Lighting Their Way Home

 Parents getting off of work, getting in their vehicles to head home for the evening, only to find the body of their young child who died an excruciating death while they were at work, simply because they ‘forgot’ to drop their precious baby off at day care.  This seems to be the story that is in the headlines more and more often, especially in the past few years.  And it also seems that more often than not the parents are torn apart with grief over these ‘accidents’ that could happen to anyone. 

Accidents?  As a mother myself, I can say that there has never been a time where I have ‘accidently’ forgotten my children in the car.  I do not FORGET my children.  Well these deaths are often not intentional on the parents part, they are the direct results of the parents actions, or lack there of.  I have a hard time labeling these as accidents, I see them as neglect. 

To add to societies stand of accepting these tragedies as ‘accidents’, you can now can purchase a “ChildMinder.”  The device, costing about $60.00, consists of a sensor pad placed under the cushion of a car seat, and is wirelessly linked to an alarm on the parent’s key chain.  If the adult walks more than a few feet away from the car with the child still in the seat, the alarm will sound.  Wow!  What a great way to help a parent remember that they have a small human being with them! How have millions of parents managed to survive without this device before now?

In the past 10 years, almost 350 children have died in cars, because the parents or other caretakers simply forgot them.  Only about 7% of these sad deaths involved drugs or alcohol on the part of the adult.  Most cases involved dentists, nurses, ministers, college professors, concert musicians, social services board members, NASA engineers…you know, the pillars of the community.  These are the busy, self-involved folks always in a rush, for whom even dropping  kids off at a day-care center instead of tending to the little ones themselves was too difficult an assignment.

Astonishingly, these parents, when prosecuted at all (and only 50% of them are prosecuted), receive only three to five year prison sentences.  Also astonishing is how much “understanding” public support they get from those who say “It can happen to anyone.”  No, it can’t happen to anyone. 
It can happen only when parenting and family are not the highest priorities.  It can happen only when parents spend their time focused on maximizing their own personal fulfillment at the expense – and very existence – of their children.

We have all heard stories about newborn babies whom have been found dead merely hours after they were delivered.  Their mothers, for whatever reason, are not able to care for their baby, do not want their baby, or have been hiding their pregnancy from the very beginning, leave their newborn child in a dumpster, trash can, alley,  park, stair well etc.  These innocent babies do not stand a chance alone, and only hours after being given life, it is taken away.  This completely breaks my heart, and I ask myself, why are we not doing more to raise awareness of safe surrender for these mothers who do not feel they have another option?

The purpose of safe surrender is to protect infants from being hurt or killed due to abandonment.  Safe surrender laws allow parents or legal guardians to confidentially and anonymously surrender an infant up to 7 days,in some states, after their birth at any safe place such as a hospital emergency room, a fire department or a police station.  They do not need to provide any information, they just walk in, hand their baby to a safe person and walk out.  That simple.  A babies life is saved, a couple that may otherwise have never had a child, can become a family, and a mother has done the right thing, instead of becoming a murderer. 

I personally believe that we need to do more to have the safe surrender laws become common knowledge.  I commend the states which have passed them and thank them for protecting infants whose futures in other circumstances would have been non existent.  Mothers need to know that safe surrender is a completely viable option before leaving their baby in some random dirty place, alone and hungry, never knowing if they will be found in time.  Allow these babies to have a future, allow someone else to give them a life that they otherwise would not have had.  Safe surrender is one of the smartest laws that has been passed in the effort to protect infants.  Now it is time to make it known.