people can and do walk away or ask for help. This kind of neglectful behavior is different somehow in a way I can't put my finger on. It seems purposeful in a different way to me than "snapping" Andrea Yates style is purposeful. It's difficult to articulate, but I'm trying. I don't know -- what do other people think? And don't be too hard on lonelocust! It's a good conversation.
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Post by dantesvirgil on Jul 7, 2009 15:52:49 GMT -5
@keresm -- So just because -you- "could never forget your kid" means that -everybody- is the same as you, and anyone who does happen to forget is "stupid". Nice. Real nice. I could easily forget a child. Same as I could easily forget to lock the door, to check the mail, to forget a textbook or homework, or even my head (if it wasn't attached). I've forgotten to take important medications, to make important phone calls, even forgotten to -eat-. Does that make me "stupid"? How about you quit being a douchebag about it, and admit that it is possible to simply forget a sleeping child. No offense, kitty, but you're not a parent and you haven't been in that situation, no? It's easy to imagine if you don't have anything to base it off of. But feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I still posit that if you have all the physical reminders of pregnancy -- which continue after you've actually given birth, sometimes for weeks and months -- it's damned difficult to forget about a kid, in a hot car, no less, that you have personally packed in with all its required things.
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Post by dantesvirgil on Jul 7, 2009 15:53:43 GMT -5
Can't it be that you are both right. NO! Someone must be right and the other person must be wrong! Everyone knows that internet fights are all about being declared Teh Winnah! ;D
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Post by wmdkitty on Jul 7, 2009 16:14:24 GMT -5
@keresm -- So just because -you- "could never forget your kid" means that -everybody- is the same as you, and anyone who does happen to forget is "stupid". Nice. Real nice. I could easily forget a child. Same as I could easily forget to lock the door, to check the mail, to forget a textbook or homework, or even my head (if it wasn't attached). I've forgotten to take important medications, to make important phone calls, even forgotten to -eat-. Does that make me "stupid"? How about you quit being a douchebag about it, and admit that it is possible to simply forget a sleeping child. No offense, kitty, but you're not a parent and you haven't been in that situation, no? It's easy to imagine if you don't have anything to base it off of. But feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I still posit that if you have all the physical reminders of pregnancy -- which continue after you've actually given birth, sometimes for weeks and months -- it's damned difficult to forget about a kid, in a hot car, no less, that you have personally packed in with all its required things. All I'm saying, is that it's easy to get distracted and forget a quietly sleeping child, especially if it's early in the morning, you have to drop the kid off at day care, and you're not the one who usually does that. Can't you see where a tired parent could fall back on routine, and completely forget that the kid is in the car? I may not be a parent, but I think that's giving me a clearer perspective on this, because I'm not thinking, "I could never do that, so someone who does that is obviously stupid." (to paraphrase keresm's posts.) I can see where it -is- possible.
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Post by lonelocust on Jul 7, 2009 16:30:06 GMT -5
I can, but another poster already did. I will try to explain it another way. I think the problem might be that you seem unwilling to make cultural extrapolations. Neglect (whether one occasion or history of) by leaving an infant in a hot car long enough to kill it is not a frequently recognized form of neglect. It is not popular right now to consider that form of neglect as worthy of being called "child abuse". It's much easier to identify when a parent is starving a child or hitting it or sexually abusing it, and those are commonly accepted forms of child abuse. People are trained to look at it that way. People are not necessarily trained to look at leaving an infant in a hot car as a form of neglect. Does that make sense? I must have missed whomever addressed that. The closest I saw was "If someone starves to death it's assumed to be neglect, and if they die in a hot car it's assumed to be a tragedy." Except it's not assumed. I'm not sure if that's what you were referring to or not. I am making one assumption here that may be incorrect. I am assuming that a parent who does ONE thing that is neglect or abuse is not overall abusive, and can't be assumed to be making a malicious or on-purpose instance of abuse. Specifically, the existence of caretakers who have left children in cars to die, but also had other children that continued to live and be fine and for whom there were never any other signs of abuse. I am under the impression that abusive or neglectful parents tend to abuse or neglect all of their children if they do any (though stories of one child getting the worst of it seem common enough). The existence of other, cared for, healthy children both before and after such occurrences seems strongly indicative of parents who didn't purposefully kill their children. Mostly that was a separate claim, related to the other statement by people other than you regarding the reasons people would end up doing this. This is very close to but slightly off from what I was claiming. First, I'm going to try to change the language that I'm using to be more clear; this might actually eliminate some of the disagreements. What I think we can't reasonably conclude is that these acts were on purpose. I'm going to try to say "on purpose" or similar things instead of "abuse" or "neglect". If some of the very specific claims that I did not see evidence for were true, I would expect to seem some patterns. For example, if people who didn't really want children in the first place did this on purpose to get rid of them and pretend it was an accident, I would expect a pattern towards unplanned children, and certainly towards natural children. While there was plenty of room in the stories of individual cases for there to be unplanned chilren in the mix, and there was no way to have a percentage of which were, the fact that it has happened to adopted children and children created via artificial insemination and children created via in-vitro fertilization is suggestive (not conclusive) against that, and is conclusive that that is not ALL of the cases. Also, if people who didn't really want children and were trying (even subconsciously) to get rid of them, I would expect that the ones who forgot and left them would be all primary caregivers. In fact, it has happened a significant amount with grandparents, aunts/uncles, and other people who are not fulltime caregivers. (Also a pretty large amount with babysitters and other caregivers, who incidentally have a MUCH higher rate of being charged and convicted of manslaughter and similar charges than the parents. I'm sort of prone to throwing that out of the mix unless it seems super-relevant in a way I'm not seeing, because I can see numerous other reasons it would happen with a babysitter. They're not really emotionally involved, they're taking on serious responsibility just as a job, etc. etc.) I think that we can say "If reason X is a universal or near-universal factor, we will see pattern Y", and we don't see those patterns. It is possible that I am predicting patterns that you are not, though. I also think it's highly suggestive that the only pattern we can see is something that makes it harder to see the kid - that is, easier to forget. This is also extremely close to what I was claiming, and maybe also cleared up by a matter of word choice. I expect that if the event was purposeful or a consequence of a PATTERN of being a "bad parent" or "just not caring" or "not giving a shit" that there would be a history of abuse or neglect (which would be as easy to ascertain after the fact as for other neglect-deaths from other sources, but I do see how it's possible that this is not true as per your above point that starvation and beatings are "expected" but hot car death is "unexpected"), and if there were other siblings that there would be a pattern of abuse or neglect in those other siblings. It is again possible that this is a faulty assumption. No, I hadn't taken an explicit stance on it before. I was equating "abuse or neglect" with a PATTERN of abuse or neglect when I was using those words, which was unclear. What I really meant to be addressing was intent or lack of intent to harm and kill the children, and other than in the cases of patterns of abuse or neglect (which I was working under the assumption could be identified after the fact, not just before the fact) I was considering the question of neglect not indicative of intent. I think this is still due to crossed wires over addressing different claims that I disagreed with - one relating to stupidity (to which the demographic information was relevant) and the other relating to intent (of which I think patterns of neglect and abuse would be relevant, but to which the demographic information was not relevant and which I did not mean to imply the demographic information was relevant.) I will have to look again over the multiple places I saw a similar statistic listed. I was under the impression from what I read that that included cases where after the fact the parent was deemed to have been neglectful (other than just from the fact of them having left the child in the car). That is, that is not necessarily just the people who had been reported for abuse or neglect BEFORE the death, but also included those who were found to have exhibited a pattern of such when they were being investigated for the death. [As an aside, I should really act like I'm writing a research study any time I start a conversation so I don't lose my sources all willy-nilly and not recall what came from where.] I'm glad you acknowledge the bias in thinking "you don't understand". I'm ready to admit that emotionally, yes, I don't understand. I don't want babies of my own. I'm also terribly mentally unstable. I think I'm the perfect recipe for a pretended-it-was-an-accident infanticide, clearly. (Self-knowledge is another good reason for not every wanting to be a parent.) However, this does not prevent me from objectively looking at the situation. I'm tempted to claim it makes me better suited to look at the information, but I think that's at least equally disingenuous as "You don't want babies so you wouldn't understand." The data that we're trying to metaanalyze to make determinations about patterns of leavers-of-children-in-cars has inherent limitations in its size (200 or so cases that we can look into is a lot when you think about the individuals, but tiny when trying to find demographic patterns.) However, there are many many studies with much more reliable (and controlled) data on motivation, people's ability to gauge their own decision-making abilities, people's abilities to gauge their own memory. There is very good data that people are prone to bame bad things on conscious effort. (There is also flavor text in these about how people "need to think bad things don't just happen, and can't just happen to them". I'm a little wary of these just-so stories about WHY, but the fact that we DO tend to place such blame - whether or not it is applicable - is telling to me. Lest I hypocritically be my own demon of bald assertion, I am currently compiling citations related to the above fields of study, and have a friend with university access combing for a few studies I can't seem to find. I will post them along with what data from them I find relevant to the topic at hand when I get them. I will try to gracefully accept a "nuh-uh" about my above claims until I produce said evidence. I'll have to admit any time someone talks about a "man's point of view" or a "woman's point of view", they lose my ability to intuitively follow. That makes no sense to me and never will, but I understand intellectually that it is an important distinction to almost everyone. I will try to suspend my disbelief and follow you as much as possible. However, that aside, we DO have reliable data that people forget things that they never ever think they will forget when they have a change of schedule or stress or other disruptions (especially in combination). This is mentioned in the tearjerker Washington Post article; I'm trying to drum up studies by the experts quoted. [Also, another tangent into anecdote land: I swear the more something is in my routine the more certain I am to forget it at some point. I forget to eat, brush my teeth, do things at work that are supposed to happen every day. It is really counterintuitive and weird. I don't project things that I personally do onto the average person, certainly not the average person who is and wants to be a parent, but I'm intimately aware that fucking nasty weird forgetfulness exists. Also I don't think being a complete and utter scatterbrain excludes you from seriously wanting to be a parent and WANTING to be hyper-vigilant.) A lot of the personal stories of the parents who have done this include being hypervigilant, or reports that they considered themselves to be so and that their families and others around them considered them to be so. It is possible to assume that they are all lying. It is in fact possible that they ARE all lying. However, we know that people are not 100% accurate in their assessments of what they could and could not forget. I believe your anecdote completely. However, I can't accept a hasty generalization pulled completely from your experience. When, in fact, your description could be a perfect paraphrase of the things that parents who have done this say they felt before it happened, and when memory dissociation is very common for items that become routine, it's very easy for me to believe their story. (Also, not being emotionally involved probably makes it very easy for me as an individual to believe their story.) Just because you do something that takes a whole lot of specific attention doesn't mean that it doesn't become routine if you do it every day. You (generic you) ALWAYS take that time to pump milk or mix formula, you ALWAYS take that time to prepare the bottle, you ALWAYS pack the diaper bag and put in the diapers and the creme and the wipes and the plastic pants and the hand sanitizer, and you ALWAYS drop your baby off at daycare on the way to work and she's ALWAYS at daycare when you get to work and go inside, and you're ALWAYS thinking about how you're tired but you miss her and can't wait to pick her up again from the daycare where she ALWAYS is at this time of day and you definitely know she's there... To me, that's an easy scenario. However, what I can and cannot emotionally understand isn't relevant to what can and cannot exist. But people DO forget things that they ALWAYS do, and whats more they are sure that they didn't forget it, because they always do it. This is demonstrable. Is the exact motivation of an individual in a specific circumstance in the past demonstrable? No, I cannot have ontological certainty about their motivation. I can know that people forget things that they always do, especially with stress and a change of a small part of their routine, and I can know that everyone says that they never thought it could possibly happen to them. All of this makes for a picture that is very logically plausible to me. It's also emotionally plausible to me, but that's irrelevant and I try to keep its irrelevance in my mind, because something can be logically plausible while being emotionally plausible to me. And the more seemingly-presumptuous corollary is that things can be logically plausible without being emotionally plausible to YOU. Additionally, I haven't seen any claims that people say they forgot that they HAD a baby. They are claims they forgot that the baby was in the car, and more tellingly claims that they were TOTALLY SURE that the baby was at the daycare (because the baby is ALWAYS at the daycare), and they had no second thoughts that they wouldn't have done what they always do and that is the only possible thing that a good parent who cares would have done. I'm not sure if you were thinking people claimed to forget about the baby period (as opposed to that it was not where they thought it would be), but the parts about maybe still having physical pain from childbirth sort of sounded like that. Well, I tackled the "how it could happen" above. However, if your main objection is an impossibility of emotionally contemplating, I have no way of speaking to that. I hope I've at least made it clear how it seems quite plausible how it COULD happen. And there's that " forgot you did all those things, including the fact, apparently, that you'd given birth." That sounds again like you think people forgot that they HAD a baby period. Like forgotten the existence of the baby. I haven't seen any claims that were anything like that. It was all forgot it was with them, forgot to drop them off at daycare (most common one), etc. Never forgot that the baby existed and that they are the parent of the baby. Yeah. I addressed this as best I could right now above. To reiterate, no I don't think we can know beyond the shadow of a doubt about individuals. I do think we can know reliably that individuals can be wrong about what they are capable of and about what they will never do. Yeah, I can agree fine on all of that. Yeah, but that's the minority of the cases. There are some "was just going to be a minute and then forgot" but that's not most of them. (Incidentally I think that's more clearly neglect and more clearly willful. I don't believe that anyone hasn't heard that you don't leave your kid somewhere, even for 10 minutes. The actual forgetting might be unintentional, but you're pretty much setting yourself up for it. I would consider it something like getting drunk and on a bunch of drugs and driving. You're not setting out to kill someone, but I don't believe no one ever told you you might.) This again seems to be a bit of a misconstruing of the general story. It's not that there's no thinking about the infant. It's not that you got your kid all ready to go to lunch with you, then drove to the restaurant with them and forgot you brought them with you. It's that you are aware - but incorrectly aware - that the baby is not with you. You went to work and you are (incorrectly) aware that you took the child to daycare. You went to lunch and are (incorrectly) aware that the child is with your spouse. There's every indication that the leavers were thinking about their infants in the normal way they would be thinking about their infants (but yes, there is the possibility that it's all a lie that they made up later to cover up.) Conflating "forgetting I didn't take him to daycare" with "forgetting I have a baby" is the appearance here. [/quote] OK good. That is how I thought of it as well but wanted to be sure. I got offended at the tone of the other poster (sorry their handle is now slipping my mind. And other poster, I am not trying to foist that onto you if you thought I had an offensive tone first.) and I wanted to make sure that the point was discussion all around and that I hadn't unintentionally made personal attacks when that was not my intent.
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Post by lonelocust on Jul 7, 2009 16:40:08 GMT -5
HOLD THE PRESSES! My request for assistance in finding relevant articles to forgetfulness has caused two of my PhD psychologist friends to argue about the validity of the data on the frequency of dissociating repetitive memories.
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