How Not to Cook Your Baby
Not a week goes by when disturbing news of babies and toddlers left in hot cars does not hit the internet. As a parent, I find this both terribly disturbing and disheartening. The latest is an item on CNN when a NASA employee left a 7-month old baby in a hot car for an entire day. The parent works at NASA which is one of the world’s bastions of intelligence! No wonder the US no longer has its own shuttle program!
Seriously, what’s going on? Are citizens not as on the internet as we think, that they don’t see such news at least once and not be aware that babies, toddlers and pets die in hot cars if left for extended periods? We’re not condemning the distraught parents of the fatalities of these incidents. It could be an honest mistake, but it’s becoming so common that it baffles the mind and actually breeds the question of foul play. Some incidents are clearly the results of negligence and abuse such as the one where cops freed a child trapped in a car screaming while the parent is in a club partying.
There are situations where parents have to leave their kids alone in the car for a quick purchase at 7-11 or do business at a rest stop, but at least the parent should have the mind to keep the engine on and the air conditioner running. The sun can turn a closed un-air-conditioned vehicle into an unforgiving furnace whether or not global warming is real. There seems to be the need for more awareness and public service announcements if these hapless parents are really that ignorant of the consequences of leaving a child or pet inside hot cars in order to do something else.
It’s not difficult to imagine some foul play and even insurance fraud at the expense of the lives of these poor children that die senseless deaths because of the trending of these events. It would be unfair for parents that are unfortunate enough to truly commit such a mistake and get condemned or suspected by the internet’s keyboard warriors. But these incidents continue and seem to be on the increase. The world expects more intelligence and responsibility in what the many perceive as a nation of intelligent persons. If you no longer want the kid or cannot support them, put them up for adoption, surrender them to relatives or social services but don’t f—-in cook them! If they really want to put their cars to economical cooking use, leave a meatloaf or a pot roast instead.