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JackM1 -> RE: Sentences for allowing UMs to die in hot cars (7/29/2007 6:57:45 PM)
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having worked with UM's for a number of years in a paid child care setting, i can easily say that when looking after a group of them(in my case, and in this case, im sure, varying in age) its horrifyingly easy to forget one or two. this is the reason we have strict laws that say what the child to adult ratio is for every age. i'll tell you all a story; not too long ago, i was babysitting at a wedding with a relative of mine. this was a favor to my sister, who was the party planner and needed two people that she could trust too look after what she was told would be a small number of um's(this was supposed to be an adult only wedding, and it was requested that there be no um's on the wedding invitation) of course, people are assholes, and most brought their um's with them. in the course of say, half an hour, the number of um's my cousin and i had to look after increased from 4 school age um's to over 25 ranging from 1.5(having never been away from mommy) to 12(who were nearly my height and romping around the room like elephants,as if there were no small um's underfoot). even though i tried to get every name, and tried to keep count of how many i had in my care, we still had one um escape upstairs to the reception hall, and many a small um was left unattended for over an hour at a time while we were trying to get food to the very demanding older um's or trying to placate the other small ones who were traumatized, being separated from their primary caregivers for the first time in their lives.
i personally pride myself in being very carefull with the UM's under my care, but sometimes there are just circumstances where being able to give your full attention to every single demanding little body is just not possible. if it were my choice, there would have been another adult helping, and a separated area for the smaller ones. i might also mention, that the parent of the um that ran upstairs without our knowing(we had no door to close off the area where we were) yelled at me for endangering her um, and thus kept my attention away from the other ums, even though she could clearly see that the room was in utter chaos by that point. (all of which was her and her relatives faults, i might add, because they were not supposed to bring um's at all, much less infants that needed to be breast fed by their mother in front of all of the other um's).
also, when dealing with a lot of stress, its very easy to forget something even as important as a um. im sure there are many on cm that have accidentally left their dog in the car when trying to get chores done, or forgot about a burning flame when something demanded their immediate attention. the article quoted someone as saying that, because we think we could never forget our um's, we simply do not remind ourselves that they are there. i believe this is true; just by reading these posts, everyone seems just SHOCKED that a small being, that doesnt make much noise when sleeping, and is strapped into a seat, facing the opposite direction from the rearview mirror could simply be forgotten! ive had parents get out of their cars, and in their rush to simply get their um into the classroom before speeding off to another stressful day at work, have completely forgotten the um in the car. its like a father whos wife goes into labor and rushes into the car, speeding to the hospital, only to realize that his wife is not in the car with him. that situation is comical, but what if it was a um that was left behind? it can and does happen, though thankfully most of the time it results in a rather amusing story later on in life. i believe in swift justice being handed out to those who deserve it, but does a greiving parent really deserve to then be taken away from their other um's and family? in the situation described in the article, i believe that the father truly suffered a huge loss, and it wouldnt have been right to take him away from his other um's. the way it sounded, he was a very stressed out individual, who was trying to take care of his family the best he could on his own, while dealing with a number of other life stressors. accidents happen, its just unfortunate that some lead to much more serious consequences than others.
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