Now that summer is coming, I am quickly being reminded of how tragic this season can be for children. July hasn’t even begun yet and there are countless news stories about children being left in hot cars or drowning already. It is easy for me, and a lot of moms, to sit on their couch watching these stories and wonder ‘why.’ We wonder what their parents were doing when their child was out by the pool or the beach, or why they left their children in the car. We also say to ourselves that this would never happen to us. We would never forget that our children were in the car, and we would always know where our child was when they were around a body of water.
Whenever I catch myself thinking, or wanting to say, that this would never happen to me: I stop myself. That is because I truly believe that any mother (or father) who thinks it could never happen to them may be a bit naïve, but please hear me out. I am an educated and trained social service worker, with extensive background studies on topics like psychology and child development. I understand that parenting involves a lot of grey areas, and the reason parents think something would never happen to them is that they don’t want it to happen to them.
Parents feel for these children, and they relate on some level to the parents. Even if they think the event would never happen to them, they are able to empathize with how the parents are feeling when something tragic happens to their children. However, they still fully believe that it will never happen to them. The only problem is, those parents they were watching on the news were likely a lot like them and thought that these news stories were something that would never happen to them.
If we use the example of a child being left in a hot car, we have to acknowledge that the whole story is not as simple as just forgetting your children. We forget to look at the big picture of who was in charge of the child that day, and was this their normal routine and practice? What was their mental health like at the time? Were they under stress or anxiety from work or other personal things?
I am sure there are moms who are reading this and still saying that it is not an excuse and those things would still never let them forget their child in the car. However, psychology begs to differ.
According to USA Today, this has been named “Forgotten Baby Syndrome” and there are many theories about how caring and loving parents can forget their children in their car. The main theory is that it is a biological failure of the memory system, the ‘prospective memory’ to be exact.
This is the memory system that is in charge of remembering to complete jobs that are outside of your normal routine. If the day is Wednesday, and it is dad’s job to take the kids to daycare but for whatever reason, mom is doing it now, she is vulnerable to this failure.
This is especially when you add in the fact that she may be stressed, or sleep-deprived (as many parents are). When a person is tired or under stress, their brain can work on ‘habit memory,’ which is going through your normal habit without much thought. It is the same experience a lot of people have when they drive home from work and can suddenly not remember the drive home. When a parent forgets their child in their car, prospective memory is what has failed these caregivers, and habitual memory has kicked in.
That is why some parents, or grandparents, come up with a system when they have children. A system that they are almost always “mocked” for. A grandparent who has to take her grandchild to daycare may put her wallet or shoe in the back seat. This is not about grandma thinking her shoe is more important than her grandchild, it is her forcing her prospective memory to work. The idea that “this could never happen to me” is what can lead to accidents.
If mom lived her life with a small sense of “this could absolutely happen to me,” some of these incidents may be avoided. A wallet or keys placed in the backseat with your child is not going to harm anyone at the end of the day, but it just might save a child’s life.
Sources: USA Today